Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam was born out of tragedy: Mother Love Bone's singer died just before that band's debut album came out. What followed turned into one of the defining rock acts of the 1990s, and one of the very few from this scene still touring and recording today.
- Formed
- Seattle, Washington, 1990
- Members
- Eddie Vedder (vocals), Stone Gossard (guitar), Mike McCready (guitar), Jeff Ament (bass), Matt Cameron (drums, from 1998, previously of Soundgarden); early drummer Dave Krusen
- Key albums
- Ten (1991), Vs. (1993), Vitalogy (1994)
- Status
- Still active
Guitarists Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament had been in Green River and then Mother Love Bone, a band built around charismatic singer Andrew Wood. Wood died of a heroin overdose in March 1990, just days before Mother Love Bone's debut album was due out. Gossard and Ament regrouped, added guitarist Mike McCready, and recorded a demo tape that eventually reached Eddie Vedder, a surfer and gas-station worker in San Diego. Vedder wrote lyrics over the music within days and flew up to join what would become Pearl Jam.
Their debut, Ten, came out in August 1991, a month before Nirvana's Nevermind, and eventually sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, helped along by singles like "Alive," "Even Flow," and "Jeremy." Unlike some of their peers, Pearl Jam leaned toward classic-rock songwriting and arena-ready choruses, which made them hugely popular but also drew some criticism from parts of the more punk-rooted Seattle scene as less "authentic."
The band became known almost as much for its resistance to the music industry's usual machinery: a famous, costly dispute with Ticketmaster over service fees ran through much of the mid-1990s, and they largely avoided music videos and mainstream press for years. Matt Cameron, previously Soundgarden's drummer, joined in 1998 after that band's initial breakup and remains in the lineup today. Pearl Jam continues to tour and release new music, one of the only major bands from this era never to have broken up.
#grunge.