Eddie Vedder
by Eric T. Miller
Pearl Jam is either album number eight or 188 from Eddie Vedder and Co., depending on whether you include official bootlegs (there’s 176 of them), live records (two), best-ofs (one) and odds ‘n’ sods collections (one). Either way, the 13-track LP is easily the Seattle quintet’s best studio effort since 1998’s Yield and a welcome return-to-form following 2002’s awkward Riot Act. Pearl Jam left longtime label Epic in 2003 and signed to J Records, the imprint run by 74-year-old music impresario Clive Davis. (The band’s new labelmates include Barry Manilow, Kenny G and Whitney Houston.) For a group as self-sufficient as Pearl Jam, something as cosmetic as changing record labels has zero effect on its musical output. Nonetheless, a change in scenery seems to have re-energized the band. While Pearl Jam finds Vedder once again raging against the machine (he has made no secret of his opinion of the Bush administration and the war in Iraq), this time out, his anger is focused and perfectly suited to these mostly hard-rocking songs that address the current state of the Union.
The 41-year-old Vedder spoke to MAGNET from Pearl Jam’s Seattle warehouse space.
Thanks for interviewing Sleater-Kinney for MAGNET last year.
Thanks for the opportunity to get the girls over to the house. It was a pleasure.
You said that listening to their last record broke the speakers of your car. Did you get that problem fixed?
I put the CD on in the house; it seemed to break the speakers there. Turns out it was the CD itself. No speakers—car or house—could handle the power of the record.
When you interviewed Sleater-Kinney in issue #67, you said being on Sub Pop Records is an unfulfilled dream of yours. I thought that after Pearl Jam left Epic, you would go the indie route and put out your own records. But you signed to J, which is owned by the same company as Epic.
They weren’t owned by the same company when we started talking to them. It just turned into this sort of ironic situation. To be honest, I think talking about labels—except for exciting labels like Sub Pop or Epitaph or Kill Rock Stars—is completely boring. It just came down to something like distribution. Everything else we do in house, anyway. It’s just a matter of how to get the songs into people’s hands so they can get it into their ears. That—and not being represented in a way that we find offensive—is what is comes down to for us.
Did you talk about doing it yourselves?
Because of the scale of things, it really starts to interfere with things that are ultimately more important, like the records. Based on that, we realized that we probably don’t have the brain space to encompass both making the music and distributing the music. You’d think it would be easier on a bigger scale, but it isn’t really. We tried to find somebody who’ll allow us to be who we are and respects how we do things. And then we can do them. We’re still growing as a band: That’s our main objective. The people I respect the most release their records themselves, like the Dischord model. It takes all we’ve got to just do the music. And I don’t mean it to be a cop out; it’s something that we’ve learned and have to accept. I think Epitaph was the one label we were really excited about. We had a number of talks with Brett (Gurewitz, Epitaph owner). We were friends before and are still friends now. That would’ve been the most exciting option. But I think it really came down to the facilitation of getting the music out there. It might have even come down to something like foreign publishing. See, I told you it was going to get boring. [Laughs]
Do all five of you have to be in agreement for something to get done?
Yeah. That’s why it takes a little bit of time. It’s easy to do if it’s a decision outside of music; it’s the music and arrangement stuff—that’s when it’s harder to get the majority. You have to be sensitive to people’s artistic outpouring. It’s much easier to decide whether we want to play Cincinnati or not than how long should the bridge go. That’s when it gets touchy.
What do you think is a better situation for a band: one where every member has the same say or one where one person is the leader/dictator?
It’s probably an easier situation to go with the dictator, but I think the music suffers. You’re in a band where one guy is doing all the work and the others are kind of being enabled to be in a rock band but don’t really have to do much. I don’t think James Iha wanted to just show up and play the parts he was told to. He’s too talented to rest in peace in that situation. His playing demanded a certain kind of respect, and I don’t think he got it. Our new record is such a good example. It certainly wasn’t the easiest road, but I think the best music came out of it.
On the new album, three of the songs were written solely by you. The remaining ones were written by six different pairings of band members, a way you guys have worked at least since (1996’s) No Code. I can’t think of another band that has had that kind of continual variety in the songwriting process.
What the group has evolved into unconsciously is like a vessel or vehicle for everyone to express themselves musically. And, in the past, lyrically; this time it was kind of left up to me to round out the lyrical content. You helped me by doing the research, but I think it’s what makes our group different and, perhaps, sustainable. Everyone has a drive to get back into the room and do it again because they know they will get to express themselves.
In the story we did on you guys when Riot Act came out, Jeff (Ament, bassist) said that in the past, it would always come down to you alone in the studio trying to finish 20 songs and that that wasn’t fair to you.
Well, this new record took a different turn as far as how it came to be. It didn’t stem from demos or songs that were prepared in any way the day we went into the studio. We really went in with nothing, which I wouldn’t recommend to anybody. It started to feel like our second or third record. There were a couple guys who hung in there until the end, but in the very end, it was still me. [Laughs] An interviewer told me that Stone (Gossard, guitarist) said, “Everyone in the band has one hand on the wheel, but Ed has always had two.” I thought about that last night: Yeah, but they had the comfort of being in the car. I was, like, on the hood, hanging on for dear life. It’s similar to early records in a lot of ways. Also, there’s a kind of madness in the lyrics; I ended up in those places of semi-insanity to get it all out. You don’t enjoy that part of the process, but it creates better stuff.
The lyrics are very dark. There are glimmers of hope but not that many.
I was hoping that the, uh, hope was going to be in the guitar solos. It was the guitars and drums going at it that was going to lift you out of the dark abyss that I had painted.
On the lyric sheet, “Gone” has “Thanks again P.T.” next to the songwriting credit. Who is P.T.?
What would be your guess?
Pete Townshend.
See, it’s easy, isn’t it? [Laughs] I wrote “Thanks again” because I realized the first time I thanked him was (Binaural’s) “Soon Forget” because I lifted a couple ukulele chords from “Blue, Red And Gray” off Who By Numbers. This time I’m thanking him because I lifted a lyric; I guess I better call him quick. [Laughs] The lyric says, “Nothing is everything”; it’s from a song called “Let’s See Action” off Who Came First. It’s an idea that came from Meher Baba, who is Pete’s spiritual leader. I think if I’m helping spread the word of Meher Baba rather than stealing Pete’s lyrics, he’ll be OK with it. It comes from Meher Baba’s quote about desire for nothing except desirelessness; I think I’m turning it around in the song by saying, “If nothing is everything, I will have it all,” meaning I’m just letting go. It’s about a guy who’s just getting the fuck out of town and starting over with nothing and wanting nothing. It was written in Atlantic City, so you can imagine. I was looking at this freeway in front of me and didn’t know which way was out of town, but I certainly knew which way I wanted to be headed.
Now that we’ve gotten some distance, how effective do you think the Vote For Change tour was, given George Bush won the election?
After it happened, you felt like you really didn’t know the people in this country, even though you just visited Ohio and all the other places that were considered swing states.
Did you notice where George Bush threw out the first pitch this year to start the baseball season? Ohio.
Is that right?
Yeah, Cincinnati.
That fucking son of a bitch.
His buddy owns the Reds, which is why he did it, I assume. But still, shouldn’t he be in Texas throwing out the first pitch?
Maybe he should be occupied with figuring out what the hell is going on with his foreign policy. Maybe he should be getting people back home to their families and stop killing Iraqi families. Maybe they should stop cutting brush and stop shooting ducks and fucking get in the fucking office and get the job done. I’m working harder as a fucking musician than any of these assholes are that are leading and representing our country to the rest of the world. They are creating a huge fucking mess. To try to get back to your question ... [Laughs] Can you tell I’m a little bit frustrated by this situation? I would be embarrassed to go out smiling in front of a crowd of people with the world in a state of affairs as it is now, knowing that they were the ones who stepped in the hornets’ nest. It’s a level of arrogance that I imagine is unparalleled in documented American history. It’s that arrogance that made people feel safer. I think Hurricane Katrina showed us that we are not safe with this administration. In fact, while the war is going on, the rights of Americans—not to mention economic stability and job security—have been completely eroded, but it’s all buried beneath the war. If you look at the profit margins of their friends—whether it’s oil companies they have close ties to from Condoleezza Rice and, obviously, Bush himself to Halliburton and Dick Cheney—it’s unfathomable that this is going on without a level of dissent that is so loud that they can no longer speak their lies above it. I think it’s finally getting to that point. We’re finally starting to get fed up. This might be the window where you can finally get an antiwar candidate, because the polls would support him. It’s a shame that no one has the balls to say what they feel instead of saying what they know will get them elected. That’s how power ends up in the people’s hands: if they are vocal and do express themselves. Out of self-preservation alone, the politicians would have to follow. This is the kind of hope we have to have these days. Looking back, even though the Vote For Change tour was a failed experiment because our candidate did not win, it was also a flexing of the muscle of freedom of speech and preserving the rights that were written into the Constitution by some incredibly smart individuals a couple hundred years ago that say that not only do we have the right to dissent but we have the responsibility, that it’s actually our duty as citizens. That’s something kids in school are being reminded of. I was probably not listening that day, but I finally figured it out years later. It’s a very important part of living in America. In no other time in recent history has it been as intense. I think what’s happening now are things that will affect the next few generations, whether environmentally or just corporate globalization. I think it’s a radical time in America.
Has fatherhood changed your view of the world or this country?
For me, the fear is that my daughter in 20 years, if she wants to have a well-paying or decent-paying job after educating herself, will have to work for one of maybe three to five major corporations that run the whole fucking globe. And that those corporations will probably be profiting off the unhealthy state of consumers. There will be blood money involved. You won’t be able to make an honest living that can’t be tracked back to some destruction of the environment or some disrespect to American workers. When I say disrespect, I mean all-out abandonment, as all the factory jobs will be in other countries. Not to go off on a tangent, but not only do they go to other countries, they go to other countries for a while and then switch to another one after they exhaust those resources. It’s a real chew-them-up-and-spit-them-out corporate approach; at some point, the planet is going to be decimated. [Laughs] Bring in the guitar solo.
Though you’ve always been outspoken about politics, you kicked it up a notch since Bush was elected. Some of your fans have said they don’t like the Bush bashing at shows.
I guess you have to just realize this is just part and parcel of what we do. It’s not all that we do. I think you can still have a good night out and, at times, a great night of rock ‘n’ roll if you come see our group. I don’t think we are going to hit you over the head with anything. Hopefully, the music is powerful. At this time, I feel, “How can you not be talking about this stuff?” I’d be talking about it if I was a bartender. I’d be talking about it if I was a druggist. I’d be talking about it if I was the head of a corporation and how we’d deal with that. Or what was our place in the world and how we would combat these things. The fact that we’re in a band, which is one of the places you’re allowed to speak up; we don’t have stockholders we have to kowtow to or lobbyists where we’re fronting opinions for them because they are sneaking us money. If there’s any job you should be expressing yourself this kind of way it would be that of a musician or a writer. When some of these bigger problems end, we can shut up and play. And we’ll be happy doing that. I look forward to the day and welcome it. I would love to stop thinking about this stuff. That’s where the fury and frustration comes in. I’m fucking sick of dealing with this. I’m sick of living as an American and knowing that our government has run rampant and, even worse than that, has treated us like we’re idiots.
Pearl Jam’s activism and charity work is truly impressive. I heard that on the tour supporting the new album, you guys are giving money to various charities—arts, education, environmental—in every city you play in. Can we talk about that?
It’s exciting. You can get something done right quick, and the idea is that we don’t have to talk about it. We don’t want credit and also don’t want the flak. We don’t want anything other than to help take care of a problem, of which there are many. In a lot of cases—and I hope this doesn’t sound heavy-handed—it’s an attempt to stop the bleeding in certain aspects of these communities that we play in that normally would fall under the responsibility of the local government or even the federal government. The idea is that we don’t have to talk about it and bring up the issues at the show and beg someone to check out a Web site or get involved. It’s like, “Let’s just take a portion of this and do something about it on a small level.” Even if it’s just keeping them on their feet, whatever these organizations are. Just little things, like paying for attorneys’ fees or whatever. What might take months of raising money through a Web site, we can do in a night. If it’s part of what we do as a show, it helps it be a sort of celebration, too. We play and everyone has a good time, but some good work is done as well.
With Sleater-Kinney, you talked about the importance of Fugazi and Sonic Youth as bands that do what is right and correct. The people in those bands are in their 40s and 50s now. When you look around, what bands do you think will take their place?
Although I would put Ian MacKaye up for sainthood, I don’t think I’d ever want to wear the robe. The whole doing-right thing is just what you do. It’s not a thing. I guess it’s a goal. It’s tricky. It just feels weird to hear it. I think you just want to reserve the right to be a human being and have flaws. As far as younger bands, ones out there with a modicum of success and don’t find ways to share it, I feel bad for them. They’re missing out on one of the great parts of being alive. I would bet you that when the guys in Kings Of Leon—and I’m just choosing an example—have made money off their first couple records that they have shared it with some of those in their family. I imagine there’s a big farm they all hang out on and they spring for the barbeque. I’m just sure of it. And it will go from there to friends and local things. It will just happen. I can’t imagine it not. At some point, and this is what happened to us, the success of the first record or two was so off the scale that it was just a natural reaction to want to include others in the success and help out where needed.
Each of your records has sold fewer copies than the one before it, which sounds like a negative thing. But your first record is like the 40th best-selling record ever.
Is that right?
Ten sold more than 12 million copies, and now your records aren’t selling a million.
I guess we should’ve kept some of that money. [Laughs] We shouldn’t have been so generous.
I don’t think it’s a Pearl Jam thing. I think it’s an industry thing. I can’t imagine any band selling 12 million copies now. It seems like many popular bands will put a record out just so they tour and make millions of dollars that way. It’s not about the record anymore, it’s about the big event: the concert.
We haven’t really done much to participate in the mainstream much over the past few years in order to make our lives more comfortable and kind of ground us to where we feel we can make a record that will still be relevant. We want to feel that we can communicate or relate to normal people because we are grounded and fairly normal. I think the goal at the beginning of this band was to sell 50,000 records, so the fact that we can still get close to a million is still beyond the beyond. There’s no complaints from our side. I think Tom Waits’ Mule Variations sold more than all his other records put together, which blew me away because I have probably bought six copies of Swordfishtrombones myself. And it seemed like all my friends had his records. The mainstream is different, and that’s why you get those ginormous numbers.
Tom Waits was on the cover of MAGNET when Mule Variations came out. We weren’t around in the ’70s and ’80s to help him out then. That must be why Mule Variations sold so well.
Absolutely. [Laughs] I have that issue. That was a great interview, actually.
Thanks. The photo that we’re using of you in this issue features your dog Hank. I heard you found him—or he found you—in Hawaii.
He found me on an island in Hawaii on Christmas four or five years ago. He’s a Hawaiian mutt, which is kind of ridgeback and pit bull, but he’s Hawaiian, so he’s laid back. He’s a great dog.
As you might know, MAGNET can’t go an issue without at least one obligatory Guided By Voices reference.
[Laughs] Well I’m glad we didn’t make it through the interview without mentioning them.
How did you come to ask Bob Pollard to open for you on this tour?
At the beginning of making this record, when we wondering where it was all going to go, Guided By Voices was playing down the road; it was their last Seattle show. I had never seen them. Me and (producer) Adam Kasper had talked about going. We were tired from working, but we still made it over there. They played for three-and-a-half hours. We went from being tired and beat to having one of the greatest musical experiences of our lives. Just having guitars and drums and vocals and beer—with those elements, they just take you off the planet. The other huge element is their following. It was camaraderie with people I had never even met—everyone singing in unison to these fairly underground songs. Some of their records are a little deceiving, because live, it’s like the early-’70s Who in its power, like Live At Leeds. It’s a fucking train, and the only thing keeping it on the rail is the fact the songs are only two minutes. At three minutes, they would fucking explode. And what’s interesting is that the day we finished mixing our new record, Robert Pollard was playing solo. So we went over and saw him. It made us realize how long it took us to make the record. So he kind of bookended our record-making experience. And it really inspired me, just how he is. He appreciated my presence, which I was grateful for. You never know how some people are going to react. The time I saw him when he was on his own, he said he wondered how these songs would sound like in an arena. So in a 28-hour period, I figured out a way it to make it possible. I think I had told him, “Well, as soon as you get an arena in Dayton, we’ll do it.” [Laughs] The next closest city was Cincinnati. And then we thought it would be a good idea if he got a practice gig in Pittsburgh before he hit the hometown. It’s an honor to share the stage with Bob.
You’ve managed to work or play with some heavy hitters: Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stones, Pete Townshend. Is there anyone else on your dream list?
There’s no list. It’s always nice to bump into somebody. These things usually come about randomly and end up profoundly affecting your life. I can’t think of anyone I’ve met who’s ever let me down, whether it’s Cheetah Chrome from the Dead Boys or meeting the Ramones and becoming good friends with Johnny. It’s interesting: I’ve come to know the guys in the Who, because they had been so influential. I think what you really learn is how bands work. Or what it’s like being in a band and being accepting of the others in the band and realizing that the great bands are made up of individuals and you have to embrace the individuality of the people in your group. The other thing is I really enjoyed meeting Pete. He and I played a couple shows together; singing and playing together, that was when it went to another level of communication. It was like seeing what it was like being in a band with him.
