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This photo of Seattle-based band Pearl Jam was taken in 1991. Eighteen years after their debut album was released, Pearl Jam has issued a new remix version of "Ten." / Courtesy of SonyBMG
By Cathy Rose A. Garcia
Staff Reporter
Pearl Jam, along with other bands from Seattle such as Nirvana and Soundgarden, defined the grunge music scene in the early 1990s. The genre resonated with teenagers around the world, with its mix of punk-heavy, metal-indie rock music and angst-laden lyrics.
More than 19 years later, grunge music is just a distant memory, but Pearl Jam is still together and going strong.
Formed in 1990, the band is composed of guitarist Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament, guitarist Mike McCready, drummer Matt Cameron and lead singer Eddie Vedder.
And they admitted they are quite amazed the group has stuck together for so long and will be celebrating their 20th anniversary next year.
``It's pretty insane that we've lasted 20 years. At the start, I guessed we might make three or four records, have a little bit of success and we would have gotten to play with some of our heroes. Probably the biggest fringe benefit is that we've shared stages with Iggy Pop, Henry Rollins, REM, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones and Frank Black, the list goes on and on. That's the little kid's dream come true, being able to play with all those incredible bands and artists that we grew up loving and we still love,'' Ament said.
The idea that Pearl Jam could go on performing for the next 10 or 20 years excites the band members. ``It would be thrilling if it happened ― if we all looked at each other 10 to 20 years from now and went, `How did we do this?' We'd have to play a crotchety `Even Flow' with disco brushes. Our fans are gonna be so old they're not going to be able to hear us anyway so maybe we can be video transformed to look 30 years younger,'' Gossard laughed.
It's probably still difficult to believe that a group of scraggly haired guys wearing plaid shirts and Doc Marten boots would go on to sell millions of records. The band was originally named Mookie Blaylock after the NBA player, but they changed their name to Pearl Jam when they released their debut album in August 1991.
``Ten,'' named after Blaylock's jersey number, spawned the hit songs ``Alive,'' ``Jeremy'' and ``Even Flow,'' and sold over 12 million copies. Despite its success, Pearl Jam was not very happy with the way the album turned out.
``Early on I found out it was better to make bad art yourself than to have somebody else create what they thought would represent you. Ed and I have always been super hands on with all our art and 'Ten' was the one time in Pearl Jam where the finished product really wasn't 100 percent what we intended,'' Ament said.
Their dissatisfaction with the original version was the reason why the band recently re-issued it with new remixes of all the songs and a handful of unreleased tracks.
``I think 'Ten' is still good but I don't put it on (laughs). The new mix of the record is great. One of the things I'm most excited about is Brendan O'Brien doing another mix on it ― it sounds a little bit more like our subsequent records sounded, so it gives it a different treatment,'' Gossard said.
As for their favorite songs from the album, McCready chose ``Alive'' because ``people respond to it very well and (it) has an emotional attachment to it,'' while Cameron cites ``Even Flow,'' ``the quintessential Pearl Jam song.''
For Gossard and Ament, their favorite is ``Oceans.'' Gossard says the song ``probably sums up why I get excited about song writing,'' while Ament says it showed the band was pushing the envelope with its sound.
Pearl Jam attributes its longevity to the fact that members give each other space. McCready says the ``reason why we've lasted so long is we write music, we get very intense, we go away from each other, do our own thing and then we get back together.''
``I'm the luckiest guy in the world because I get to be in a band and write songs in a band with 5 songwriters. I get to learn from everybody's process of how a song structures change and how different people hear different rhythms and melodies. … I get to play with Matt Cameron, I get to play with Eddie Vedder, come on! And I get to strum along,'' Gossard added.
cathy@koreatimes.co.kr
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