Huge article in Polish magazine: complete

i shit and i stink

Hi, this is really one of the biggest, most expansive and professional articles I've seen about the band. Well worth a read.

I've translated it all here, obviously with a few mistakes as I did it quickly, but I'll stick the whole thing in another thread where it is all in order and I've proofread it. That way people can read it without flicking through all the comments to find the next section.

The article was written by Bartek Koziczyński and is taken from the September 2009 issue of Rock Teraz magazine. I take no credit for their wonderful work,

Thanks. T

Black Diamond

Please do!

Thanks!

Veddernarian

Please translate if you have the time. I know 8 pages is time consuming. Thanks in advance.

chicagojammer06

hopefully they didnt replace booms head with some random white guys like Microsoft's Polish ad.

Dissidentman

chicagojammer06 wrote:

hopefully they didnt replace booms head with some random white guys like Microsoft's Polish ad.

hahahhahahaha

wolfbear

I'd love to read it.

Tuolumne Mama

Thanks for sharing and greatly appreciate your time and effort for us to be able to enjoy it.

SpinTheBlackCircle74

Anything about a european tour next year?

i shit and i stink

Okay, here is the preamble. It amounts to about a tenth of the article, which is generally beautifully written (unlike my translation) and full of interesting insight. The rest of the article after this is all Q&A with Mike and Matt. I'll get around to it some time. Tim.

PEARL JAM
Let The Sun In
Pearl Jam is soon going to be a band with twenty years behind them. Happily, instead of wilting they have made a record full of optimism and youthful energy. We met with musicians from the group in their HQ, in Seattle, straight after the completion of work on Backspacer.

The Warehouse. That’s what the guys from Pearl Jam call their band headquarters. It’s adequately named, the building is situated in an industrial warehouse district of Seattle. The rates there are not the same as in other similar places. That’s what it is about, and it’s full of conspiracy. Journalists with baggage are not allowed in, or those with prying eyes, we also don’t go by taxi. We get there from the city in a specially organized delivery van, which is driven by a driver laid on by the band who is a wonderful guide to the cities attractions. Seattle today is like San Francisco in the 70s. It’s relaxed and we also have mountains he says at one moment, pointing out the many-levelled landscape.

We end up at a building with some faded sign. We go to the floor where the offices are; management rooms, conference rooms with hung gold discs and a toilet with interesting urinals adorned with the smiling face of the ex-president of the USA. Several dogs run free. They are not champions, rather comfortably hideous. One, a memorable little barrel with legs, reacts to the drummer’s name. It turns out that this menagerie is the property of the musicians. The boys walk them after finishing their official obligations.

In the middle of the patio: a small table with two sofas. Eddie Vedder relaxes with a bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other. I’m not there to interview the vocalist but it would be a sin not to drop in. There is some fear but in principle we have a ticket… in this case some covers from him to sign. He doesn’t disappear: goodwill is written all over his suntanned face, he smiles widely. He listens carefully and answers slowly with some thought. We recall the group's 1996 concert in Warsaw which he remembers as being very intimate: There we just a few hundred people, right? I tell him that it was a few thousand but there really was a close atmosphere… it’s also possible to talk about the last time they played in Chorzów. That’s the same as Katowice, isn’t it? I didn’t want to finish but the ‘quiet night’ law caught up with us Eddie remembers precisely. Later on several jokes on the theme of Linkin Park who couldn’t be torn off the stage. We shake hands and it’s down to work.

First off is hearing the new album. There is no confiscation of phones or any of the rigmarole that goes with most modern pre-release press meetings. Electrical equipment lies on the table, we turn the CD player on ourselves and the firm’s workers go about their own business in a different room. The management have been careful with who they let in and trust counts for a lot.

The real attractions of the place lay below us. First of all a real warehouse, the fan club area full of thousands of items packaged and ready to be sent. And opposite is the band’s kingdom. On the hung ceiling are shelves with guitars, drums, amps… concert cells with names written on each. Between them lay gadgets – surf boards with the famous image from the cover of Ten and a figure on a cross (That is Brendan O’Brien during his work with us). There is also a skate ramp which Jeff Ament built. When I’m on a board, I’m as excited as when I play music or ball – he says in the latest edition of the fanzine Deep which he gave us...(followed by the rest of that same quote from Deep)

I meet with Mike McCready and Matt Cameron in a neighbouring recreation room. The drummer is usuallu dressed as in smart jeans and short sleeves, looking like a businessman on Casual Friday (in fact, it was a Friday when we met him). In comparison, the guitarist is more rock and roll: a hoodie, loose clothes. Our conversation lasted three quarters of an hour. That is also a diversion from industry standards. Despite the short time – that is the way it goes sometimes when you are the official engagement of a busy week – we managed to have a pretty in depth conversation. From the new record (whose name we didn’t yet know) to the beginnings of the band and the bond with Polish fans…

halszka123

i shit and i stink wrote:

Hey all, I just wondered if tehre are any bigger articles out there than the 8 page one I just got in 'Rock Teraz'. It is a beast, mostly a Q&A with Mike and Matt in Pearl Jam HQ and the boys are on the cover, too. Anyone want me to write it out in English next week, when I have the time, or have you all got quite enough Pearl Jam in your local rags to keep you going?
Or maybe one of the other Polish members out there wants to translate it ?

T

I guess You will do it better than me - You have language school in my country - am i right?
BTW. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard about it... Tomorrow I must buy "Teraz Rock"

EDIT - Upsss, sorry, i am late...

i shit and i stink

halszka123 wrote:

i shit and i stink wrote:

Hey all, I just wondered if tehre are any bigger articles out there than the 8 page one I just got in 'Rock Teraz'. It is a beast, mostly a Q&A with Mike and Matt in Pearl Jam HQ and the boys are on the cover, too. Anyone want me to write it out in English next week, when I have the time, or have you all got quite enough Pearl Jam in your local rags to keep you going?
Or maybe one of the other Polish members out there wants to translate it ?

T

I guess You will do it better than me - You have language school in my country - am i right?
BTW. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard about it... Tomorrow I must buy "Teraz Rock"

EDIT - Upsss, sorry, i am late...

That's right, I'm a translator and I run a school, too. In Wrocław. I love it here, it's not paradise but we do have pierogi and Warka.

I wanted to meet some other PJ fans in Wrocek but I've only run into two guys. Are there any more here?

i shit and i stink

The first part of the Q&A... about 20% of it...
I want to just say once more that this is the work of Bartek Koziczynski of 'Teraz Rock', kudos to you Bartek, it's a great article.
Enjoy, Tim

The new disc doesn’t have a title yet but I believe that 'Joy' would be apt. Or 'Hope'. During the making of the previous album, when it was without a title, it could have been called 'Pissed Off'.
MM: That’s true. Times have changed. We’re in a different moment with a different political outlook, the situation in the world has changed. It’s still the same crazy, unsafe world but there is certainly more hope and a new will to do positive things. Maybe our music reflects that on some level, we got our soul back in that moment. We made the record fast, maybe the energy to do so came from that fact.

Was the pessimism of Avocado related, on a personal level, to the death of Johnny Ramone and, on a political level, to a government which you couldn’t accept?
MC: It certainly crept into a lot of the lyrics. We definitely all felt influenced by life in America under the Bush administration. We didn’t feel a bond with the powers that be and, to a certain extent, with our own country. It felt as if there was a great divide within society. Such a situation came about in an underhand way and we felt that something wrong was happening - that really came across in our last record.

Is it true that Eddie waited until the results of the last election before writing any lyrics to this album?
MM: I don’t think he especially waited for that moment. I don’t know for sure when he wrote the lyrics. I think he wrote them when we composed the music before the election but I saw him writing some stuff in the studio with my own eyes. It’s his world, you’d have to ask him.

And you started writing here in the warehouse last summer?
Yes, it started here and a little in Montana at Jeff’s place. That was the first session. We wrote, with breaks, over the course of a year. We decided to work with Brendan O’Brien again and it was his theory that we should compose at least a portion of the songs without Eddie. That way we could give him concrete stuff to work with in his process of creation. The idea was to give the lyric writer no more than 15 to 18 music arrangements to work with.

Why did you then record in LA?
MM: Brendan really likes the Henson studio there. It really is a nice place. More than that, it got us out of Seattle which, selfishly speaking, suited me fine because I was based in California at the time. I like to go there for the sun when it’s cloudy and cold here. It was a personal pleasure for me, but generally Brendan wanted to take us to a new place where we could find a new sound.
MC: Exactly. In Seattle we’ve got one or two studios, there they are on every corner.

How long have you been working out of these head quarters, if that is what you call it…
MM: Hiding place. I call it a hiding place (smiles). We’ve been here three years. Before that for ten, eleven, maybe fifteen years we practiced in a different place, a different warehouse. It was rented.

Was it connected to Litho, Stone’s studio?
MC: No, that’s a completely separate thing, it’s in the Freemont district of Seattle. It’s a real studio with does great work, it’s really amazing. We’ve also recorded there.

I’m interested, what came first: co-operation with Brendan on the Ten reissue or the invitation for him to work on the new material?
MM: I think that Ten was first. Jeff asked him endlessly just to remix Ten for him, because he was interested to hear how it would sound and we were all so happy with how it turned ou, it just sounded great, so it ended up that we asked him to work with us again.

I wonder, why Jeff changed his mind over the years on the mix for Ten. Similarly, during the original recording he had a pretty big influence on the shaping of the album…
MM: We mixed the record in England with Tim Palmer. It was our first mixing and recording session although Stone and Jeff had done that kind of thing before. I think that with the passing years he longed to hear it in a different form. Something more raw.

During your previous work with Brendan you've argued with him, you were a stubborn, young band. I suppose that you now accept his vision?
MC: He certainly has his own way of looking at the smallest details of even fragments of music. Working with him is easy, because he knows how to offer help when it comes to small interludes, fragments, he’s brilliant at adding small parts with the piano or percussion… small things which we certainly couldn’t come up with and work out by ourselves. Really, all of us are now very open to working with him and we invited him to make this disc using his own methods.
MM: When we worked with him on VS we were fresh from selling millions of records all over the world, after Lollapalooza we were just getting bigger and bigger… and everything within the space of a year. The expectations on the second album were huge – would we fall into the second album trap or would it be good… I knew that we had lots of pretty good stuff, and above all that we were young and full of enthusiasm. The same as when we went to California now. We knew that Brendan was a good fit to our vibe. He had a certain innocence within him. I’d say that he has more now, but he also had it then (laughs). He’s one of those versatile musicians, when me and Stone play we just play guitars, I don’t even know how to count the notes, I just know my part. I play songs the way I know how, but Brendan looks at it from a different angle… the difference between those two records is huge. We’re at totally different points in our lives. We feel more comfortable with our roles: 'Ok, let’s listen to him, make use of him, trust his methods'. Sometimes they are crazy! It’s incredible to watch Brendan work.

halszka123

i shit and i stink wrote:

halszka123 wrote:

i shit and i stink wrote:

Hey all, I just wondered if tehre are any bigger articles out there than the 8 page one I just got in 'Rock Teraz'. It is a beast, mostly a Q&A with Mike and Matt in Pearl Jam HQ and the boys are on the cover, too. Anyone want me to write it out in English next week, when I have the time, or have you all got quite enough Pearl Jam in your local rags to keep you going?
Or maybe one of the other Polish members out there wants to translate it ?

T

I guess You will do it better than me - You have language school in my country - am i right?
BTW. I haven't read it yet, but I've heard about it... Tomorrow I must buy "Teraz Rock"

EDIT - Upsss, sorry, i am late...

That's right, I'm a translator and I run a school, too. In Wrocław. I love it here, it's not paradise but we do have pierogi and Warka. I wanted to meet some other PJ fans in Wrocek but I've only run into two guys. Are there any more here?

I studied in Wroclaw, but don't live there now. I have a friend who started to study there (the same major which I did) and she is a PJ fan too. I "met" her on PJ forum and we were together on Berlin show. I can tell her about You... maybe one day we will meet together in Wroclaw - i like Warka Steong too;)

halszka123

Sorry - I doubled my post

wolfbear

Thanks for all your work! Great read.

justam

The translation is really good! Thanks for doing it.

i shit and i stink

*bump*
(because I flogged myself typing this these first pieces last night).
T

Plankton

Awesome, translation is much appreciated.

Spags

i shit and i stink wrote:

*bump*
(because I flogged myself typing this these first pieces last night).
T

Greatly appreciated!

Ricsard

dziekuje bratank for the fantastic translation, I am really looking forward to reading it on as my Polish is about only those two words I typed.;)

i shit and i stink

There is also a 5 star review from this magazine but I won't translate it as these things are very subjective.

It does say that the band lost a little of its dynamic edge during Binaural and RA and that it returned with Avocado and is evident on the new album. However, Binaural and RA had a wonderful experimental range to them which things like VS were missing. It says the new album is finally a marriage of both pushing the boundaries and rocking out at the same time. Nice!