“I think that would create an audience that didn’t think they’d be challenged.”
Too late: Here are excerpts from five open, honest, and, yes, very nice interviews.
EDDIE VEDDER (FRONTMAN)
When did you notice your fan base becoming the Jamily?
Credit: Pearl Jam: Danny Clinch
You know, I can’t date it.
For me, it’s really just a feeling, you know?
Sometimes as the lights come up and everyone can see each other… You best be damned sure that what you’re talking about is important.
It only is a testament to how important these issues have been of late that we bring them up.
We’re not even really trying to sway anybody’s opinion.
There’s a feeling that this new album is a bit of a rebirth for you guys.
Can you be more specific?
I’ve been feeling some of those things I used to feel.
I feel like we have a lot to offer.
And so so that do that, it feels like we’re being shot out of a cannon.
Being outside of all that is a much more comfortable place to create and to live.
So we’re searching for that balance.
It’s probably helpful to sell 12 million records your first time out of the gate.
Well, that was one of the blessings coming out of it.
We saw what it looked like at the top, and it wasn’t this romantic kind of Eden.
It was just kind of… strange.
If you get too high up, all you see is clouds, you know?
Your live shows are amazing to watch, just what the fans do and how they react.
I’m wondering how much you see and perceive what’s around you.
Do you know they have coordinated hand gestures?
So it’s likeRocky Horroror something?
We’re less Grateful Dead and moreRocky Horror.
[Laughs]
Do you recognize people in the crowd, night after night?
They know that I do, too.
They’re like, Okay, he knows I’m here.
Now I can put my sign down.
[Laughs]
Ever poke around the message boards?
I’ve never replied to anything.
Well, no, I did.
It said, “Nope.”
That’s when I realized, Okay, I don’t have time to get in the ring.
Talk a little about the new album.
Your last two albums seemed quieterthis is really just full-out rock.
The times…the times kind of demand a little bit of intensity.
Were you surprised that so few people turned out for protests on the third anniversary of the war?
I think they’re exhausted.
I don’t think they’re any less interested.
I think he’s right.
[Smiles] But I have.
How do you not get mobbed?
First of all, you use a bike so you could do a quick getaway if you have to.
And as soon as you get there, you just tell everybody, “Shhh.
What are you drinkin'?
Got an extra?”
In Canada, he did the same thing.
And I was like, “Depends on what you want.
Do you want the beach vacation, or do you want the culture?”
You guys should open a travel agency.
But that’s the greatest thing about all this.
We’re dragging people out of Missoula and sending them to Italy, or Newfoundland.
Places you’d never go in a million years.
And that’s probably half the reason I wanted to be in a band, you know?
I wanted to see the world.
And I think we owe it to them to take ‘em to some cool places.
You’ve been really involved with the artalbum covers, posters, merchandisefrom the beginning.
Does it freak you out to see something you’ve drawn end up as a tattoo?
I think more so in the early days, because I’d never witnessed that sort of thing.
And that was the last time I ever wrote anything on anybody’s skin.
MIKE McCREADY (GUITAR)
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Isgrungestill a bad word?
[Laughs] Yeah.
But it’s used so much.
So I don’t have the reaction I used to have to it.
I used to be like, “NO.
WE ARE A ROCK & ROLL BAND.
WE PLAY HEAVY ROCK.
WE’RE A HARD-ROCK BAND.”
And I don’t feel like I have to counter it with that anymore.
It still seems weird to me when I hear the word, but I don’t know.
S. It’s a label.
We all have labels.
Ed has a pretty specific relationship with the fans, but you have your own.
I mean, you get up there on the corner and solo and the place goes nuts.
I work at it the whole night.
And I feed off of that.
In a good way.
Are there moments coming back from the fans that you look forward to seeing?
In Mexico, when they were doing all the lighters?
That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
I knowthat’s the only place I’ve ever seen it.
Flicking their lighters to the beat, and it’s just surreal.
It was like a flash-flood mob of people.
Those are the things that stand out in my head.
When they’re singing the guitar lines of songs in South America?
Never heard that before.
Does it wack you out to know you inspire that kind of devotion?
That’s all good.
I don’t think about it.
I really don’t.
I mean, I like myself.
I think I’m cool.
I don’t know.
It’s kind of hard to talk about.
I hear you’re personally obsessed with the Pearl Jam socks?
I like our socks.
I hear we make a fine sock.
I always say, You might not love our records, but I think you’ll like our socks.
MATT CAMERON (DRUMS)
You came into the band last [in 1998].
And he’s a machine.
It’s all Eddie.
He just brings it all together.
That’s high praise.
How much of what’s going on during the shows can you see from your kit?
I don’t really look out there.
I’m just back there playing the drums.
If there’s people behind me I’ll look back there sometimes.
If they’re not throwing stuff at me, it’s pretty cool.
