JAM SESSION
04/25/03
John Soeder
Plain Dealer Pop Music CriticIf there's a Pearl Jam backlash, it's news to guitarist Mike McCready.
Yes, a few concertgoers walked out of the group's April 1 show in Denver after frontman Eddie Vedder made anti-war remarks and "impaled" (as one reviewer put it) a mask of President Bush on a microphone stand.
But as far as the band is concerned, media accounts of the incident amounted to much ado about nothing.
"It was blown out of proportion," McCready said. "We played the song, Ed did a rap about it and some people walked out."
Vedder used the Bush mask as a prop during an encore performance of "Bushleaguer," a politically charged tune (He's not a leader / He's a Texas leaguer) from Pearl Jam's new album, "Riot Act."
"Ed's talk from the stage centered on the importance of freedom of speech and the importance of supporting our soldiers, as well as an expression of sadness over the public being made to feel as though the two sentiments can't occur simultaneously," Pearl Jam said in a statement issued after the Denver concert, which drew nearly 12,000 fans. It was the opening night of a four-month North American tour, which stops tonight at Gund Arena.
The Rocky Mountain News reported "dozens" of people left during the encore in Denver. By the band's count, the walkout involved two dozen people, tops.
"I support our troops," McCready said by phone this week from Atlanta.
"Our song wasn't an attack on them at all," he said. "We're just poking fun at George Bush, which to me seems to be all right in a democratic society, from what I've learned about free speech."
"Bushleaguer" isn't a mainstay of Pearl Jam's set list, although the group played the song again last week in Nashville.
"The majority of people seemed to be into it," said McCready, 37. "We'll play it on and off throughout the tour, depending on how we feel.
"We don't want to be like, 'OK, we can never play this song again because it offended a few people.' "
Offending people comes with the territory when you're in a rock 'n' roll band, he added.
Besides Vedder and McCready, Pearl Jam includes Stone Gossard on guitar, Jeff Ament on bass and Matt Cameron on drums. They're joined on their latest album and on the road by keyboardist Boom Gaspar.
"Instead of doing the same songs every night, we want to mix it up," McCready said. "It keeps us interested."
They tore through "Sonic Reducer" by Cleveland's Dead Boys at a couple of recent gigs. Pearl Jam covered the 1970s punk gem a decade ago for a limited-edition single.
When Vedder & Co. played the tune April 18 in Nashville, they were joined onstage by former Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome.
He played "fast as hell," McCready said. "I was just trying to keep up with him - punk rock, I guess."
Chrome remembers it differently. "I thought I slowed it down for those guys," he said in a separate interview, laughing.
He had a blast jamming with Pearl Jam. "The crowd was so into it," he said.
Chrome detected a Dead Boys influence on Pearl Jam's 1991 debut album, "Ten," which sold 11 million copies and spawned the grunge-era hits "Alive," "Even Flow" and "Jeremy."
"They had a lot more polish than we did," said Chrome, who relocated to Nashville in 1996. "But the feel was the same."
For McCready, making music is all about feel, especially when he's losing himself in a guitar solo.
"I try to get into a space where I'm not thinking at all," he said. "I'm just feeling the music.
"I'll focus on a light up there on the lighting rig until my mind is blank. . . . Then I'll close my eyes. I'm in some sort of state of nirvana, for lack of a better term."
Along with Nirvana (the band, not the spiritual state), Pearl Jam established its hometown of Seattle as a musical hotbed in the 1990s, although the group long ago branched out beyond its grunge roots.
On "Riot Act," Pearl Jam's seventh studio album, the material ranges from fist-pumping punk to stripped-down, introspective balladry. The most radical departure is "Arc," an a cappella chant with Vedder wailing wordlessly, seemingly from atop a minaret.
"We're all really excited about this record," McCready said. "We're lucky because our first record sold well. It established us, so we could call our own shots . . . and have a longer career. "We'd been away from each other for a while after our last record [2000's "Binaural"] and tour, so when we got back together, we were very excited to play."
They've been enjoying each other's company on the road, too. "I played tennis with Stone yesterday," McCready said. "I won, but only because a semipro friend of mine was playing with me. We played doubles against Stone and our tour manager.
"If I played Stone one on one, he'd probably beat me. He plays all the time."
The band is recording all of the shows on its latest tour. If you like what you hear tonight, you can order a double-CD "bootleg" of the Cleveland concert - or any other gig on the itinerary - exclusively at www.pearljam.com.
As a youngster, McCready counted a bootleg of a Kiss concert in Japan among his prized possessions.
"I love bootlegs," he said. "I have some in front of me right now - some Rolling Stones and some Jimi Hendrix, too."
When he's in the mood for more contemporary music, McCready can't get enough of Jimmy Eat World. "They're really exciting to me," he said.
Like his bandmates, McCready has kept busy between Pearl Jam commitments with various side projects. Mad Season, a band he formed with Layne Staley of Alice in Chains, released an album, "Above," in 1995.
Staley's death last year from a drug overdose hit McCready hard.
"I hadn't seen him in about four years," McCready said. "I'd just heard stories about him - and they were never good. . . . He couldn't overcome his addictions.
"It was very sad. He was a totally cool guy."
McCready moonlights with the Rockfords, an alternative-rock outfit. He also played guitar on the new Wallflowers album.
As for Pearl Jam, the future is wide open. "Riot Act" fulfills the band's contract with Epic Records.
Will the group strike another deal with a major record company? Or will it go the indie route, either with a smaller established label or its own label?
At this point, Pearl Jam has ruled nothing out, according to McCready.
"There's a whole bunch of options, which is exciting," he said. "We like to do business a certain way, which runs contrary to a lot of record company expectations."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
jsoeder@plaind.com, 216-999-4562