That Band Called Pearl Jam

Here's a little bit of history behind the band and a bit of biographical information.

Stone Carpenter Gossard (yes, it's really Stone), one of the band's guitarists and sometimes-voaclists, was born on 20 July 1966 in Seattle. He was an original member of the Seattle band Green River, and later moved on to Mother Love Bone, a precursor to Pearl Jam.

After the death of MLB's lead singer Andrew Wood in 1990, Stone found himself in a tribute to the fallen vocalist. The project, known as the Temple of the Dog, was headed by Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, Wood's former room mate.

Stone is currently a member of the band Brad. He also runs his own production company, Loosegroove Records.

Jeffery Allen Ament (that's pronounced with a short 'a') was born in Big Sandy, Montana on 10 Mar 1963. Like Stone, he was an original member of Green River and Mother Love Bone, as well as Temple of the Dog.

Besides heading the band's bass playin', Jeff is also the band's official biographer. His recants of the band's history can be found at the Pearl Jam section of Sony Music's website. He also designs a good number of the band's album and single covers.

Michael David McCready (that's 'mick-reedy', not 'mick-ready'), the band's lead guitarist, was born 05 Apr 1965 in Pensacola, Florida. While being recruited by Jeff and Gossard to work on Temple of the Dog, the three ended up recording a set of songs with no words -- they later became known as 'Alive', 'Footsteps' and 'Once'.

Mike's past credits include the band Shadow, and his current side projects include a band called Mad Season, Disinformation and the Rockfords.

Born Edward Louis Severson III on 23 Dec 64 in Evanston, Illinois, Eddie soon found himself having his name changed to Edward Mueller after his mother re-married, some guy Eddie refers to as "that lawyer fuck". Because of his extreme hatred of "the lawyer" and out of respect for his mother, he later has his named legally changed to Eddie Jerome Vedder. Vedder is his mother's maiden name.

We now flash-foward to San Diego, late eighties. Eddie is singing in a band called Bad Radio while working at a gas station pumping gas. Somehow, Eddie finds himself a demo tape containing three songs without words. After some intense surfing with the tunes stuck in his head, he decides to lay down some words to the music. He dubs his voice onto the tape and labels it 'Mamasan'. One of Eddie's good friends, Chili Pepper drummer Jack Irons, takes the tape to former Mother Love Bone members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard. The rest is history.

When poor ol' Jack couldn't make the 1998 Yield tour, the boys found themselves in a bit of a curfuffle. In order to fill the void left by the manic-depressed Irons, Pearl Jam recruited former Soundgarden drum-fiend Matthew D. Cameron as a stand-in.

Born on 28 November 1962 in San Diego, Matt's first big break in the music industry came with the song 'Puberty Love', a song featured in the terrible 'Attack of the Killer Tomatos'. (Yeah!) After appearing in such bands as the Feedbacks and Skin Yard. In 1986, the Skin Yard thing fizzled due to internal problems, and Cameron left to fill a position open in Soundgarden, as the band's former drummer, Scott Sundquist, decided to quit for some reason or another. (Apparently he wanted a steadier job or somethng.)

Matt was also a member of the Temple of the Dog project, which probably explains his recruitment for the Yield tour. He can also be heard on the recent live effort, Live On Two Legs. (Seeing as he was on the tour and all...) To date, the band has not officially named him their drummer, but he will appear on their upcoming album to be released next year.

Since the band's inception in 1990, they've managed to go through three different drummers before settling on their current percussionist, Jack Irons. Coincidentally, both of the band's two previous drummers were both named 'Dave'.

Dave Krusen was the band's original drummer. While somewhat tame compared to his successors, he did manage to set the pace for the band's most successful commercial release, Ten. He left the band shortly after the taping of the movie for personal reasons. He can now be found playin' the drums for Candlebox.

Not long after the departure of Dave Krusen, Dave Abbruzzese was hired as the band's new drummer. His first official release comes as a re-recorded 'Even Flow', the same version used for the video. He can also be heard on foreign versions of Ten which contain 'Dirty Frank'.

Rumor has it that the song 'Glorified G' was actually written after a conversation Eddie had with Dave about some guns he had just recently purchased. Dave, being Texan and all, saw nothing wrong with the guns, saying that things were different where he was from and everything was cool. Eddie thought differently, and thus the song was born.

Currently, Dave A has been auditioning for the new Guns n' Roses drummer opening.

Born on 18 July 1962 in Los Angeles, Jack Irons was one of the original Red Hot Chili Peppers, later joining Eleven.

In a nice little bit of irony, Irons actually introduced Eddie to Stone and Jeff, giving them demos of Eddie's 'Mini-opera' dubs (versions of 'Alive', 'Footsteps' and 'Once' with Eddie's vocals dubbed over previously wordless jams).

Jack officially joined the band on 08 Jan 1995, although he is credited as having performed on Vitalogy's 'Stupid Mop'. He remained with the band until the beginning of the 1998 North American tour. Having long been afflicted with manic-depression, Jack decided that being a big musician had become secondary to being a family-guy. Matt Cameron took over for the tour and has been with the band since.

Besides having a ton of studio drummers, Pearl Jam has also had a couple of live-only stand-ins when the going got tough. Oddly enough, both of these honorable members share the same name -- Matt. So let's see here... two Dave's... two Matt's... I'm getting scared.

Back in good ol' 1990 and 1991, Pearl Jam had a drummer named Dave Krusen. Dave was Pearl Jam's official drummer for around 15 minutes, and it is he you hear on their first album, Ten. After leaving the band for "personal reasons" in 1991, the band needed to find a replacement, tout suite. Enter Matt Chamberlain.

Matt took over the skins for another 15 minutes, and held the reins throughout Pearl Jam's 1991 shows. His past credits included Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, and after splitting Pearl Jam, he decided to drum for the 'Saturday Night Live' band. Yeah. So you left Pearl Jam for... 'Saturday Night Live'. Right.

As a point of interest, it is Matt Chamberlain you see on the MTV video for 'Even Flow'.

Some original ideas for the band's name include Mookie Blaylock and Reeenk Roink. (Yes, there are three 'e's in 'Reeenk'.) In fact, the album Ten was named after Mookie's jersey number.
Eddie's favorite television show of all time is the campiest of the camp, the original 'Batman'.
The name Pearl Jam comes from a special recipe Eddie's grandmother used to create some rather interesting jam. If you check out the 'thanks' section in the Ten insert, you'll notice that Eddie thanks 'Great Grandma Pearl'. So, for those of you who still think that 'pearl jam' is actually a refence to semen -- think again, and get your minds out of the gutter. It's just a reference to a hallucinogenic recipe.
While doing a cameo in the 'Singles' flick, Eddie was apparently the band's drummer.
Eddie, Jack and Jeff are all vegetarians.

Since there's so much cool stuff to write about the band, I'll just stop now. I'll become naked, and with them, I'll become one...