Highway's Revisited 10.19.02: The War Of Seattle
Posted by James Marshall on 10.19.2002
Pearl Jam's Ten and a look at 1990 era Seattle...
The album was entitled ‘Ten’, but there were actually five; singer Eddie
Vedder, guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, bassist Jeff Ament and
drummer Dave Krusen. Different people from different places – both
geographically and psychologically, but one love would unite them; music.
Eddie Vedder had not long turned young adult; living out of San Diego,
working odd jobs and concentrating on his music at any chance to arise. He
was often described as a nice guy, amusing, fairly attractive; just someone
else trying to get by in the world. But then who isn’t? A fellow employee
later recalled, ‘Once I asked him what he wanted to do with his life. He
said he wanted to do music, to be a professional musician, and to go ‘all
the way.’ A sarcastic ‘good luck’ went through my mind.’ A few years later
he saw Eddie being interviewed on MTV and would eventually make the
connection with the guy he once fleetingly knew, although the ‘angry,
hushed, distant, wearing a constant expression of grave concern’ person he
saw on his black box seemed barely recognizable.
Not too far away in the land of which trailblazers like Hendrix, Cornell,
and Cobain and had began their lives; Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were
coming down. They were only a month away from their debut release, high
expectations were abroad and many thought the band could meet them
eye-to-eye. But they were denies when their singer Andy Wood became another
rock and roll cliché. Smack had revisited its favorite pastime; leaving
people on a cold slab at the morgue, and that was if you were lucky enough
to be middle class. The rock and roll dream had not faded, more shattered.
They’d lost their friend too.
It was time for some soul searching, as Jeff later told Spin, ‘I was going
through a major identity crisis at that point; I'd put my heart and soul
into Mother Love Bone, gave up school, and to have it be snuffed out so
quickly.’ Building your whole life around something then having it knocked
straight back down can be a little disheartening.
But we’re resilient creatures, adapting to circumstance is a part of the
human condition. And there were soon new horizons on which to dream. Stone
was at a party when he noticed someone he’d known on and off since high
school, ‘I saw Mike at a party when he was really drunk playing blues guitar
and he was totally amazing.’ The two decided to meet up and jam, and Mike
soon convinced Stone to ask his former band mate Jeff Ament to join. It was
of this partnership that Mookie Blaylock, and later Pearl Jam, was born. The
three worked on songs that would become the staple points of Ten, ‘Black’,
‘Alive’, ‘Jeremy’ and the b-side ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ were all among them.
As the now well-told story goes Jack Irons (formerly drummer for the Chili
Peppers, and later for Pearl Jam during the ‘Yield’ era) passed on a tape of
lyric-less demos to a mutual friend in Eddie Vedder. Vedder was hooked with
the tunes, especially with the one with the catchy bridge, it would later
become ‘Alive’. He started forming ideas and melodies in his head as any
artist infatuated with their work does as he went about his daily life, he
told Rolling Stone in October of ’91, ‘I was literally writing some of these
words as I was going up against a wave or paddling’. Eddie has always been
an avid surfer and references to the sea would be frequent throughout the
coming albums.
Jeff was stunned with the voice that arrived in the mail; there was new
hope. He quickly phoned Stone and it wasn’t long before a week long trial
with everyone involved was discussed; Eddie didn’t need to be told twice to
jump on a plane to Seattle.
The following week has developed into an arcane meeting in history of which
greatness was born for many. The reality is that a group of people met to
work on songs, but that’s the beauty of it. Eddie told Spin, ‘We practiced
in an art gallery, in the basement. And the alley that we were on was like
crack-alley central. I remember having to use the restroom upstairs and
going through these rooms that smelled of oil paint and sawdust and stuff.
The guys would come in, and we'd practice and then maybe go play some pool
and then come back and keep working, surrounded by Gatorade bottles with
piss in them for those times when you didn't feel like walking up the
stairs.’
The band knew the songs were good and that their was a definite connection
between the them, Mike recalls how Eddie went about his writing, ‘Eddie
would stay there in the rehearsal studio, writing all night. We'd show up
and there was another one.’ Classics were being spun night after night by
the tip of Eddies pen. Jeff felt the words were easily relatable to their
own situation and he knew this was a band in which he wanted to be.
After briefly returning home Eddie flew back to Seattle and this time for
good. It wasn’t long before the band scored a record deal and they were off
to the studio. Many including the band think the final product distributed
by Sony was over produced, but no amount of reverb could hide the emotion of
the vocals or the rock and roll triumph, which ‘Ten’ represented. One of the
highlights came with from the b-side Yellow Ledbetter, with the final
version recorded on just the second take Eddie seemingly just made up often
indecipherable words as he went along. These words have been long debated by
fans but the soul of the song is remains unquestionable. It was one of
Mike’s first attempts at song writing with the main riff inspired by none
other than Jimi Hendrix.
The only initial hurdle left to climb was a live performance. Some were
concerned that Seattle crowds wouldn’t respond positively to the ‘painfully
shy’ Eddie, and that he could filling the void that the charismatic Andy
Wood had left behind would prove futile. But as it turned out, climbing
wasn’t much of a problem for the band; in fact they went fucking mad with
it.
Former drummer for Nirvana and later front man for the Foo Fighters Dave
Grohl, ‘I didn't sit and watch them play until the show in San Diego, where
Eddie climbed the fuckin' lighting rig. I swear to God he was like 250 feet
up in the air. It was one of the scariest things I've ever seen live in my
entire life. I've seen people cut themselves, I've seen people shit, I've
seen people get beat up onstage, and I've seen people break bones, break
their backs, and get concussions. Honestly, I was horrified. I was really
scared that he was gonna die.’ Eddie felt he was in a no-win situation, ‘So
I got to the top, and I thought, ‘Well, how do I get down?’ I either just
give it up and look like an idiot, or I go for it. So I decided to try it,
and it was really ridiculously high, like 100 feet, something mortal,’ as he
told Spin. The alleged height even at 150 feet shy of Dave’s estimate would
surely leave any wrestling fan feeling jealous.
Crowds began to gather at the shows on the premise that anything could
happen. At one of the early club gigs a small and lackluster crowd gave
little response to anything, impervious to the bands efforts. In the end
Eddie decided to wake them up, throwing the microphone stand spear-like into
the back wall of the club. It helped.
Right around new years ’91 Seattle finally exploded. Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’
had hit Number 1 on the Billboard charts. In stark contrast to the silly
dance and hip hop music of the to the preceding era this was rock music
carving out its own genre. It left the musical landscape changed and with it
the world changed. Soundgarden and Nirvana had been lubing up the tracks for
years, but Seattle was now officially on the rock and roll roller coaster.
Pearl Jam didn’t explode out of the blocks like Nirvana but ran on a slow
burn, which would culminate in around 11 million copies of ‘Ten’ being sold.
Cobain for reasons unknown resented Pearl Jam’s success and made random
malevolent comments about the commercial nature of the band. The press will
happily print anything to sell a paper, but those around didn’t really
understand; many thought that Cobain and Pearl Jam would get along well and
could easily relate. But the differences wouldn’t be rest aside for some
time even in the face of Pearl Jams refusal to release ‘Black’ as a single,
which with sound promotion would have surely gone on to be one of the
biggest commercial successes of that year.
Music’s a funny thing. The passion with which fans follow their artist is a
phenomenon. If you could play and old Dylan record to a now long time fan
before Dylan was ever known, your most probable response would be, ‘This is
crap, he’s can’t sing write or play guitar properly, hell those ‘vocals’
don’t even have any melody.’ But for whatever reason, some people just ‘get
it’ sometimes, and that was how it became for a lot of people and Pearl Jam.
Singing along to ‘Black’ and ‘Alive’ became common drunken practice at many
a party as many found solace in the back to basics style that Seattle
represented.
Kurt and Eddie would eventually settle their differences at the ’92 MTV
awards, as producer Rick Krim describes, ‘I almost remember them underneath
the stage, grabbing each other. Clapton was playing ‘Tears in Heaven,’ I
think, and they embraced under the stage. Kind of a magic moment.’ But
criticism of Pearl Jam was far from over, initial attacks focused on the
reasons for their success then later for not embracing it. But the truth is
Pearl jam won their war; they lived and continue to live the rock and roll
dream their way. They’ve their values in the face of circumstances, which
would have tested many. They can sell a million copies of a new album
without any even a hint of conventional promotion. Their promotion comes
from the same of music that drives Pearl Jam to make records in the first
place. Perhaps a couple of lines from their new single ‘I Am Mine concludes
best.
‘I know I was born and I know that I’ll die,
the in between is mine.’
