The term "rock star" and the adjective "cool" are usually joined at the hip. But Ed Kowalczyk -- the lead singer and chief songwriter for the multiplatinum band LIVE -- thinks differently. Very differently.

"I think 'cool' is overrated," Kowalczyk said during a recent interview at the MLB.com studios.

His reasoning behind that statement feeds into a large reason that LIVE has been such a popular band since its first album was released in 1991.

"To make music that means something," Kowalczyk said, "you kind of have to drop the cool. You have to be prepared and willing to be uncool. All of my favorite artists who inspired me were never afraid to be uncool, and never afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves -- no matter how much flak they took for it."

LIVE -- made up of Kowalczyk, guitarist Chad Taylor, bassist Patrick Dahlheimer and drummer Chad Gracey -- has been renowned for its emotional lyrics and powerful, guitar-heavy melodies.

LIVE's seventh studio album, "Songs from Black Mountain," comes out on June 13. While the writing process for Kowalczyk stretched out over a lengthy period, the band recorded "Songs" in a three-week whirlwind.

"It was really incredible," Kowalczyk recalled. "The songwriting process for me took about two years, but the recording process ... I brought these 12 songs in, and the energy and the excitement that the band felt created this incredible zone.

"It's this feeling like you can't make a mistake. Even the mistakes are part of the overall perfect outcome ... you intuit what's going to happen, and you just go with the flow. It really is a place that you go where it's not necessarily that things are going perfectly, but even the side turns and weird things that happen are part of this immense thing that you keep riding."

At this point, collaboration is a natural thing for LIVE, which has been together since its four members were middle-school classmates in York, Pa., in the late 1980s. And even though the band is coming up on its 20-year anniversary, LIVE, Kowalczyk said, continues to share in the joy of performing together.

"I think there's an element that never changed -- the innocent, pure love of music and love of doing it, and expressing it, and the fun that it is. If anything, inevitably, you're going to grow as people, and as musicians, and that has happened. But I think part of the challenge of staying [in] a band this long is to continue to resort back to that thing that never really changed at all, that thing that got us into it when we were 13.

"No matter how hard it gets," Kowalczyk noted, "it's the four brothers who are together, and that's what has gotten us through."

During his four-song set at MLB.com's New York studios, Kowalczyk performed acoustic renditions of older hits like "I Alone" as well as a song from "Black Mountain" entitled "The River." Fans from the New York City area, who won a contest sponsored by the LIVE fan club Friends of LIVE, sat as his feet as he performed.

"If it wasn't for the fact that at the end of the day, you get to see everybody's face and how happy they are, it would be impossible -- physically impossible," Kowalczyk said. "The fans really do give you that energy that it takes to make it happen.

"I think that's one of the reasons LIVE is still around and why we're still relevant to our fans, is because of that. We honor that. We don't only honor it -- we need it."

Spoken like a true rock star.