The Billboard Q&A: Eddie Vedder
October 26, 2007, 3:30 PM ET
Jonathan Cohen
Sean says he tracked you down in Hawaii. Is it fair to say that's one of the only calls you would take in the midst of a vacation?
Well, at least I'd wait a week before I'd call them back. But I think I called him back within an hour or a half-hour. You never know what it's about with Sean. I had no idea the scope of this thing. It remained that way. It was never really a big project until seeing the film in New York for the first time a few weeks ago. I didn't really grasp what an epic story it was. Participating on a music level, it's very simple compared to what Sean's challenges were. What he had to do was kind of make six records in such a way that you could play them on all on different turntables at the same time, and all that music would fit together. It's like 3-D chess, two games at a time. In that analogy, I feel like I was an important pawn (laughs). I was more like a rook or a queen. He let me choose directions. He let me go at it in a very uninhibited fashion. It just so happened that most everything found a place.
He said he wanted you to be in a movie, and you turned him down by sending him a song with the explanation as to why?
Yeah. It was called "I Can't." He had asked me and I said yeah, because he can be very convincing. If he thinks you can do something, you start to agree with him. Then I came to my senses. For one thing, it was a great opportunity and I would probably do it just to spend time with Sean. But if you get past that, I always felt like a lot of people watching would be thinking, "Wow, this guy took the job of a working actor" (laughs). Why does he need another job? He's already got a good occupation. That came into play a little bit. I didn't want to disappoint him then, and was happy to get another shot. It was good to have another opportunity to make up for that one when I felt like I disappointed him a bit. I'm glad I got a shot to redeem myself, in an arena that is more, this is what I do. I don't do that other thing, and I've just never been driven in that kind of way.
So, you get the book and immerse yourself in it. How quickly do you start thinking about music?
I read the book and within a couple of days, he showed me the film here at the house in Seattle. In the book, what I knew immediately was, I had some insight beyond the pages of what might explain the extreme actions and reactions of Chris McCandless. We had similar upbringings and similar events in our lives. We were both young white male Americans. But I didn't have to burn my money to end up with nothing (laughs). He took a bigger leap there. I was already off the cliff. So, I understood that much. When he showed me the film, I could see the landscapes and I could hear music in my head. But to be honest, most of it was similar to the music he had in there. Michael Brook made great choices with the way he orchestrated the score. Without even really thinking about it, I saw the film the one time and our pieces of music meshed together pretty well for not having approached it in a way of, let's make sure these puzzle pieces fit. They just did, you know?
Sean said once you finished watching the movie, you told him, "It's on." True?
Yeah! The film ended and we shared a moment of silence, because it was heavy. I think I just asked him, as I'm reaching over to light a cigarette, "What do you want?" And he said, "Whatever you feel. It could be a song, it could be two, it could be the whole thing." So I went in for three days, starting the next day, and gave him a palette of stuff to work with. And then he started choosing. Immediately he had a few things he put in. I wasn't expecting that. After that, then it was really on. What I gathered was, the songs could now become another tool in the storytelling, especially when you have shots of the young man solitary. In a way, it's offering a window into what he's going through intellectually and emotionally without having to have him talk to himself (laughs).
Can you describe your writing/recording setup once things got rolling?
I went in to a room in Seattle we work in. I worked with the guys we do the band music with. In essence, they became the band. Not as far as playing any instruments, but being sounding boards for what was taking place and what was being created. You're playing the music by yourself, but you end up in a band with the guys pushing the buttons and sorting out the guitars and amps. Also Sean is in the band and Chris McCandless is in the band. The film becomes the record. In a way, I wasn't in the band (laughs). It was like being a songwriter for a band -- serving the voice of Chris McCandless. Not my voice, or something I wanted to say. In almost every aspect of this process, it simplified things. There were fewer choices. The story was there and the scenes were there.
If there was anything that I learned with my own writing process, maybe there's too many choices what to write about. Just the amount of subject matter in the world these days; maybe that feels chaotic for me. This took away all the choices. There was a point A and a point B and I found it pretty easy to get there without hitting all the other points in between, which I seem to do when we make our records. When you do that, you feel like, okay, this is a galvanized piece of work because we've done this song every which way it can go and here's the best way. I don't think it has to be that way. You can just go right to it.
One thing I found with this was, we'd go in and start the day knowing we had a few duties to fulfill. Something would start coming together and I'd realize, that's not what we want here. But I'd just go ahead and finish it and make something out of it. It's a song. Why force that song into being something else? Since it was just happening, just go with that. We were moving so quick. If at noon you sit down and there's just silence or blank tape, in an hour if you have a song, that didn't exist an hour ago. Now it exists and it might exist for a long time. There's something empowering about that. It makes you feel like you're contributing as a human being -- adding some kind of beauty or emotion to the planet, whether anyone hears it or not. Then you feel like maybe you can even do something better.
Were you consciously trying to put yourself in Chris' head or was the narration more omniscient?
It was startling how easy it was for me to get into his head. I found it to be uncomfortable how easy it was, because I thought I'd grown up (laughs). I think all this stuff was right under the surface for me, barely. Because of that, lyrics and words and even chord changes were coming quick. It was like being asked to do something you did every day for a decade -- you just hadn't done it for 20 years. You go to do it again and it's just all right there. It never left.
What are your thoughts on the perception of the character? Some people have come down hard on McCandless for never contacting his family during his trip.
I think Sean and Jon Krakuer were successful in presenting the truth. There are elements of it that weren't pretty. If the kid makes it back, I'm sure he would have shared his story with his family and I'm sure he would have reconnected. I shouldn't say sure, but you can imagine him reconnecting, certainly with his sister. As he matured, I think he'd start to forgive, if for no other reason than for the sake of progressing. At some point, you see that there's a real powerful, positive energy from forgiveness.
Some of his actions were really bold. To part with his money ... to do what he did without money to fund his trip and make it comfortable, without taking classes or waiting for permits to go down rivers or to hike trails, or the fact that he didn't take a map, were choices he made in order to get to the truth of the matter, whatever that matter was to him. The truth of his existence, or a human's existence on this planet. A lot of people aren't going to understand that, and that's their prerogative. I actually respect those decisions. I'm going to respect anyone's choices if they want to live this life to get ultimate value out of it. I think one of the reasons a lot of people are uncomfortable with this idea is that maybe they haven't done it themselves.
In regards to people having opinions, when we say things at shows, sometimes people don't like, I hear, us mentioning that we are at war. Even if we bring out a veteran and introduce them to somebody who has been involved. Some people feel that this is time when we could be playing a B-side or something. To me, this is equivalent to somebody sitting in the back seat of a car, and the car is hitting people and killing them, and they're asking for the heat to be turned up or the air-conditioning to be turned down -- something in regards to their comfort level.
Right now, if people have something to say about the issue, then I'm all for it, whatever it is. If their comment or critique is, they don't want to hear the conversation, I have no patience for that whatsoever. I think that's anti-patriotic. That's one of the reasons we got into this mess -- people shirking their duties as Americans to have an opinion and to lead our leaders. So when I hear about people talking about McCandless doing this or doing that, I'd have to know what they've been through to even know whether I can put any stock in their critique.
Basically, Sean said the only people he'd listen to in this regard are Chris' parents and sister.
I defer to them as well. I thought about them a lot. There's a line in "Guaranteed" that says, "Don't come closer or I'll have to go/Owning me like gravity are places that pull/If ever there was someone to keep me at home/It would be you." That line is for [McCandless' sister, Carine].
Once you get inspired and start cranking out material so fast, is it hard to turn that faucet off? Was there a void left?
Well, no, because then we started living it. We went down to the Grand Canyon and I almost made it to Alaska. I started making choices in my own life. I started living outdoors this summer. It was using that inspiration to do things in my life. When I was working, I was inspired to make the music. That's what I was requested to do. After that, I took the inspiration and put it into my real life and my family life. We spent the summer outdoors. We did some camping. I felt like a real human being.
I've been real fortunate. Music afforded me and the other guys in the group to do things in our lives that got us close to nature, whether it's (Pearl Jam bassist) Jeff (Ament) and his relationship with mountains and snow, or my relationship with oceans and waves. My surfing got blockaded as a young adult when I had to start working (laughs) ... the drugstore jobs, et cetera. In about 1993 or 1994, I realized I'd been afforded the opportunity to get back to the ocean, and that really has been what fueled 80% of my creativity and 95% of my sanity. You know, this project comes out of the blue from a phone call from a friend. In the end, it's a collection of songs that becomes a limb of this body which is the film. To have been involved with something like this on a creative level, it's such a healthy, soul-serving exercise. I'm just a better person from it, if for nothing else than the act of being creative.
If people took the initiative to just create -- write or paint or make music or sing -- on a regular basis, I just think it's such a healthy thing. To do it as a family or do it with friends, it's just so healthy. We don't have the arts programs in the schools anymore. They were the first to go. The only thing I'm guessing at for why this isn't taking place is the amount of people who are watching things like "American Idol" or trash TV. At the end of the day, people come home and want to be brain dead. They're too exhausted from trying to keep up with their kids that they anesthetize themselves. It's like needing food and eating junk food.
One could say that's precisely what fueled what McCandless did -- the fear he would be slipping into that same lifestyle.
Yeah, or the so-called American dream that ends him up clean-cut in a pickup bar with an expense account and a job that might be a 40-year sentence. A 30-year mortgage and a 40-year sentence.
It's cool that in tandem with your stuff, there is the new Pearl Jam DVD. You get a nice glimpse of the band as people as opposed to just straight-up performance footage.
It has a lot to do with the guy who made the film, Danny Clinch. We can forget that he's there. I think the best part of the film to me is the people of Italy. They were a great representation of the people that come see us in general, wherever it is. To me they're like a character in the film, and incredibly well-cast (laughs).
That old guy in the church is classic, when you and Boom go to look at the organ.
Well, it's incredible. It's like throwing a dart at a spinning planet and ending up in this ancient church with ancient organs. One was from 1775, I believe. And he knows Tacoma, which is 20 miles of south of me (laughs). They're very famous for organs. I had no idea. I think he'd been one place in the United States and it turned out it was 20 miles south of me. That's the best part of touring, in a way. Half the time you're too worn down to walk the streets on your time off, but magical things happen on tour.
There's reasons why guys tour and some of it is paying the bills, but you have such an incredible opportunity to interact with the rest of the world. Outside of going on a search for waves, I don't think I've ever gone anywhere without having the excuse of playing. I've never gone to Europe just to go. It's like an addiction. Why would I go if I don't have the opportunity to address 20,000 people in their city (laughs)? I think that might be a problem I should think about. There's other ways of doing it.
Well, speaking of that very thing, we have an important election coming up. Have you guys started to think about how you might add your voice or presence to what will be going on then?
If democracy was a big bus, and you're on board, and you think you have an idea where it should be going, you should combine your voices in the back to tell the driver. At some point, you might have to get your foot on the brakes and take over the wheel. We're talking about hiring a new bus driver. I can't imagine being inactive. But I think everybody should, in whatever ways they can. If we want to protect our Constitution our country as an ideal still have meaning, we're going to have to participate.
Going back to your question, Sean asked me to do this deal and then I came to my senses and said, "I don't think I can do it." But he would write me. Every time, I'd say, "I hate to do this but I just can't. Somebody will do it better." He'd say, "You can, and you will and I'll get you through the big waves." The reason why there was a song is that he just wouldn't take no for an answer. The only thing I wanted to add to the beginning of that answer was that it was an aggressive song (laughs).
Like, "Lukin" aggressive?
Exactly! Kind of L.A. punk scene aggressive, like, "I Can't!" It took that to finally get through to him. In a way, looking back, Sean saw that if I really need to make a point, given certain subject matter, I could do it. That's probably what got me this job (laughs). One last thing I'll say, because I don't think I'm going to do any more interviews about this. The combination of Sean and the story, meaning McCandless himself and the work Jon Krakuer did, and also the performances in the film, the amount of respect I had for those entities was so huge. I'm ready for a break, but I have to say, this offered me an opportunity to get deeper into writing than maybe I had in a while. It was just the most welcome set of demands I've come across in a long time. It ended up to be a great exercise in writing. Our band is going to be better for it and from it, which I'm pretty excited about.
What a great, unexpected result.
We've been doing what we've been doing for a long time. To go outside of those parameters, it's a whole different terrain. It's been such a cool experience. It was interesting. I went to hang out with Sean at the "Charlie Rose" show, and I wound up sitting at the table, which was unexpected. It came on the other night and I was sitting on the floor with a beer and a smoke and it was late. I thought I'd catch it. I'm sitting there watching it and I realized it was the exact place I was sitting on the floor with Sean when we watched the movie.
It really didn't feel like much time had passed. It was interesting to go from sitting on the floor with an ashtray and a six-pack a few months ago to watching us talk about a finished product (laughs) on the TV. It book-ended the whole odyssey. It made it real, in a way. I had to see it on a screen to make it real. I don't remember much of the process because it went real quick and it was real unconscious. I almost don't remember anything of the time of making it. It was a weird way to be notified that it had actually taken place.
par dvi2702 » Mar Oct 16, 2007 7:41 pm 
de même ! 
Ma douce petite Enola est venue au monde le 25 janvier 2006 !!!
c'est vrai que le livret est très joli, bon travail, Jerome Turner 
