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New Mike interview (long)
Marie Curie
Posts: 1,250
Very nice interview Mike gave:
http://free-times.com/index.php?cat=11012305073118052&ShowArticle_ID=11011106080754322
The Complete Pearl Jam Interview
FT: It’s 1990. You’ve just hooked up with two guys from Mother Love Bone, recorded a demo tape that’s found its way into the hands of this surfer kid from San Diego. Do you think, even in your wildest imagination, that you’ll end up where you are today?
MM: Oh no. No. I think my ego and my brain as a young kid, when I was in a band at 16, I felt like, ‘Oh yeah, someday I’m going to be in a band and I’ll be a rock star and I won’t have to go to college and I can just slack off! I’m going to do this,” you know? But I think that’s just being a 16-year-old, wishful-thinking kid. But the thing I did think, though, was — and, you know, I’d known Stone forever and I’d known Jeff pretty well, too. It was very much a small scene. I knew that they had a lot of talent and Mother Love Bone was a good band. And when Ed came around and I became part of this whole thing, it was pretty cool. I kind of looked at it as, “Well, I guess I’m quitting my day job now.” I was working at this place called Julia’s and got to quit my day job and start to make a living playing music, and that was unbelievable. And then when Ed came up and we had our drummer Dave Krusen, it was just kind of like, ‘Wow, this is the first time I’ve been in a band where everybody’s really good and it sounds great!’ And I felt we were a good band, but I had no idea that it was going to blow up like it did.
FT: So it all clicked immediately clicked, right from the start?
MM: I’d say so, yeah. I mean, it took some doing when Stone and I got together after Love Bone had broken up. I got a call from him and we started working on a lot of his songs up in his parents’ attic. And that took maybe about four months of doing stuff. Jeff was playing with somebody else, and I was like, ‘Stone you’ve got to get Jeff in the band.’ He was playing with this band called War Babies and I was just like, ‘You’ve got to get him in the band; you guys go so good together.’ And I think they were kind of fighting at the time or something; luckily they went out and had dinner and kind of cleared the air. And then I knew, ‘OK, good, there’s the three of us and this sounds pretty great.’ We sent out some demos and tried out this one guy who, you know, didn’t work out. And then we got Ed somehow, and we didn’t even think he was real. [laughs] It was so weird. He sang over the songs on the demo and we were excited to meet him. To see if he was real or not. [laughs]
FT: And of course, he turns out to be real. Then Ten comes out in 1991, and it explodes almost instantly. And almost immediately after it came out, Pearl Jam starts to get lionized as the voice of a generation. What was it like as such a young band to be lionized like that?
MM: I think the whole “voice of a generation” thing — and there was a lot on Kurt, too — Eddie certainly felt that. I recall him not being on the cover of Time magazine [in 1993], and I was super excited about us being on the cover of Time magazine, because it was the cover of Time magazine and we thought that was pretty rad. And it was all kind of ... well, there’s a Mudhoney song called “Overblown” ...
FT: Yes! One of my favorite Mudhoney songs! [“Overblown” is Mudhoney’s sarcastic send-up of the Seattle grunge scene. Sample line: “Everybody loves us / Everybody loves our town / That’s why I’m thinking lately / Time for leavin’ is now.]
MM: Oh, so you know it! So maybe that kind of point of view was what was happening. I mean, we were all 24 through 26 or whatever, and all of a sudden, all of your dreams and aspirations that you’ve been working toward for many, many years come true. And then times that by 10. There’s a lot of greatness that comes with it, but a lot of crazy insecurity and anger and, you know, ‘Why are people being friendly to me now?’, you know?
FT: And I think that’s one of the things — fairly or unfairly — levied to Pearl Jam is when you were riding this burgeoning wave of fame that a lot of band would give their right nut for, you kind of, like a deer in the headlights, said, “Whoa, wait a minute, slow down. We’re not comfortable with this.’ Have you grown to be more comfortable with your success and your place in the rock world?
MM: Certainly. We’re just kind of stoked that we’re still around, you know? We’ve been playing together for 17 years now, and the average life for bands is maybe five years, and we’ve beaten that average of a lot of bands that we grew up with and loved. And with age and doing it over and over again, we have a great system for doing that. From doing tours to doing our fan club to our management to our publicity, we’ve warehoused everything we have. It’s a great organization that we have working with us, so with that we’ve achieved long-lasting success, and we’re just grateful about it. So we’re kind of stoked. And we don’t have that kind of attention that we have before, you know? Maybe we’ve lost fans? Who knows? But there is a hardcore group of people that will still come see us. And we can still do stuff and I think we’re still relevant, hopefully. But we’re really just still excited to be around.
FT: In 2006, Rolling Stone wrote that Pearl Jam “spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart its own fame.” Do you think that’s an unfair assessment?
MM: I don’t know. Did we deliberately tear it apart? There might be a kernel of truth to that. We backed off when we thought things were getting too crazy, you know? Many times. Certainly, examples were — and this is way early — to do a video for “Black,” and we said, “Look, we’re not going to do it. We’re done.” And the record companies were totally pissed at us for that. And of the many, many, many, many arguments we had with the record companies, that was one of the first ones. And we became more successful in spite of that, too. And I think we’ve probably alienated some people, some press, but we’re all still around and we all have families and we’ve all maintained our sanity. To certain degress, I guess. [laughs] So I think it was worth it. At the time, we didn’t really know; we were kind of going by our gut.
FT: Well one of the things Pearl Jam has been most known for is its refusal to operate in the standards of the music business — releasing so many official bootlegs, refusing to license your material, shying away from the press, fueding very publicly with Ticketmaster. How did you sit down and decide, “OK, we’re not going to do this?”
MM: Well, concerning the Ticketmaster thing, we were asked by the Department of Justice. We didn’t go set out to start a fight with them; we were asked by the government to testify on their business practices. [laughs] So we did. And it turned out that they were a monopoly, according to Janet Reno. And the other things, like the press ... uh ... sorry, I lost my train of thought. Could you say the question again?
FT: Well I guess what I’m getting at is how you maintained your integrity. Has it been difficult to maintain it over such a long career?
MM: It’s been just how we do things. There’s no real specific model for; we just kind of created it as we went along. As certain things came up, maybe we reacted in a different or opposite way. Maybe that’s kind of the punk rock attitude that Jeff Ament has in his blood and maybe Ed has, and that philosophy comes out of a do-it-yourself kind of thing. I think we would shy away because we felt that we needed to for our own survival as a band. And we’d just focus on music, maybe go out and do a tour. And when we felt like, hey we’ve kind of shied away too much, let’s see if people still want to talk to us. [laughs] It’s a fine balance to walk, and you just kind of make it up as you go along, I think. I mean, there’s certainly ways we could have done tours that were sponsored by people and made tons more money. But we just haven’t ever done that. We like our lives how they are. We do things around Seattle and we’re very active in local causes and charities, and I like to work out and do things, so I don’t want to be on the road the whole time. It’s just kind of a do-it-yourself policy that we created early on — like printing our own T-shirts or this or that, and when we started getting bigger, we said, “Let’s try to keep as much control in our own end as we can.” So if we fail, then it’s our fault, and we can blame anybody else.
FT: I’m glad you mentioned this, as this is another thing I wanted to ask: One thing One thing success has afforded you, of course, is a platform to espouse your beliefs, and Pearl Jam is well known for championing myriad causes, be they social, political, environmental or even personal, like in your campaign to raise awareness of Crohn’s disease. Was there a point where, as a band, you said to each other, “You know, we have to say something; we have to do something!”?
MM: I think as we got more popular and we felt that we had a platform where we could use our voice, we felt, “Let’s do it.” And certainly my Crohn’s thing is something I’ve been working with for years and I wanted to talk about that. And there’s a myriad of things that we cover, and I can’t even think of all of them right now. Stone’s very into, like, carbon offsets to skate parks, anything, you know? Abortion rights to all sorts of stuff. We feel that if we can lend our voice or our money or our name to these causes that our dear to our hearts, why not? Why not try to have a solution to these problems instead of just complaining about them?
http://free-times.com/index.php?cat=11012305073118052&ShowArticle_ID=11011106080754322
The Complete Pearl Jam Interview
FT: It’s 1990. You’ve just hooked up with two guys from Mother Love Bone, recorded a demo tape that’s found its way into the hands of this surfer kid from San Diego. Do you think, even in your wildest imagination, that you’ll end up where you are today?
MM: Oh no. No. I think my ego and my brain as a young kid, when I was in a band at 16, I felt like, ‘Oh yeah, someday I’m going to be in a band and I’ll be a rock star and I won’t have to go to college and I can just slack off! I’m going to do this,” you know? But I think that’s just being a 16-year-old, wishful-thinking kid. But the thing I did think, though, was — and, you know, I’d known Stone forever and I’d known Jeff pretty well, too. It was very much a small scene. I knew that they had a lot of talent and Mother Love Bone was a good band. And when Ed came around and I became part of this whole thing, it was pretty cool. I kind of looked at it as, “Well, I guess I’m quitting my day job now.” I was working at this place called Julia’s and got to quit my day job and start to make a living playing music, and that was unbelievable. And then when Ed came up and we had our drummer Dave Krusen, it was just kind of like, ‘Wow, this is the first time I’ve been in a band where everybody’s really good and it sounds great!’ And I felt we were a good band, but I had no idea that it was going to blow up like it did.
FT: So it all clicked immediately clicked, right from the start?
MM: I’d say so, yeah. I mean, it took some doing when Stone and I got together after Love Bone had broken up. I got a call from him and we started working on a lot of his songs up in his parents’ attic. And that took maybe about four months of doing stuff. Jeff was playing with somebody else, and I was like, ‘Stone you’ve got to get Jeff in the band.’ He was playing with this band called War Babies and I was just like, ‘You’ve got to get him in the band; you guys go so good together.’ And I think they were kind of fighting at the time or something; luckily they went out and had dinner and kind of cleared the air. And then I knew, ‘OK, good, there’s the three of us and this sounds pretty great.’ We sent out some demos and tried out this one guy who, you know, didn’t work out. And then we got Ed somehow, and we didn’t even think he was real. [laughs] It was so weird. He sang over the songs on the demo and we were excited to meet him. To see if he was real or not. [laughs]
FT: And of course, he turns out to be real. Then Ten comes out in 1991, and it explodes almost instantly. And almost immediately after it came out, Pearl Jam starts to get lionized as the voice of a generation. What was it like as such a young band to be lionized like that?
MM: I think the whole “voice of a generation” thing — and there was a lot on Kurt, too — Eddie certainly felt that. I recall him not being on the cover of Time magazine [in 1993], and I was super excited about us being on the cover of Time magazine, because it was the cover of Time magazine and we thought that was pretty rad. And it was all kind of ... well, there’s a Mudhoney song called “Overblown” ...
FT: Yes! One of my favorite Mudhoney songs! [“Overblown” is Mudhoney’s sarcastic send-up of the Seattle grunge scene. Sample line: “Everybody loves us / Everybody loves our town / That’s why I’m thinking lately / Time for leavin’ is now.]
MM: Oh, so you know it! So maybe that kind of point of view was what was happening. I mean, we were all 24 through 26 or whatever, and all of a sudden, all of your dreams and aspirations that you’ve been working toward for many, many years come true. And then times that by 10. There’s a lot of greatness that comes with it, but a lot of crazy insecurity and anger and, you know, ‘Why are people being friendly to me now?’, you know?
FT: And I think that’s one of the things — fairly or unfairly — levied to Pearl Jam is when you were riding this burgeoning wave of fame that a lot of band would give their right nut for, you kind of, like a deer in the headlights, said, “Whoa, wait a minute, slow down. We’re not comfortable with this.’ Have you grown to be more comfortable with your success and your place in the rock world?
MM: Certainly. We’re just kind of stoked that we’re still around, you know? We’ve been playing together for 17 years now, and the average life for bands is maybe five years, and we’ve beaten that average of a lot of bands that we grew up with and loved. And with age and doing it over and over again, we have a great system for doing that. From doing tours to doing our fan club to our management to our publicity, we’ve warehoused everything we have. It’s a great organization that we have working with us, so with that we’ve achieved long-lasting success, and we’re just grateful about it. So we’re kind of stoked. And we don’t have that kind of attention that we have before, you know? Maybe we’ve lost fans? Who knows? But there is a hardcore group of people that will still come see us. And we can still do stuff and I think we’re still relevant, hopefully. But we’re really just still excited to be around.
FT: In 2006, Rolling Stone wrote that Pearl Jam “spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart its own fame.” Do you think that’s an unfair assessment?
MM: I don’t know. Did we deliberately tear it apart? There might be a kernel of truth to that. We backed off when we thought things were getting too crazy, you know? Many times. Certainly, examples were — and this is way early — to do a video for “Black,” and we said, “Look, we’re not going to do it. We’re done.” And the record companies were totally pissed at us for that. And of the many, many, many, many arguments we had with the record companies, that was one of the first ones. And we became more successful in spite of that, too. And I think we’ve probably alienated some people, some press, but we’re all still around and we all have families and we’ve all maintained our sanity. To certain degress, I guess. [laughs] So I think it was worth it. At the time, we didn’t really know; we were kind of going by our gut.
FT: Well one of the things Pearl Jam has been most known for is its refusal to operate in the standards of the music business — releasing so many official bootlegs, refusing to license your material, shying away from the press, fueding very publicly with Ticketmaster. How did you sit down and decide, “OK, we’re not going to do this?”
MM: Well, concerning the Ticketmaster thing, we were asked by the Department of Justice. We didn’t go set out to start a fight with them; we were asked by the government to testify on their business practices. [laughs] So we did. And it turned out that they were a monopoly, according to Janet Reno. And the other things, like the press ... uh ... sorry, I lost my train of thought. Could you say the question again?
FT: Well I guess what I’m getting at is how you maintained your integrity. Has it been difficult to maintain it over such a long career?
MM: It’s been just how we do things. There’s no real specific model for; we just kind of created it as we went along. As certain things came up, maybe we reacted in a different or opposite way. Maybe that’s kind of the punk rock attitude that Jeff Ament has in his blood and maybe Ed has, and that philosophy comes out of a do-it-yourself kind of thing. I think we would shy away because we felt that we needed to for our own survival as a band. And we’d just focus on music, maybe go out and do a tour. And when we felt like, hey we’ve kind of shied away too much, let’s see if people still want to talk to us. [laughs] It’s a fine balance to walk, and you just kind of make it up as you go along, I think. I mean, there’s certainly ways we could have done tours that were sponsored by people and made tons more money. But we just haven’t ever done that. We like our lives how they are. We do things around Seattle and we’re very active in local causes and charities, and I like to work out and do things, so I don’t want to be on the road the whole time. It’s just kind of a do-it-yourself policy that we created early on — like printing our own T-shirts or this or that, and when we started getting bigger, we said, “Let’s try to keep as much control in our own end as we can.” So if we fail, then it’s our fault, and we can blame anybody else.
FT: I’m glad you mentioned this, as this is another thing I wanted to ask: One thing One thing success has afforded you, of course, is a platform to espouse your beliefs, and Pearl Jam is well known for championing myriad causes, be they social, political, environmental or even personal, like in your campaign to raise awareness of Crohn’s disease. Was there a point where, as a band, you said to each other, “You know, we have to say something; we have to do something!”?
MM: I think as we got more popular and we felt that we had a platform where we could use our voice, we felt, “Let’s do it.” And certainly my Crohn’s thing is something I’ve been working with for years and I wanted to talk about that. And there’s a myriad of things that we cover, and I can’t even think of all of them right now. Stone’s very into, like, carbon offsets to skate parks, anything, you know? Abortion rights to all sorts of stuff. We feel that if we can lend our voice or our money or our name to these causes that our dear to our hearts, why not? Why not try to have a solution to these problems instead of just complaining about them?
“Life is life everywhere. Life is in ourselves and not outside us. There will be men beside me, and the important thing is to be a man among men and to remain a man always, whatever the misfortunes, not to despair and not to fall - that is the aim of life, that is its purpose.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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FT: Well I think one of the unique and most amazing things about Pearl Jam is that the band has survived where most of your quote-unquote grunge peers — Nirvana, Soundgarden, etc.— and even some of the bands you’ve influenced have burned out or faded away. How has Pearl Jam managed to stay alive and relevant for so much longer than bands you grew up and came out of the same scene with? And do it for almost two decades?
MM: Oh wow. That’s a good question.
FT: Thank you.
MM: Umm ... what do you think? What do you think the reason is?
FT: Well I think a lot of it stems from — and this is one of the things that always attracted me to the band — this unironic embracement of both the punk-rock world and the classic-rock world. Like you can be edgy and be, I guess, radical, but you can still back it up with great hooks.
MM: Yeah, I think on the musical side is what you’re talking about, and that comes from our upbringing and how we grew up. My growing up was certainly heavy with classic rock and metal and the Stones; Stone and Jeff came from the punk-rock thing; and Ed had a little bit of a punk-rock thing but was also into Bruce Springsteen and Squeeze; and [drummer] Matt [Cameron] brings in kind of a jazz thing to it, but he was also raised on classic rock. And, you know, we all liked KISS at one time when we were kids. And we’ve also covered The Dead Kennedys, and I totally love them. So there are certain through-lines, musically, that we relate to each other on.
As individuals, I think we’ve lasted because we’ll sit down when we have issues and confront each other on them. We don’t let resentments boil over. We just act like ... brothers is really the only term I can think of. So we say, “Hey, you’re pissing me off and this is the reason why.” And then we try to come to some kind of agreement. Open lines of communication are huge. And we’ve had that, luckily, over the years. And we’ve luckily surrounded ourselves with really good people, so that’s helped us out.
And we get away from each other, too. We tend to take off when we’re not around each other and we let each other live our own lives and not get in everybody’s business. I think that might be the most important thing right there.
FT: Yeah, once you get through spending a week, two weeks in a van with a couple dudes, you just think, “Man, I’m kind of sick of you right now.”
MM: [laughs]
FT: It’s not that you dislike those people, but I think, like you said, you have to get away. And that has to have contributed to the life of the band.
MM: Oh yeah, you have to get away from it. Because then you can bring back energy and it’s fun. It’s like seeing your old friends and you have the same stupid jokes that you still laugh about and nobody else gets. Like you said, you’re in a van with people on a tour, they start smelling and you’re like, “Man, I don’t want to talk to this guy.” [laughs] You just need to get away. Everybody needs that. For individuals, a lot of people want your time. And not just being in a band; just being a human being.
FT: Exactly!
MM: So it’s good to get away and recharge. Some people can recharge by hanging out with people. My wife can do that; I can’t. I need to get away to recharge.
FT: Going back to the classic rock thing for a bit, has the intention of Pearl Jam always been — and again, this ties back into how you do things — to bring the music as directly to the fans as possible, much like bands like Zeppelin or The Who used to do?
MM: Yeah! I think the attention on how we distribute our music or how we deal with our fan club, we want people to have as easy access as possible. I mean, we have meetings about that, and we have Tim Bierman who’s the head of that, and he’s always thinking of new ways to get music out or books or T-shirts out as easily as possible to do it. I mean, I don’t know how they did it in the ‘70s, but I think Led Zeppelin and all them were way more secretive. They would just go do shows and not deal with promoters. They were so big, they could just pull in to town. And I don’t know what their relationship with their fans was, but I think we’re proactive in the way that, say, The Grateful Dead were, and hopefully like U2 and Radiohead and those kind of bands. We like to lump ourselves in with them — I hope we are — and I think we do a pretty good job of trying to treat our fans as right as possible.
FT: It’s funny that you mention the Dead: I don’t know how much you read your own press these days, but a Pitchfork writer once described Pearl Jam as “The Grateful Dead for the washed.” I take that to mean that now, nearly 20 years on, you’ve amassed the longstanding and rabid fanbase necessary to reach quote-unquote cult band status. Do you think Pearl Jam is a quote-unquote cult band? And how do you feel about that?
MM: Are we a cult band? [laughs]
FT: Yeah.
MM: [laughs] I mean, I think there’s aspects of us being a cult band in the sense that, like, in our records, the pictures will be a little blurry and you can’t really see it. So visually, we might kind of be that. But I think ... I think we have a bigger following than what a cult band is. So I guess it depends on what your definition is. I think we’re a big touring rock band.
FT: Well, I think it was mostly a back-handed compliment, as even and especially with The Grateful Dead, you know, it’s an older crowd. And in today’s era of music, it’s an incredibly dynamic period where the paradigm has complete shifted from when the band began, in terms of how a person — especially a younger person — listens to and discovers music. And I’m wondering how Pearl Jam connects to the younger fan and the younger listener.
MM: That’s a good question; I’d have to ask the younger listener. When we put out our last record on J Records, my wife’s little sister, who’s like 15 years old, was actually telling me that they were talking about our record in her high school. And that was interesting, because prior to that record, people were like, “Oh, they’re still around?” It was like people forgot about us, except for our hardcore fans. But when the last record came out, I think we might have touched that demographic. And whether that’s still there, I’m not sure, but I think it might be kind of a rite of passage, in a way. Like when people go see us who are into us, their kids go to see us, and I hope that’s what it is. And certainly, with The Grateful Dead thing ... man, I’m not a fan of The Grateful Dead at all. They bore me. And I hate to say that, but I’m just not into them. But there are people that loved them and followed them around, and I think that’s what happened to us — we have people that follow us around and go to a lot of shows and network. They’re proactive fans, and we’re very proud of that. And they do things ... like, they set us this thing called the Wishlist Organization, which sets up parties for some of our organizations, and they do it of their own volition. Like they’re doing these pre-show parties for the Chron’s and Colitis Foundation, which is what I’m part of because I have Crohn’s disease, and so they raise money for the local chapters. And they’ve done this of their own volition, and that’s amazing. That, that, makes me feel proud and excited.
FT: That’s totally awesome.
MM: Yeah, it’s pretty cool.
FT: You touched on this earlier, but it seems that with almost every record you put out these days, that rock critics say, “Oh, Pearl Jam is back! Pearl Jam is back!” And with the last, self-titled record, it was like, “Oh! They’re back to their original sound!” But did you ever really go away? And did you ever really, truly get that far away from, I guess, sounding like Pearl Jam?
MM: You know, I think we did. And I think that’s a ... and I don’t know if the word would be machination, but the press needs something to say, “Oh, they’re doing this.” Or, “They’re back to this,” or “We can compare it to this.” And that kind of happened with this last record. I think our last record captured a certain amount of time and energy that we had, and it was great. I don’t think we ever really went away, though. Musically, we’ve tried different things, like on No Code we got kind of out there, and even some songs on Vitalogy are a little bit more out there. And Binauaral, we had different production ideas. So we try to test ourselves a little bit. But we always end up sounding like Pearl Jam, but that’s just because that’s who we are. Does that make sense?
FT: Definitely.
MM: I mean, we sit down and talk about it. And it all depends on what kind of a song comes in. Jeff will bring in really dark songs, lyrically and musically. And he doesn’t really know he’s doing it, and I always kind of go, “Dude, that’s kind of a dark song.” [laughs] But we’ll give it a treatment in a way that it will go the way that the song will naturally want to go. Does that make sense?
FT: It totally does.
MM: We try to make songs sound as good as we can make them sound. And sometimes they come out sounding a different way. And we try to go into left field sometimes, and we’ve done that over the years.
FT: And I think no matter what, the songs always go over well live. And I could be totally wrong, but I think I’m right, but I think that’s one of the things Pearl Jam prides itself on, is your live show. I think it was Esquire that said, “Pearl Jam plays every show as if it were its last.” How do you muster so much energy for your shows when you’re doing these long tours?
MM: That’s a good question. You know, I think it’s that we all try to take care of ourselves. I work out and I take boxing lessons and I swim; Ed does yoga and he surfs; and Jeff’s maybe the most jock of all of us. You know, we know that we’re getting older, but we want to be able to put on a good show, so you need to take care of yourself.
And we definitely feed off the fans, for sure. I check out what’s going on in the audience and I take energy from that all the time. And it comes from the songs. Or even if I’m playing a solo, sometimes I’ll just be like, “Oh, where am I going to eat tonight?” [laughs] Just random energy comes from that, just looking forward to stuff like that. Looking forward to seeing my little girl. Or whatever it is.
FT: It’s widely known that Nirvana and especially Kurt Cobain resented the success the band had. And I don’t mean to harp on this, but Pearl Jam has historically shunned interviews, avoided the celebrity limelight and kept a decidedly un-rockstar profile. What do you say to critics who say you resent your success?
MM: You know, I never resented our success. I loved it. I honestly felt, “Wow, I get to do what I want to do for a living.” And I get to play music with these other individuals that I like and get to have people actually come out and see it. Whereas when I was, in 1986, playing in my band Shadow, we were paying $700 to play at The Roxy at midnight to three people. You know, paying to play. [laughs] I’ve paid some dues. Or, like, putting on shows in Seattle back when Seattle was not receptive to having shows at all. And I know you hear lots about Seattle, but back in the ‘80s, you had to put on shows. You had to get two cops. You had to get a million-dollar insurance policy. You had to do all sorts of crazy stuff for that. So when success came to us and people actually wanted to come to see us and were coming to see us and drove, I was like, “This is f#!king great!” But it also was crazy, and there were negative aspects of it, too. I certainly didn’t resent it the way that Kurt Cobain and those guys did. I felt stoked about.
FT: Was it unfair that it got levied on the band? I suppose Eddie struggled more publicly with it.
MM: He had it far worse than we did. His attitude about it was more, you know, people following him around all the time and not having any privacy. And that would drive me crazy, so I understand his point of view about it. But then there’s something he likes about, because he’s still doing it. Kurt, maybe, couldn’t handle it. I just don’t know. And that’s too bad. Because not a lot of people are able to make a career out of it. I struggled for years trying to do it. And a lot of bands are still out there trying to do it. And now, I’m much more even-keeled about it.
FT: In 2005, Pearl Jam was named the greatest American rock band of all time by USA Today. What did that mean to you?
MM: I loved it! That’s an honor! I certainly didn’t expect it. I felt, “Wow, we’re doing something right!” [laughs] I mean, I’m not being glib about it. I really though it was a cool, honorable thing that people thought we were the greatest American rock band of all time. There are a lot of American rock bands out there, and for people to feel that way, it means that our music has touched them and influenced them in a positive way. And that’s what you want out of music; whether it’s sad songs or happy songs, you just want to feel something. I think everyone was stoked; it was really cool. So we said, ‘Well, let’s try to live up to that.’
FT: What does the future hold for Pearl Jam? Are you working on a new record and, if so, will we hear any new songs?
MM: Well, I will say that you’re not going to see any new songs; we only have about five ideas and they’re kind of in their infant stages. We definitely want to do a new record, though, but we don’t have a release date for it. I think what you will see, though, are songs that you haven’t seen in a while and some b-sides and some covers. We’ll definitely bring it.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9/28/05 Pittsburgh
6/23/06 Pittsburgh
8/2/07 Vic
8/5/07 Lolla
6/16/08 Columbia
8/17/08 DC (EV Solo)
I can't wait till MSG.
Hell yeah mike bring it
Charlotte 03
Asheville 04
Atlanta 12
Greenville 16, Columbia 16
Seattle 18
Nashville 22
I love how they are unafraid to be human and real
This is my kind of love...
♥♥♥
So thanks for posting this. By the way, did I mention one of my bedroom curtain rods came crashing down for no reason in the middle of the night? Got any interviews with Jeff???
on a search for anything pure."
Say Goodbye
jeff aTONEment
***
"See, he's got me kinda riled already...jerk..."
Stoney, about Eddie, with love! (And to his face!)
Thanks.
thanks for posting!
That was the best interview about PJ that I've read in a long time! Good stuff!
Won't let the darkness swallow me.