Cover Story
Photo by Rankin
Pearl Jam: Moving Targets
Eddie Vedder and gang have an ax to grind -- and throw -- as rock's former angry young men try a new approach.
By Josh Eells 09.15.09 6:55 PM
Photo by Rankin
You haven't really tasted death until you've been inches away from an ax swung by Eddie Vedder.
Not that Vedder is careless. He's just…focused. He gets this look: You know the one, from the "Jeremy" video, vaguely lupine -- lips curled, fangs bared, eyes crazy. He grips the haft with both hands, draws the blade back over his head, and lets it fly, watching it tumble end over end in an elegant arc, sinking into its target -- a three-footwide cedar stump -- with a deep, satisfying thunk.
"Bull's-eye. Mark it," Vedder says, pumping his fist. "Hey, you need another beer?"
At this point I've been in Vedder's company for about eight hours. We've surfed, we've swum, we've sailed. We've drunk and drunk some more. I've met his wife; I've high-fived his kids. I'm almost starting to feel like part of the family.
Remember: This is an intensely private man who swats away adulation with bland pronouncements like "I don't want the personality to become bigger than the music." (Such principled evasiveness, of course, only makes the adulation run deeper.) As the lead singer of Pearl Jam, he found superstardom in the early '90s, then spent the next decade and a half dismantling it, a guerrilla campaign of career suicide that's become rock legend: The band boycotted Ticketmaster, making touring next to impossible. They refused to shoot videos, a gesture this magazine once called so "profoundly anticommercial…that it remains virtually peerless."
Yet, here we are, in 2009, and Pearl Jam have a new album coming out, along with something an observer who didn't know better might even call a marketing strategy. They're on TV commercials, in Rock Band, on Cold Case. They're selling songs to video games and ringtones to Verizon. They're coming soon to a Target near you.
And this afternoon, at one of his West Seattle homes, Eddie Vedder and I are drinking beer and throwing axes. Which can only mean one of two things: Either this is about to be the scene of the first-ever music-journalist ambush/murder. Or Pearl Jam have finally decided to lighten up.
"Stand clear!" he yells, setting down his beer.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Thunk.
Read the entire Pearl Jam cover story in the October issue of SPIN, on newsstands Sept. 22!
PLUS: Click here to order our Pearl Jam Special Edition, complete with 12 extra pages of Pearl Jam coverage!
is that what you got from eddie being so close to him...with his family?
eddie vedder personality has always been hand in hand with his music....is what we all like...his lirycs,his voice and if i had a monent with him...i would engage him on being solo?...coming from san diego?...where i live....what does he think about rock now adays?...why cold case now?...what made him change from anti commercial?....which he has not done by the way.....the ony one being commercial at this time is jeff ament by saying they have the best lirycs in the myspace video clip they have running now.enough about beers....wine at concerts...the look from the 90's?.....are those his followers?....i like to see the eddie vedder sitting at the inside the actors studio with sean penn's wife....the guy who made dead man walking.....into the wild....the guy who says...he went back to the studio with his hammer...like in yield...and by the way...so we don't get side tracked...personality question...do you like bob dylan's music or personality?....both go hand in hand....is time for solo work....or he needs to go back with the hammer right back to the studio...
the more the word beer came up the more dissapointed i was...and i do drink by the way....but that's not what i want to know about your time with eddie.
Dude, learn some punctuation and capitalization. You're killing me here.
Eddie Vedder and company, the MARVELOUS Pearl Jam, are simply the BEST band in the world!!!
With integrity, wisdom, and loyal care to their fans!!!
I´m from Costa Rica and I´m dying that hopefully one day they can play my hometown!!
Cheers and thanks for your inspiration, motivation and driveness in my life!
Things I learned by picking up this article:
1. Eddie still makes scary faces when he's concentrating. He concentrates when he throws axes. He has also, as far as we know, not murdered any music journalists. Yet.
2. Eddie is teaching his elder daughter to surf by bribing her with sno-cones. She sounds adorable.
3. Eddie owns a very small boat. (I'M ON A BOAT! I'M ON A BOAT! Sorry...)
4. Eddie owns more then one house and would never live facing east, he loves the sunset too much.
5. Eddie smokes a lot. (Uh-oh. How many more years does his voice have under that kind of assault?)
6. Gossard?s little girl shops for dresses at Target. That's a fact, not an endorsement.
7. No one in Music Writing Biz is comfortable with Pearl Jam's new self-promoting attitudes. Someone should tell them that Pearl Jam are free agents now, they're finally in it for THEM and not for Sony, and they've earned their cred. Give them a chance to make their own deals on their own terms. (See: Amanda Palmer's blog)
People complaining that Pearl Jam have "gotten it back" are idiots. Pearl Jam never lost it. YOU just wandered away from them. Maybe you got sick of Eddie's anti-bush rants, maybe you just found a new band of angst-mongers to obsess over, but Sony saw their shrinking sales numbers and let the last three albums come out with barely a whisper of promotion.
And it's too bad, because BIANURAL, RIOT ACT, and PEARL JAM are EXCELLENT records. RIOT ACT especially is one of those rare beasts with barely a bad song on it. Other people may disagree with this statement but they are wrong.
I decided not to buy the magazine. But I took the Tom Tomorrow poster. Tom Tomorrow kicks ass.
keep talkin keep talkin...wuara wuara....I wasn´t drunk while I was writing this)
So let me complain...my band is the best in the woorld!..and Im the wiser man on earth!...yeaaahh yeaaah yeaaahh (the fixer)
I need another beer.....sorry
Note. Pearl jam still rock on my woorld!...fuuck yeaahh!
the man (ed) is right!...when something is bored, he wanna drink a little bit!!
and when hes run out of beer...before is gone" hes gonna fight to get it back again!!....lets everbody carry oon! carry on!
hey ed I got (beer) some if u need it!
Note: pearl jam is graeat
I have to say that I have been a PJ fan and an admirer of the great man, that is Eddie, since TEN, never have I heard a bad song from them. Each song is illuminating and powerful in its own way. PJ is one of those few bands who actually write music that make the lyrics come alive--a rarity in the music world today. So, to all those haters and the ones that strayed away, "go get a life." PJ--please keep making music, (your music is one thing I look forward to every year)
uff, what can you say about this man and pearl jam, they are the salvation of the rock , i am from a litler country in the caribbean (dom. Rep.) and gona traver to filadelfia to see PJ in 30 & 31 of octuber with my coursin, is dream for a fan soo far away but too close thanx to they music.
Pearl Jam's music saved my life. I don't think I would have made it through adolescence without the music, the lyrics. In the end it's all about their art. That they have principles they're willing to fight for is a bonus. After all they've done, they deserve to promote and sell their music their way. As a fan of almost 20 years, I'm just ecstatic that they're making and playing music. Radio may be dead but Pearl Jam lives on...
Hail, hail!
I have been a fan since grunge was king. I saw them in 1998 in West Palm Beach Fia. They will always be one of the greatest bands.
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