Pearl Jam Popular Books

Pearl Jam Biography & Facts

Pearl Jam is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. The band's lineup consists of founding members Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar), and Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guitar), as well as Matt Cameron (drums), who joined in 1998. Keyboardist Boom Gaspar has also been a touring/session member with the band since 2002. Jack Irons, Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain and Dave Abbruzzese are all former drummers for the band. Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries from the early 1990s, and is considered one of the most influential bands from that decade, dubbed "the most popular American rock and roll band of the '90s". Formed after the demise of Gossard and Ament's previous bands, Green River and Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with their debut album, Ten, in 1991. Ten stayed on the Billboard 200 chart for nearly five years, and has gone on to become one of the highest-selling rock records ever, going 13× Platinum in the United States. Released in 1993, Pearl Jam's second album, Vs., sold over 950,000 copies in its first week of release, setting the record for most copies of an album sold in its first week of release at the time. Their third album, Vitalogy (1994), became the second-fastest-selling CD in history at the time, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week. One of the key bands in the grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam's members often shunned popular music industry practices such as making music videos or participating in interviews. The band had also sued Ticketmaster, claiming it had monopolized the concert-ticket market. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame". Pearl Jam had sold more than 85 million albums worldwide by 2018, including nearly 32 million albums in the United States by 2012, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 in its first year of eligibility. They were ranked eighth in a readers' poll by Rolling Stone magazine in its "Top Ten Live Acts of All Time" issue. Throughout its career, the band has also promoted wider social and political issues, from abortion rights sentiments to opposition to George W. Bush's presidency. Vedder acts as the band's spokesman on these issues. History Background (1984–1990) Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of Seattle-based grunge band Green River during the mid-1980s. Green River toured and recorded to moderate success, but disbanded in 1987 due to a stylistic division between the pair and bandmates Mark Arm and Steve Turner. In late 1987, Gossard and Ament began playing with Malfunkshun vocalist Andrew Wood, eventually organizing the band Mother Love Bone. In 1988 and 1989, the band recorded and toured to increasing interest. PolyGram signed the band in early 1989. Mother Love Bone's debut album, Apple, was released in July 1990, four months after Wood died of a heroin overdose. Formation (1990) Ament and Gossard were devastated by the death of Wood and the resulting demise of Mother Love Bone. Gossard spent his time afterwards writing material that was harder-edged than what he had been doing previously. After a few months, Gossard started practicing with fellow Seattle guitarist Mike McCready, whose band, Shadow, had broken up; McCready in turn encouraged Gossard to reconnect with Ament. After practicing for a while, the trio sent out a five-song demo tape in order to find a singer and a drummer. They gave former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons the demo to see if he would be interested in joining the band and to distribute the demo to anyone he felt might fit the lead vocal position. Irons passed on the invitation but gave the demo to his friend Eddie Vedder. Vedder was the lead vocalist for the San Diego band Bad Radio and worked part-time at a gas station. He listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. He then recorded the vocals to three of the songs ("Alive", "Once", and "Footsteps") in what he later described as a "mini-opera" titled Mamasan. Vedder sent the tape with his vocals back to the three Seattle musicians, who were impressed enough to fly Vedder up to Seattle for an audition. Within a week, Vedder had joined the band. With the addition of Dave Krusen on drums, the band took the name Mookie Blaylock, in reference to the then-active basketball player. The band played its first official show at the Off Ramp Café in Seattle on October 22, 1990. They opened for Alice in Chains at the Moore Theatre in Seattle on December 22, 1990, and served as the opening act for the band's Facelift tour in 1991. Mookie Blaylock soon signed to Epic Records and renamed themselves Pearl Jam. In an early promotional interview, Vedder said that the name "Pearl Jam" was a reference to his great-grandmother Pearl, who was married to a Native American and had a special recipe for peyote-laced jam. In a 2006 cover story for Rolling Stone, Vedder admitted that this story was "total bullshit", but added that he did have a great-grandmother named Pearl. Ament and McCready explained that Ament came up with "pearl", and that the band later settled on Pearl Jam after attending a Neil Young concert in which he extended his songs as improvisations (i.e. "jams") of 15–20 minutes in length. Ten and the grunge explosion (1991–1992) Pearl Jam entered Seattle's London Bridge Studios in March 1991 to record its debut album Ten. McCready said that "Ten was mostly Stone and Jeff; Eddie and I were along for the ride at that time." Krusen left the band in May 1991 after checking himself into rehabilitation for alcoholism; he was replaced by Matt Chamberlain, who previously played with Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. After playing only a handful of shows, one of which was filmed for the "Alive" video, Chamberlain left to join the band for Saturday Night Live. Chamberlain suggested Dave Abbruzzese as his replacement. Abbruzzese joined the group and played the rest of Pearl Jam's live shows supporting Ten. Released on August 27, 1991, Ten (named after Mookie Blaylock's jersey number) contained 11 tracks dealing with dark subjects like depression, suicide, loneliness, and murder. Ten's musical style, influenced by classic rock, combined an "expansive harmonic vocabulary" with an anthemic sound. The album was slow to sell, but by the second half of 1992 it became a breakthrough success, being certified gold and reaching number two on the Billboard charts. Ten produced the hit singles "Alive", "Even Flow", and "Jeremy". Originally interpreted as an anthem by many, Vedder later revealed that "Alive" tells the semi-autobiographical tale of a son discovering that his father is actually his stepfather, and his mother's grief turns her to sexually embrace her son, who strongly resembles the biological.... Discover the Pearl Jam popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Pearl Jam books.