Episode 35: A Pearl Jam Deep Dive with Steven Hyden

Chris explains his special connection with the iconic rock band Pearl Jam before speaking at length with music critic Steven Hyden about the band’s career, influence, and legacy.

You can find Steven’s book “Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation” wherever books are sold.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hey, what's going on. It's Chris Carino. This is the
Voice of the Nets podcast, coming to you on the
first day of spring. Man, I love it. I love
the first day of spring. It's a little cool here
in the Northeast, but the sun is shining. Spring is rebirth.
It's the middle of March madness too. Everybody is into

(00:32):
their brackets. In college basketball, NETS trying to turn it around,
just lost their third game in a row. Big week
coming up this week with games against the Cavaliers, two
of them a team that is in front of them
in the standings, and then a game against Miami on
the road, who's right behind them in the standings. Only
a couple of weeks left after that, heading toward the playoffs,

(00:55):
and who knows what will happen. So there's a lot
going on there. But with and with March madness, and
we're not yet at the finished line of the NBA season.
I thought it'd be a good time to take a
little detour off road, as we often do here on
the Voice of the Nets podcast, and I'll get into

(01:16):
some things that I'm passionate about that are outside of
the world of sports and basketball. And one of those
things is Pearl Jam. I'm a big music person. It's
a big part of my life, and pearl Jam has
been the soundtrack of my life for over three decades.

(01:38):
The connection to the Nets is interesting. Before I get
into my personal connection, I'll give you the hook of
how I could tie this into the Nets. I'm not
going to get into the whole origin story of pearl Jam.
A lot of folks who maybe are tuning in know that,
and they may know this story. When pearl Jam started out,
they were named after a Nets player at the time,

(02:03):
back in the early nineties. Mookie Blaylock was that player,
and there about a lot of people are trying to interpret,
you know, how he was chosen, why they chose to
do it. But Jeff Amant, one of the founding members
of Pearls and the bass players from Montana. He gave
an interview back in two thousand and eight to the
Missoulin that explains the story this. This is Jeff Amen.

(02:29):
When we were recording our first record, we had a
per diem of about ten dollars, so we got lunch
at the store across the street. We'd always buy a
pack of basketball cards. When we turned in our tape
We didn't have a name for the band yet, so
we put a Mookie Blaylock card in the case. We
were about to go on tour and still didn't have
a name and needed one quickly. We were told it

(02:51):
didn't need to be the name that we were going
to use forever, just something for the tour. Someone saw
the Mookie Blaylock card and said, how about Mook Blaylock.
We'd have decided to go with it and did a
ten show tour with Alison Chains as Mookie Blaylock. Mookie
was cool about it too, he didn't sue us. I
actually got to meet him later on and shoot around

(03:13):
a little bit. We also made a Pearl Jam T
shirt with a picture of him on it. I guess
we owe Moki a lot. That was Jeff Aman, bass player,
founding member of Pearl Jam, talking about the connection of
Mookie Blaylock, and they didn't record the album and release
it as Mookie Blaylock. They ended up coming up with
the name Pearl Jam. But the title of that first

(03:37):
iconic record, one of the most iconic records in rock history,
the title is ten and the reason is that was
Mookie Blaylock's number, So there you go, there's the nets
hook into pearl jam as far as my hook into

(03:57):
pearl jam. When ten came out and I first heard that,
I was in that incredibly scary, exciting, and for me
maybe unique time of my life right out of college,
embarking on a career that is incredibly challenging. And I

(04:20):
had had a lot of hope coming out of college.
I was able to accomplish a lot as a student broadcaster,
and now trying to turn that into being a professional broadcaster,
it's really difficult, really competitive time. I was also going
through this thing personally where I was noticing this weakness
in my body. I like to compete athletically in a

(04:42):
lot of things, and suddenly I was falling. I was weaker.
Trying to shoot a basketball felt like a medicine ball
in my hand. I didn't know what was going on.
Thought maybe I was just out of shape. I needed
to work out, take vitamins, whatever it may be. Went
on for a long time, like before I decided it
was serious enough that I had to go get checked

(05:03):
out maybe and eventually, you know, down the road, I
would be diagnosed with the type of muscular district FSHD,
and I remember that I took a lot of solace
at times in music and started listening to Pearl Jam
and never felt that way about a band before or since.

(05:27):
Fast forward years later, it's twenty ten. I've been dealing
with my diagnosis for many years, but hadn't been open
with people about it, hadn't even really made it a
topic of conversation with close friends or family. And I
was turning forty, and it was around a midlife crisis maybe,

(05:51):
but also an incident. I was out with my family
and we read a diner and I couldn't get out
of a booth and I was having this really difficult time,
and how if somebody come help me? And my wife
got upset at me, not because I couldn't get out
of the boot, but she was upset that I was
not acknowledging what was going on with me. I had

(06:14):
buried my head in the sand that I wasn't trying
to help myself, and I was retreating with it, and
it was a dark place because it was getting hard,
it was getting difficult, it was changing my life, and
I was internalizing it. So unbannounced to me, my wife
had reached out to a friend of ours who was

(06:36):
a physical therapist and was trying to inquire about was
there anything that he could help us with to help
me get better. But I was frustrated because I knew
I had followed it on my own and knew that
there was no treatment, there was no cure, there was
nothing anybody can do. But that incident made me really
face it and decide that I cannot keep going at

(06:59):
this alone. It wasn't fair to me, It wasn't fair
to my family, It wasn't fair to my wife, my son.
They needed to get some help by having me put
up my hand and say I needed help. And for
many years I had in the back of my mind
that one day, when I made enough of a name
for myself, that I would reach out to others and

(07:20):
start to maybe try and see if I can help
in the fight against FSHD in muscular district, that I
would look into research and what I could do to
raise money and progress toward a treatment or a cure,
and that I could also be an example someone that
other people could look to and say, here's what you

(07:42):
can accomplish even if you have this diagnosis. So has
this hooking to Pearl jam Well A few months after
my wife had that conversation with my friend Chris Hughes.
I had invited Chris to a Pearl Jam show Madison
Square Garden. It was in May of two thousan ten.
You know. I picked him up at his practice up

(08:03):
in the Rutherford area. We drove into the city, we
had dinner, and we got to the garden and we're
hanging out. We're waiting for the start of the show,
and all that time passed and I was I was procrastinating.
I never brought up the conversation with my wife. All
that time was going on until it's probably a few

(08:25):
minutes before the show is about to start. And I
said to Chris, I know you had a conversation with
my wife, and I know there isn't much that we
can do, but here's an idea that I had. I
had this idea to start a five or one seat
three a foundation where we can raise money try and

(08:46):
help advance research. I know that there's a need there
and I think I could, you know, maybe be an
example for people and you know that they could look
to or what you can accomplish with this disease. Now,
I'll never forget Chris turned to me and he said,
number one, now that you said it, you have to

(09:06):
do it, and I will be on the board. I
will help you with it. And number two, it's not
about if you're going to help anyone, it's about how
many people you're going to help. There's a Pearl Jam
song called Sometimes, and it's always been one of my

(09:28):
favorite songs. Are really the studio recording is a very
low key, intimate performance, and it has lines like seek
my part, to vote myself, my small self like a
book amongst the many on the shelf. In another line

(09:53):
in the beginning, large fingers pushing pain, you're God and
you've got big hands. The colors blend the challenges that
you give man. And then towards the end of the song,
he says, you know, sometimes I walk, sometimes I kneel,

(10:15):
sometimes I live, Sometimes I reach to myself. And I've
always thought about those lines for years since that song
came out on No Code back in you know, the
late nineties. I said, it's always meant to be that
there are enormous powers moving the universe, and sometimes it's

(10:36):
up to us to seek our part, to do something
that is unique to us, to not only help ourselves
but to help others, and sometimes things are going to
happen to you that you have no control over, but
you have to look to yourself to fight your way
through it. And that's always been a song that I've
leaned on for years. So what happens after I tell

(11:01):
my idea to Chris Hughes and we're sitting there waiting
for the show to start. All of a sudden the
lights go out at the garden and if you know,
Pearl Jam will will start sometimes with a low key number,
but it's many songs that they'll choose from. You can
go to Pearl Jam shows every day in a tour
and you're gonna see a different show every time, so
you don't know where they're going to open up with.
And it's one of my favorite parts of the show.

(11:24):
And all of a sudden, the lights go out and
you hear the guitar and it's the song Sometimes and
I had emotional I mean I cheered up at that moment.
I saw it as a sign. But we're about to
embark on. And now years later, you know, we've we've

(11:48):
we've we've funded over a million dollars in research. We've
made incredible breakthrough. This We've been a player. We have
been an impact player in the world of f HD
research and I've talked to countless people, talk to people
all the time with this disease, parents of kids with
this disease, and try to do whatever I can seek

(12:13):
my part, to vote myself, my small self, and to
trying to help these people. And it's been incredible. It's
changed my life. So when people say what is it
about pearl Jam, there's a lot of things that's a
part of it. Stephen Hayden has been Uprocks, is cultural

(12:35):
critic co host of their weekly indie rock podcast, Indiecast.
He has written several books and the one that we
focus on here is called Long Road Pearl Jam and
the Soundtrack of a Generation. It was fun to geek
out about pearl Jam and music and will do all

(12:57):
that stuff what makes him laugh, cry, think, and then
I'll give you some pearl Jam stuff to listen to
in our post game. But right now here on the
Voice of the Nets we take a musical interlude with
Stephen Hyde. Steve, did you think this was a weird
ask to come on the Voice of the Nets podcast?

(13:20):
Not really, because I you know, there's a strong overlap
I think with sports talk and Pearl Jam fandom, because
I have talked to some other sports pods who I
think I might go on when the paperback comes out.
Like the disadvantage I had was that the book dropped
in the middle of the NFL season, so there were

(13:41):
people who are like, I want to talk about Pearl Jam,
but we have to talk about like gambling on football
games twenty four seven this time of the year. So
maybe like when the season's over, we can have you on.
But no, I mean Pearl Jam, you know, for lack
of a better term, it is kind of a jockey band,
you know, like originally named after Mookie A Luck. You know,
they're all sports fans, and I think a lot of

(14:04):
people in sports media love Pearl Jam and Jason Isabel.
Those are like the two big sports media music people.
Really I love Jason Isabel, and I didn't think he
had that kind of reach. No, Like when I've written
about Jason Isabel, there's tons of sports media action and
social media like they'll they'll retweet yeah, and he kind

(14:26):
of like when I've interviewed him or I've written columns
about Isabel, big sports media contingent, so Isabel and Pearl
Jam are like at the center of the concentric circles.
I'm going to go off in a million tangents. Where
do you consider Jason Isabel in terms of his genre? Well,
I mean he's defined as Americana, although Americana to me

(14:48):
is always a weird term that was basically made up
in the last twenty years. I think if Jason Isabel
were coming out in the eighties, he would have been
likened to Springsteen, Petty John Mellencamp, like what you sing, yeah,
and what was called heartland rock? You know, so like
middle American guitar singing about regular people. Mellancamp a little

(15:13):
bit Mellencamp's little more rock maybe, but I think Isabel
rocks too, Yeah, And I mean Mellencamp writing about like
farmers and you know, Middle American economics and stuff. You know,
I think there's definitely some overlap with Isabel there. But
you know, like that kind of music isn't defined as
rock music anymore. It tends to get absorbed into country
or Americana. Like someone like Chris Stapleton, for instance, is

(15:36):
called country, even though his music is more kind of
bluesy southern rock than country. Yeah, and I think country
has kind of moved over towards, like a lot of
countries moved over toward the American or rock stuff than
it was years ago. Maybe there's kind of a meeting
the astuct. I think at Isabel and Guys, he a
country singer or a rock singer. It's kind of in

(15:58):
the middle. Yeah, I mean I really don't hear much
country music and what he does, at least not in
a pure country kind of way. I mean he comes
from the Drive By Truckers, who are like another band
that some people might describe as Americana, but to me,
they're totally in that tradition of like heartland rock music,

(16:18):
you know, story songs about regular people with like heavy guitars.
Just because there's like a southern twang on it, it
gets classified that way. But that's a weird I mean,
you know, talking about music in sports, that's the weird
thing about music. You know, in sports, it's very definitive
what things are because it's wins and losses and stats
and everything is quantifiable. And in music, things get put

(16:40):
in certain categories for reasons that aren't totally logical sometimes,
but it's just the way it is. I mean, the
whole classification thing I think is really weird in a
lot of ways with music. By the way, as an aside,
I saw Jason Isbell at the Stone Pony summer stage
last summer and he was awesome. Oh yeah, great Stone
Poems Bruce Territory there. Yeah, I'm about I'm close by there,

(17:02):
and it's a great venue to just go in. And
then in the summer they set up a stage out
in the parking lot basically, and even if you don't
have a ticket or you're just kind of like hanging
out in Asbury and there's a show that night, you
could just be walking on the boardwalk and you hear
the music clear as day. It's great. Yeah. So if
you couldn't get into that Phoebe Bridgers show that they
had there this year, because there was like three days
worth of people lined up little you know, young girls

(17:25):
to get in there, you could still hang out on
the boardwalk and hear it. So it was cool. To
go back to what you're talking about, the car leaser.
Between what you do as a rock critic and a
writer and sports analysts and pundits, it's a very similar
thing because you argue about not argue, but you know,
you debate this team against that team, or this player

(17:46):
against that player, why this player was better than that player,
and the influences, and you also get the criticism from
the other side of As a rock critic, I would
imagine artists kind of rail against some things you may
write or say because this, well you never did it,
You never picked up a guitar and sit on a stage.
Same thing when you know sports guys go, you know,

(18:07):
players lashed back, Well, when's the last time, you know,
how good were you as a basketball player? What was
your free throw shooting percentage? You know, So it's a
very there's a kinship there, I think as well. Yeah,
although I think sports people are a little bit closer
to athletes, there is. It seems to me that there's
more of a symbiotic relationship in sports media and athletes.
Like if you can't get into the games, although I

(18:29):
guess you can watch them on television, so that's not
a huge thing, but in the locker room getting it
personal relationship, you know, that kind of thing. If you're
a reporter, it's definitely a different kind of thing. I mean,
you know, for me, I feel like I've been influenced
in a way by by sports media, because when I
used to work at this place called grant Land in

(18:49):
the mid two thousand and tens, which was Bill Simmonside
associated with ESPN, and it was mainly sports, but there
was a lot of cultural stuff and I was the
music columnists there, and you know, with music criticism there's
always this sort of existential crisis about you know, why
do people need to read music reviews when you can
basically stream anything you want and decide for yourself, like,

(19:10):
why would you read a review? And one thing I
realized working for a sports site is, you know, the
busiest days we're always after you know, something like the
Super Bowl, which clearly everyone coming to the site watched
the Super Bowl. You know, it's the most watched game,
the most watched television event every year, but people still
wanted to read about it and to listen to sports

(19:31):
podcasts about it because I think there's something about re
experiencing that kind of event through the perspective of people
that you trust or you find entertaining. And that's why,
like this week, I've been listening to sports podcasts all
week because even though I watched the NFL playoff games.
I like hearing what people that I'd like to listen

(19:52):
to you have to say about it. So I think
there's something very similar with music writing, where yeah, people
can just listen to a record and they can decide
on their own whether they like it. They don't need
to read what I have to say. But I like
to think that I offer a perspective that is interesting
and funny and entertaining. And I know that because I
hear this from people. You know, they may not have

(20:13):
someone in their life who's into music like they are,
So in a way, you're almost like their surrogate friend
that they can go to the bar with and talk
about music, even though I don't actually have a relationship
with them. They're just listening to a podcast or reading
a column one book. But I think there is a
similar kind of thing in this relationship I have with
like with sports podcasters that I listen to. It's so

(20:35):
funny you say that because reading your book, The Long Road,
the Pearl Jam book that you just wrote, and we
talked about it in the intro, I'm a Pearl Jam fanatic,
and that's why I wanted to come on and talk
Pearl Jam based on your book and this podcast. Yes,
I'm the voice of the Nets, but this is about
things that interests me and I'm passionate about. And you know,
it's been a lifelong love affair with Pearl Jam, going

(20:58):
back to when I'm twenty one, twenty two years old
and ten first comes out and I'm reading the book
and I'm saying, you know, I've been to whatever eighteen shows,
and but I don't have anybody in my life who
loves it like I do. And when I'm reading your book,
I'm going, here's somebody it loves it kind of like

(21:19):
I do. But it's kind of like I'm having a
conversation now in the book with you, and similar to
I would have with the eighteen thousand people that I'm
in Madison Square Garden with when I see Pearl Jam.
And that's really why I think I connected with it
and loved reading it so much. I devoured it. Well,
thank you. I mean, that's definitely the goal with anything
I do. I mean, I tend to write in a

(21:42):
conversational tone where I'm hopefully expressing interesting ideas, but not
doing it in a sort of typical critical way, like
I'm very cognizant of like the cliches of music writing
because there's so many same thing with sports, Yeah, same

(22:03):
thing with sports. You got to watch the terms we use.
Are we being too cliche about? Yeah? And well, like
in music writing, it tends to veer more into like
this sort of like faux academic type language where you're
talking about a band like you're a college professor, like
pontificating in a university setting. And there's something about that

(22:23):
to me that just feels so anathetical to like what
you're talking about, Like like, for me, the goal and
I'm not saying I always achieved this, but it's always
the goal. Is that, Like I like, if I'm writing
about a band like Pearl Jam, like I want this
book to feel like listening to a Pearl Jam record
or listening to a Pearl Jam bootleg. Like I want
people to kind of get the same feeling that they

(22:45):
would get from just engaging with the music, or or
at least make them want to listen to the music
after they get done reading. So I was I was
driving down I drove down to Philadelphia for a game recently,
so I have about an hour or in a fifteen
minute ride back and forth from my house in Central Jersey,
and had I had been reading your book, and I

(23:08):
went back to the chapter you talked about, you know,
when after the first three albums are just a force
of nature, and then they go sort of they debate
a little bit into No Code and then Yield. And
you talked about how much you love No Code, which
I it's always one of my favorite Pearl Jam albums,
and I know it doesn't get kind of the love

(23:28):
it deserves. But I said, like, talk about reading the
book and then wanting to go back and listen to
with a different pair of ears, so to speak. As
I said, all right, I'm going to drive down to Philly,
I'm going to listen to No Code, and then when
I come home, I'm going to listen to Yield. And
that's what I did, you know, And it was cool.
It was cool to listen to it that way, because
I remember you said, you know, Yell came out about

(23:50):
a year and a half after No Code. It was
a quick turnaround. But it said would have happened if
you said, let's do a thought project here, if you
Yield had come out before No Code, how that would
have differed. But then again, you have to put everything
in context. All I came away with is that I
love both records and I enjoyed my rides to and
from Philadelphia that night. That's great to hear. Yeah, I mean,

(24:11):
I think you know. And this is something that I've
learned from writers that I like, where I always feel
like the sign of a good book or you know,
some sort of commentary like what this is. And I
think this applies to sports too, where it doesn't matter
if I agree with the person or not. It's how

(24:33):
engaging is the person and how entertained am I by
seeing the world from their perspective for a little while.
So like if someone reads my book and they're like,
I don't agree with his take on this particular album,
my hope is that at the very least they enjoyed
my perspective on it and that it added something to
their enjoyment. And again, I think I get that with

(24:54):
sports a lot, where you often do get the person
who is aking on like the devil's advocate role with
whatever the case may be. Radio is made for that
it's just furiate you to a point you're going to
call and argue with them. And maybe it's because I
do my own kind of commentary like I usually don't
get mad at that. I'm more of like, Okay, I

(25:18):
think this is bus but I am entertained by, you know, again,
the thought experiment of it. And and some people don't
like that, you know, especially with something like like a
band like Pearl Jam, which you know, one of the
reasons I wanted to write about them is that they
are a band that I started listening to when I
was fourteen, and I still listened to them in my

(25:40):
mid forties, and you know, and I've written about I've
written other books about like classic rock and like different
music that like when it was around, I wasn't even alive,
so I kind of come at it from a different perspective.
But when you actually grow up with an artist or
a band, it's a very interesting experience. And to be

(26:03):
connected to something that you liked when you were a
teenager when really there's nothing else about your life that's
the same It really, I think speaks to the power
of a band like that, because really it's like the
only thing that connects you to a version of yourself
that no longer exists, you know, like like if like
if Pearl Jam didn't exist anymore, I don't know what

(26:25):
else would I don't know what else I'd have in
common with my fourteen year old self, like probably nothing. Yeah,
you know, so I love music. Did you love music
back then? I mean, you love music, But were there
I guess you're saying, yeah, Pearl Jams the one that
you grew up with, right, Well, I mean there's other
bands too. I mean I wrote a book about I
wrote a book about Radiohead before this one, and Radioheads

(26:46):
another example of you know, like their first song dropped
in ninety two, so you know that early nineties period
definitely fertile. But yeah, I mean I had a little
more of a they had a little more of a
ramp up. Yeah, Pearl Jam. You know, Pearl Jam first
album is the big one of the greatest, biggest rock records.
It's it's almost like if Bokay Computer had been the
first Radiohead record, you know, how would that have affected them?

(27:11):
And that's like a blessing and a curse for Pearl Jam,
you know, And it's something that I write about in
the book that you know, this is a band that
in many ways is still defined by definitely the first record,
maybe the second and third, but like I know, the
songs I hear the most on the radio are still
the songs from ten and that speaks to the power

(27:32):
of that record. But it also is limiting to Pearl
Jam because I think that the band that they became
and are today isn't on that record. I mean, they
were so young at that point and obviously coming up
with great songs, but it wasn't until they had been
on the road for a while and went through a

(27:54):
couple of drummers and you know, went through all these
trials and tribulations that they you know, sort of fully evolved.
I mean, that's but this is one of the fascinating
things about them. You know that this snapshot of a
band that was just kind of coming together is the
thing that really hit it big. And yeah, it just
had such good timing. I think people were just looking

(28:15):
for a band like that, I think at the time.
To me, I think what what I gravitated towards them
early on was I'm probably a little bit older than you,
so I I'm just out of college when they first
hit the scene. So I've gone through all the teenage

(28:35):
stuff and the college stuff and development, and now I'm
an adult and I'm going out into the world. But
you know you're coming from at the time, you know,
rock was the hair bands and the White Snake and
things like that, and even you know, even even a
great rock band that I love so much, like Van Halen,
had gone into the Haygard van Halen and it was
a little more poppy, and you know, they were thinking

(28:58):
about girls and cars and you know, and and then
hair came Pearl Jam and there was an earnestness about it.
There was a seriousness about it. There was we're talking
about mental health, and we're talking about relationships and heartbreak.
And I mean and and I'm a kid in my
young twenties and I'm only a couple of years older
than they are, and I think what I've gravitated was

(29:22):
there was something that was real to me. And I
loved the beat and I love the guitars. So all
of that really just kind of sucked me in. And
and they have kind of evolved. They you know, they
they survived that early part and then they evolved and
they've been like us. They got married, they had kids,

(29:45):
they faced their their their their thoughts on their their
hopes and fears have evolved and changed over the years.
And I think I think that's the reason why to
me their music still makes sense, they're still relevant at
least to me, and why they've had this longevit and
I still look forward to new music from them, you know,
thirty years later. Yeah. There's a term that Matt Cameron

(30:09):
used to describe Pearl Jam, and I write about this
in the book. He says, Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron,
for anybody who's gotten this far and isn't a huge
Pearl Jam came into the band and around the Yield
tour and has been there ever since. He called it
punk rock arena rock, which was this idea that on
one hand, Pearl Jam is obviously this hugely successful band

(30:30):
that plays arenas even stadiums, and musically they come from
a lineage that you could draw like to the Who, Zeppelin, Springsteen,
elements of that. But at the same time as being
this huge band, there is that diy punk aspect of
what they do, where they're really trying to exist in

(30:53):
an ethical kind of way, where they're operating outside of
the normal music industry, and to reconcile those two worlds
is really, I think something that's unique to Pearl Jam,
like even other grunge bands at the time that were
critical of the music industry, they didn't separate themselves in
the same way that that Pearl Jam did, like like

(31:14):
Nirvana in a way was chewed up by the music
industry because they weren't able. Cobain wasn't able to separate
himself from like the machine that really lashed onto them
after never mind, but you know, starting with like the
ticketmaster battle in the mid nineties, which people I've been
talking about now again because of their swift story twenty

(31:36):
years ahead of their time, thirty years ahead of their time,
and how just how unprecedented I think it still is
for a band that five, there was no band more
popular than Pearl Jam to not just take the money
and run, you know, because they could have just toured
and made tens of millions of dollars playing, you know,

(31:59):
as in probably even stadiums. I mean, they played Soldier
Field in ninety five for like, I think seventy eighty
thousand people, um. But instead of doing that, they actually
took a real stand against the music industry and took
a huge hit for it. And basically no one else
stepped in, you know, to join the fight and it

(32:20):
just died. But I think that just speaks to this
band's willingness to really put the money where their mouth is.
Like I mean, there was an Instagram in Twitter back then,
but you know, like most bands, if they're talking about Ticketmaster,
they do like a sharply worded tweet and that's it.
You know. They don't testify in front of Congress. They

(32:42):
don't like try to set up their own ticketing the
whole tour. I mean, they couldn't play venues. I mean
the first show I saw a Pearl Jam was at
Randall's Island in uh in Manhattan. It's an island between
Manhattan and Queens and it was like a horseshoe old
soccer stadium. Um, it's terrible to try and get on

(33:03):
and off of. And it's just like you know, like
there were there were all these venues that could have
played New York City, but because they're battling ticket Master,
you had to go see him there. Um. And I
also think that, you know, they've always kept their ticket
prices low, and I think part of the reason they
ever played stadiums, And you know, I mean did a
couple of these like one off kind of things that
you know, Fenway or Seattle. You know, but the intimacy

(33:26):
with the audience is better in an arena, right, And
I think I think that's in the back of their
mind too, Like, yeah, we could go three do three
shows here at MetLife Stadium in the Medallands and probably
sell it out. I don't know. Maybe they couldn't sell it.
I think they would, um, but it's you know, they
those stadium shows sound like crap a lot of times,
and you don't have a good seed. It's not a
great experience. But you know, to see him in in

(33:48):
Barkley Center like I did in twenty thirteen, or to
see him in in uh, you know, amphitheaters and things
like that, like it's a much better experience between the
fan and the band. And I think that's another reason
that's happened going for so long. I mean, I will
say that my favorite Pearl Jam show I've ever been
to was at Wrigley Field in twenty thirteen. So again
that's not like going and just playing like a tour

(34:10):
of football stadiums. That's like that Wrigley is there's something
specialist that Eddie had the connection, like there was a
magicness or magicness, a magical quality to that that I
think it's captured great in Danny Clinch's film you know,
Let's Let's Play two, which made my teenage son a
fan of Pearl Jam by the way, from that show.
But yeah, no, a great show. I mean, I will

(34:31):
say that, And this is the case I make in
the book that you know, I think Pearl Jam has
put out a lot of great records, but I think
that their ultimate legacy is as a live band, and really,
starting in like around two thousand, I think that that
was something that really became the focal point of what
they do. And when you talk about bands that play

(34:53):
arenas or even stadiums, I put Pearl Jam on the
shortlist with like Springsteen and YouTube as far as bands
that can work in that kind of environment and make
it feel intimate, you know, And that's a really hard
thing to do. But again, like you go see Bruce

(35:14):
in that kind of environment and he can shrink the
size of a huge space. YouTube I've seen them do
the same thing, and Pearl Jam does that too, and
I think, you know, and I think with Pearl Jam
even more than Springsteen, I think part of the secret
sauce with them is that they don't play the same

(35:35):
set list every night, and there is a feeling of
spontaneity when they're on stage, even when they're playing these
huge venues. And typically when you're playing these big places,
that's when things are at their most choreographed because it's
a logistically difficult with the lights and the sound, and
you just want to make sure that or that the

(35:56):
TV screens. You know, you want to make sure that
the show comes off well. But with Pearl Jam, they've
they've really mastered the art of playing these big places
and making it feel like you're in a club in
the band is making up the set lists as they
go along, you know, even if they already even if
they actually have a setlist. Again, it's that feeling a

(36:18):
spot in aity I think really special to them, and
for a band of that stature to a point where
I think people go people think they could just kind
of hurl the requests at them, and they can just
do it. And they can more than a lot of
bands could because they can do it on the fly.
You don't know about the stuff on the side. Well,

(36:39):
the guitar tuning's got to be right, which one. You know,
we're going from this key to that key. We can't
play two songs and back to back or whatever that
you know, the real this is real, how the sausage
is made. But yeah, it does feel like it's a
total improv show. And it's like, you know, here in
the New York area, we're lucky enough where they'll they
come to a city like this and they'll play three shows, right,

(37:00):
and I'll go to all three and people in my
life like, what do you do all? I like because
it's a different show every night. Yeah, it's not seeing
the same show. It's fascinating because you know, I'm also
I'm a fan of a Grateful Dead and I like Fish,
and I have a lot of friends who are into
those kind of bands, and they will ask me why

(37:23):
do Pearl Jam fans go to so many shows? It's
not like they're you know, because if a band like
The Dead or Fish, I mean, they're obviously they're improvising
a lot. And that's a big part of why people
listen to those bands, And with Pearl Jam, they're not.
They sometimes get likened to jam bands, but they're not
really a jam band. And the thing I try to
put across is that even if it's like the fiftieth

(37:47):
version of Rear View Mirror that you've heard. Yeah, there's
something about the way Pearl Jam can and I hope
this makes sense, but it's almost like they can play
the vibe of a room, you know, which is I
think something that the great artists do. Again, I think
Springsteen does this because because Springsteen has a similar following

(38:08):
where people obsessively go to his shows and they collect bootlegs,
even if he's not dramatically changing arrangements of songs from
night to night. But with those artists, they can play
the environment of the room where the vibe just makes
it different, even if you couldn't pinpoint dramatic differences. It's

(38:31):
maybe Eddie says something in the middle of the song,
or there's like some sort of interesting little diversion here
or there. These things just pay off in unexpected ways
if you're a fan, you know. And that's another thing
I write about it in the book that I think
is so fascinating with a band like this, Like if
you dig deep and you're like one of those like

(38:53):
I'm a bootleg guy, I'm going to listen to all
these live shows there are certain aspects of music that
open up that are not apparent to someone who's just
like a casual listener. One of my favorite moments in
life is being at a Pearl Jam show just as
they're about to come on stage, because there's another element

(39:17):
to it that you never know how they're going to start.
And you know I've been there, you'll you'll have a
room like you'll be a Madison Square Garden of the
place would be charged up and ready to explode. And
I think, going to what you said, they kind of
sense that and they may come out and just do
sometimes or do release something that's a slow burn. And

(39:41):
even this last I didn't get I was working. I
was in Arizona doing a football game, and I couldn't
go to the Garden show this past the tour, you know,
when they played the they played the Apollo and then
they played Madison Square Garden. But the friends I know
that were there, it was like, here's this. The place
is just ready to go crazy. And they come out
sitting down in the first three songs, and you know,

(40:03):
like or they may just come out at one time.
I show him with the Garden. They come out with
Go and it's just like from from to Jump, you know,
the place is just shaking, and and that's the other
aspect of it. I love it too. I can I
think I've been I think around eighteen shows or I
mean I can remember every time how it started. Yeah,

(40:25):
you know, but it's so cool. Yeah. They are really
the masters of like the quiet opener, because like you know,
like you said, like you opened with sometimes or you
opened with release. Uh. Hard to Imagine was one that
I show this random show in Camden, like on a
Tuesday night in the summer, and it opened with hard
to Imagine and you could feel it. It was emotional

(40:49):
in the crowd and even Eddiet said at one point
during the during the tour that when the strong starts
to wind down, he goes, ah, it sounds great, it's great, already,
he goes, already. First show. You can tell first song.
I mean, you know, the thing with with Pearl Jam
is that you can tell that those guys are all
music fans. And I don't think that that's necessarily a

(41:11):
common thing, especially when a band has been around for
a while. Sometimes I think musicians can get a little
jaded and they don't retain that the awe of being
a fan. But I think that those guys have been
able to hold on to that where they can go
see artists that they love and they can just be
a person in the crowd and appreciate what a band does.

(41:34):
And I think that they take that and they put
it into their own band, because they are a band
that I think does have a flair for the dramatic,
you know, and for great rock moments. And you only
really know that as a musician, I think is if
you still have that fan inside of you, you know,

(41:56):
like where you can go to a show, being a
crowd and appreciate when a band just does something special
and you're like, I want to do something like that
at my show. Like that's the feeling I get. Like
when I see Eddie Vetter on stage, it's like, Okay,
this guy he's studied the who, he studied Springsteen, he
studied all these grades, Joe Strummer, and he can integrate

(42:21):
all those lessons into this band and kind of carry
it forward. There is a little bit of a workman
like quality. You talked about it in the book too,
and sometimes it's it's used as a criticism of the band,
and it's used as a I think we're we're doing
an appreciation of the band of technicians. They're a workman

(42:42):
like like even though it seems loose, we know that
it's rehearsed, even though um, you know they want to
they're rock stars, but they're like, guys, you they're a
famous wit their video right when they haven't years ago.
When I forget the DVD where they're all punching in
at the studio, they have the old Panchi punch clock

(43:03):
when they go in. That's like, like, what is that call?
It's like the yield there, I think when they're working
on yields. Yeah, yeah, like it has that brown cover
single video theory. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, so
they have that and so um but I think you
respect that, and it goes back to yes, they've they're

(43:24):
they're fans of other things, they study other things. This
is a craft, this is not, you know, but they
love it and and I think that goes off to
our love for it. And you know, you mentioned too
about the band, and I think so many people, the
casual fan just they think of Pearl Jam and they go, oh,
yeah that's Eddie Vetter. Oh you love Eddie Vetter And

(43:45):
I as you. We're doing this on zoom. Right behind me,
I have this great Danny Clinch photo of the band
just sitting together in a warehouse laughing and the five
of them, And it's just because that's the vibe that
I love. There's that quote from Stone Goshad years ago
about out he doesn't he goes, I don't know what
it is about us, but somehow we inspire Eddie to play,

(44:06):
and Eddie inspires us to jump around like idiots and
it just works. Yeah, and you know that that relationship
over the years has been I think would also I'm
not like I didn't find an urgency when they were
doing Temple of the Dog shows like where I had
to be there. Meanwhile, it was really just it's Chris

(44:27):
Cornell playing with Pearl Jam without Eddie Better, right, But
it's something about what's Eddie better? And it's that band
together that really has always kept me attached. Yeah, I mean,
I think it goes back to like what I was
saying before about when you have a band that you've
been connected with for a long time, like a big
part of your life, there is a sort of transference

(44:51):
that goes on. I think as an audience where they
become like family members to you, like you know you
they're not really family members, but there's something It's like
when you can go home to your hometown and you
can see people that you went to high school with
and you can still talk to them and it feels
normal and you don't have to see them. You don't
have to talk to them like every day. You may
only talk to them like once a year or once

(45:13):
every two years, but there's something about that. It just
grounds you in a reality that is reassuring, you know,
like in a world like where it just feels like
everything is so transient and things are falling apart and moving,
you know, this goes there. This goes there to feel
that you have roots in something I think is something
that everyone needs. And it might be in music, it

(45:36):
might be because you, like you've liked the same sports
team your whole life, but I mean I really think
that that's the root of it. Like the ritual. The
power of ritual in life, I think is a really
big thing that we all need. And like I don't
go to church, but I go to rock shows, like
that's my community. That's like where I get that feeling
from and you know, going back to like the workman

(45:59):
like comment. You know, I think with Pearl Jam, they
devoted themselves to being performing They devoted themselves to being
performing artists at some point, and that was going to
be something that kept them together and kept them from
falling into like a lot of these pitfalls that a

(46:20):
lot of their peers fell into, like where it's not
about being a great live band, it's about having a
huge record and lots of hit singles and music videos
and competing with other bands and all of the sort
of music industry stuff that inevitably choose people up and
that you really don't have any control over as a band.

(46:41):
An alternative to that is, let's just be a great
live band. Let's connect to an audience, Let's focus on
our people and not worry about the outside world, you know.
And that's something that they learned from. Like The Grateful Dead,
they had a some more thing like we're not going
to be part of the music industry. We're going to
have our own world, you know, Like someone like Bob

(47:02):
Dylan does that. Like Bob Dylan tours every year because
the performing artist aspect of what he does is really important,
and it's like you perform all the time. You approach
it like a job, but it's also an art, you know.
And I think it's very clarifying for artists to have
that kind of perspective, because it's so easy to get

(47:23):
lost in all of these other things that don't matter
but end up being really destructive to bands. And I
really think with Pearl Jam that's a big deal because
if you look at a lot of their peers, they
didn't make it, you know, and a lot of the
Eddie Vetters Piers specifically, these lead singers, most of them
died in very self destructive ways, and you can see

(47:47):
that the other people just got lost somewhere. They didn't
have the same sort of sense of purpose. I think
that Pearl Jam ultimately has had to me, that's at
the core of like why they've been able to survive.
The best line of the book, I don't mind if
I give away a line. I mean, it's I don't

(48:08):
want people like a spoiler, but because it hit me
and it was great, it was a great line. You
were talking about, um, you know, you're kind of touching
on what we're talking about, how they kind of needed
each other, and you talked about the evolution of the
song better Man, which is one of their their best
known songs, and there's grainy footage of Eddie Vetter doing

(48:29):
the song with this band called Bad Radio, which was
so aptly which is not an ironic band name at all.
They were just they were they were a bad band. Uh,
but Eddie Vetter was the lead singer and they're they're
playing better Man and it's just it's not good. And
then you talk about the evolution of it and playing

(48:49):
it now with Pearl Jam, and your line was it
turned out that better Man needed better men and yeah,
and that that struck it as like, yeah, that's is
you know, Eddie Vetter needed needed Stone Gossard and Jeff
Ayman and Mike McCready and whatever drummer the day it was, um,
but but they needed him. And then the way it

(49:11):
evolved too. You have to take care of each other,
you know, we both earn agreement day Bob berzz or
whoever you want to say it or spell it like
you said in the book. Um, I thought he's great
on versus in Bytology. Some of my favorite those are
maybe my two favorite Parl Jam albums, right, and he's
on them and it's great, But you know what, he

(49:33):
didn't inspire Eddie Vetter. He Eddie Vetter didn't like him,
He didn't want him to be around. So you know what,
for the sake of the band, that's got to change.
Who's more important, you know, that's got to change. When
Mike McCree was going through his issues with substance abuse
and things like that, like they were there for him.

(49:53):
They they encouraged him, they stuck by him, and and
they got him through that. You know, like they've been
there for each each other over the years, like like
you said, a family, it's been a family and they've survived.
Like and I think that's still why we talk about
him today in such nuance, is that, Yeah, there the
odds were stacked against them and they survived. Yeah, it's

(50:17):
I mean, I write about this in the intro to
the book that I'm fascinated by rock bands, and especially
long running rock bands, So like how do they function?
Why does some bands break up? Why does some bands
stay together for thirty or forty years? And Pearl Jam
is just so unique, I think in a lot of ways.
I mean, their career arc is really unique, just how

(50:38):
big they were in the early nineties and how they
were able to navigate out of that and maintain a
big audience without having really any kind of mainstream profile.
You know, like, this is a band that isn't going
to go on the Grammys or play the Super Bowl

(50:58):
halftime show or do any these big promo things, and
it's by choice that they don't do it, and yet
they're still able to maintain this big fan base and
huge grassroots support, and that's fascinating. And the thing you're
just talking about the relationship between the band members and
how it really started out as like Jeff and Stone's

(51:19):
band and Eddie Vetter being this new guy from out
of town, and then within a few years it just
being a parent that this guy is a great songwriter
and also just incredibly charismatic and you know, you're replaceable
front man, and like how do you reconcile that? Like
how do you deal with the power struggle of that?

(51:42):
Like Stone Gossard could have easily said I'm the man
in charge and you have to do what I say,
and then in the band would have been over at
that point, Or Eddie Vetter could have just been a
total tyrant and negotiated to get all the other guys
out of the band just had hired guns in Pearl

(52:02):
Jam and the record company would have been fine with that.
I'm sure if that's what Eddie Vetter would have wanted,
like in nineteen ninety six, that type of guy, Yeah,
and that would have been the same and that would
have ruined the band. They wouldn't have lasted. But you know,
these are all scenarios that have happened in other bands,
you know, where the ego takes control and it destroys

(52:27):
whatever was special about the band. I mean, that's that's
more common than not really, Yeah, And it always ends
up a fight over money or control and it rips
bands apart. And that Pearl Jam was able to negotiate
that will also being under just incredible scrutiny in the nineties,

(52:48):
which you know, I hope you know, people who read
this book. I know it's going to be fans of
the band that's going to be the primary audience. But
it is my hope that there's people that don't know
much about Pearl Jam and maybe there's some new appreciation
that they can get from this book about the band,
because I do feel like younger people don't know how

(53:13):
huge this band was and how huge they were in
a way that seems inconceivable now for a rock band,
you know, because they really were like Taylor Swift for
about five years, like that was how popular they were.
And yeah, there's just no way to there's no modern
equivalent of that. There's no band like Pearl Jam that

(53:35):
sells a million records in one week, you know, and
and that that Cold TV. You know, like no one's
we're never going to approach an audience level of shine Feld. Well,
but there's still people or something like that. But like
Taylor Swift can sell a million records in a week now,
I mean, there are artists that sell that big. Yeah. Yeah,
it's not like, yeah, it's not a rock band that

(53:57):
you know what that that loves Neil Young, you know
what I mean. Yeah, And it's a different you know,
with social media, it's different, and there's a lot more
avenues to success that you can just kind of put
out records on your own. There's a lot there's a
lot of elements where you could go into a crazy
long time here. The book is Long Road Pearl Jam
and the soundtrack of Generation. I'll tell you a couple
of things just before I let you go, because I can.

(54:18):
I can get your ear for hours and hours and hours.
But um, the one thing you really captured that made
me kind of like yell out loud and pump my
fist when I read it. It was right early in
the book, because um, there's a there was a tipping
point for me with Pearl Jam. There was like, I know,

(54:40):
I know, Actually you've been on Brian Koppelman's podcast that
I know is his podcast is called the Moment right
where Yeah, So the moment for me that connected me
to the band and I knew this is gonna be
my favorite band forever. Similar to like a sports team
where you go through as a kid and you you
have a great favorite player and that's going to be
your team for the rest of your life. Um So
I wear out ten the first album, like like a

(55:02):
lot of people can't get enough of it, love it.
It's incredible change in my life right musically, and then
the build up is always going to be what are
they gonna do next? Right, what's the second album going
to be? Because some second albums are just written on
tour buses and they just sound like the first And
then it just kind of fades after that, So are
you gonna are you gonna punch the second album and

(55:24):
really really solidify your fandom with everything? And so the
MTV Music Awards are coming up again. This is going
back to people who don't wear kids who maybe don't
remember this. That was a huge deal back then, and
a band like Pearl Jam would never play the MTV
Music Awards now, But at that time, it was like,
all right, I know they're gonna play somehow because some
DJ on a radio probably said it, because again we

(55:47):
didn't have Twitter or Instagram or any of that stuff,
and they were going to play a song from the
new album. And now I'm like, this was like like
like a big game, Like I had to make sure
I was in front of the TV and from the
start of the MTV Video Music Awards, and I had
to see what's going to happen next, what's going to
happen from my new favorite band. And it's like a

(56:09):
month before the record comes out too, by the yeah,
we should say that, so yeah, so no, certainly nothing's
leaked out. You didn't hear verses on the radio or something.
All of a sudden, they just come out and it's
the visual for everybody. You can go on YouTube, although
it doesn't sound great on YouTube, but you can find
it because I would go back and watch it all
the time. Eddie Vetter doesn't move from the mic stand.

(56:31):
His arms are crossed. It's like he's in a straight jacket.
His hair is in front of his down, in front
of his eyes. The band is bouncing around like like pinballs,
and they're playing Animal, which is the heavy probably still
one of the heaviest songs that Pearl Jam has and
still maybe my favorite song of Pearl Jams, and that
was it. I was just struck by lightning at that moment,

(56:53):
and I was like, this is my favorite band forever.
I mean, as long as they're gonna put out music,
I'm gonna be interested in this band. And they just
continued to surprise you for years and years and years.
So I was so happy you captured that as a
moment in your book. That was like a pivotal moment
in the band. So obviously you must have had a
very similar reaction to what I. Oh, totally, and you know,

(57:16):
not only Animal, but then Neil Young comes out and
they do Rocket Rocket World, which so it's like ten
minutes really of this live Pearl Jam show that was
just incredible. I mean, you know, I was thinking as
you were talking. I was just thinking about the power
of like live TV performances and how it was just
different at that time. And I don't know when I'm

(57:37):
trying to think of like the last great TV live
performance that changed how people looked at a band, I mean,
because it's been a little while. And again it's because
media has changed so much. Because there was that performance
that was so huge, and then there was their MTV
Unplugged about a year before that, and I write about

(57:57):
this in the book too, Pearl g I'm doing porch
on the MTV Unplugged where Eddie Vedder is. There's a
long instrumental section and he's like surfing, He's like bodysurfing
on his stool and he writes like pro choice on
his arm, and then there's this part where you know

(58:18):
it's going to go back into the main section of
the song and Eddie starts howling and I counted, I
forget how many seconds it was. I think it's about
twenty seconds, like hey, you know, and it's like a
grunge growl you oh my god. It's like because when
you were doing the lead up there, I almost thought
you were going to talk about that, Yeah, because that's

(58:41):
another one where you're just like, holy can I swear
on the showy? Holy shit? Man, Like this is unbelievable,
just incredible. Yeah, I mean, they just were able to
kill it. For a band that was so averse to
doing television, they killed it on television, like whenever they
did a live TV performance, especially in that era. It

(59:02):
was just I'm sure that added like a million copies
and sales to ten that performance alone. And unfortunately it
wasn't before the HD era or the or the uh
you know where it was the triangle or am I
trying to say the wider screen because it almost needed
a wider screen to contain all of it that was happening.
Yet Eddie is just never moves from his spot, and

(59:25):
he's and he's literally barking at one point. Yeah, I remember,
I remember their line for Chris Cornell had said something
like I never trust singers you don't move around. But
Eddie's different, you know, like there's a there's a silent
intensity um. And then you talked about the the unpluged
thing where he's on porch porches the song and people
don't know when in live is it has this long,

(59:45):
extended break in the middle, and Eddie would take that
opportunity to basically climb the rafters or climb on top
of speakers and things, and they thought he was going
to like kill himself one day off by falling or
diving into the crowd and on the Unplugged thing, like
he was confined to this chair, so it's like what
you could just feel all the pent up energy, Like

(01:00:06):
he wants to really go swinging from the raptors of
the studio, but I have to just make it work
with this chair. So he's surfing it, he's he's on
top of it, he's writing on his arm like it's
just he's just It's amazing though when you think about
the evolution of him, yeah, years well and yeah, he
wasn't able to climb the rafters, but like he threw
all of that reckless abandon into his vocal and it

(01:00:29):
is like a goose bump inducing moment. And I really
feel like a lot of people saw that because that
episode of Unplugged it debuted the same month that ten
went platinum, so like it had already been successful and
then that summer of ninety two was when Pearl Gemmania,
I think really took over because they were on Lallapalooza.

(01:00:51):
You had Hunger Strike, you had the single soundtrack, and
then you had all the hits from ten and he
had this MTV Unplugged special airing all the time time
and you know a lot of people like me, like
I didn't get to see Pearl jam in nineteen ninety two,
but I saw that and then I saw the MTV
Video Music Awards performance and I was like, Okay, this

(01:01:12):
band is uh that's you see that kind of stuff,
and that's the thing that makes you want to collect
bootlegs because you're like, this band they do something special
on stage that even the records, which are really good,
don't capture. There's energy there. I think live it just
elevates everything that they do. And people will say, well,

(01:01:32):
they're they're putting out all these live performances. I mean,
you touched onto the book too. Critics who say it
was a money grab or something like that, and you're like,
first of all, the ticket prices are low to begin well,
they know, unless you buy from a scalper. But it
was almost like if anybody who's ever going to a
great concert, if you can walk out and they can go, hey,
would you love recording a soundboard recording of that? You'd
be like, oh, oh my god, yes, you know, so

(01:01:55):
that's a service that you gave your fan. And they
didn't they didn't edit it. If there was a bad
head show or something they didn't think was as good,
they didn't say, or we're not including that. This warts
and all well for you. And the other thing about
the money grap thing is anyone that was a fan
at that time, you know, if you were going to
go to a record store, there was always like Pearl
Jam bootlegs for sale that would be like thirty dollars

(01:02:18):
or forty in the band yeah yeah, and you had
no idea what they sounded like, you know, so, but
you would buy them because you'd be like, oh wow,
this this looks cool. And sometimes it'd be good, but
most of the time they were awful. So to have
a bootleg that was only ten to fifteen dollars and
it was a soundboard was actually a great deal, you know.
So it was really just responding to the market. I mean,

(01:02:40):
people were buying this stuff anyway, and they were buying
really poor versions of it. Yeah, that was one of
the like, oh, let's give you, let's get you a good,
good copy of this. Yeah. If you if you notice
too when you go through these bootlegs or even you
saw them in the nineties and you see them now,
I think, um, there's a lightness of being now to

(01:03:00):
Vetter and probably the whole band that I've noticed. And
I think the change maybe around when he started, you
got married, started having kids. I think it's like all
of us, he reflects a lot of the generation that
grew up with him is I think they went to
where they're comfortable in their own skin, They're happy with
where they are, and when you go to it went

(01:03:22):
from being like these intense shows a little bit of angst,
and so now it's like a celebration and yet it's
still new music too. Yeah. My theory and Eddie Vetter,
and I've said this before, but I think that when
he was in his twenties, he really wanted to be
a rock guy. In his fifties, you know, because those

(01:03:43):
are the people that he looked up to. He looked
up to Neil Young, he looked up to Pete Townsend,
Joe Strummer, these middle aged guys that had a long
history and that they were survivors. You know. I think
with Eddie Vetter, the anxiety that he had in the nineties,
a lot of it arrived from the feeling that he
had gotten too much too quickly, and that in his

(01:04:04):
own mind that point, or that he hadn't earned it,
you know, because there was so much success so early on.
And I think part of his contentment now is that
there's no question that he's earned it. You know. Now
he has the kind of career that Pete Townsend had,

(01:04:25):
like when he started hanging out with Pete Townsend. Like
now he's the guy in his fifties who's been in
a band for thirty years and he's gone through all
of these things, and you know, it took him a
while to get to this point, but I think this
is where he always wanted to be, you know, I
think this is what he wanted to be. He didn't
want to be a twenty six year old guy who

(01:04:46):
was like the hot young thing and the pop star
and the heart throb. He wanted to be like the
wise guy who's been around, who has mile John the
tires and has great stories and you know that kind
of guy. I think that's the kind of person he
always looked up to, and now he's that guy. But
he was wise enough to listen to the examples absolutely,

(01:05:08):
you know, I think you know and again, like you
can know, there's so much you can psycho analyze here,
but I mean he was certainly looking for a father figure,
and there were a lot of musical father figures I
think in his life at a time when he was
really confused, and that was clearly beneficial for him. Yeah.
You you have a very poignant moment in the book

(01:05:31):
where you talked about Scott Wilin and him in the
difference Scott wild of course from Stone Temple Pilots to
everybody's saying, you know, he was doing an Eddie Vetter impression,
and you know, you talk about how it's not really fair,
and they made some really good records, and they did.
And I like Stone Temple Pilots, whereas I didn't like
a lot of the other so called influenced bands, but
I liked STP. But you said, like Eddie Vetter, you know,

(01:05:54):
found Pete Townsend, Scott Wiland found Heroin, right, you know,
it was like those paths could have gone a number
of different ways. Yeah, yeah, like yeah, I mean in
the book I read about how and I'm paralleling their
their lives a little bit like in ninety three when

(01:06:15):
both bands were huge, and how both guys were unhappy,
and it just turns into a thing, and it's true
for so many people, like who's around you, what's your
support network? Like? And Eddie fortunately he was able to
have a good support network and Scott Wilden didn't, you know,
and that it's not that that explains everything about how

(01:06:37):
their lives and careers diverged, But I mean, I think
that's certainly part of it, and I think a significant
part of it. And even when you hear you know,
obviously we talked about Chris Cornell and in Nirvana and
things like that. Guys who end up killing a kircopanions
I'm killing himself, like people always were like worried that
that might happen. Eddie better one day, But when you

(01:06:58):
listen to him talk about it now in adulthood, you know,
he listen to him on Howard Stern or when he
talked about people in his life who have done that,
he didn't look at it like, oh, I could see
why they did. No, he was like he was angry,
like Eddie. Eddie doesn't doesn't understand how you can do that,
and he doesn't understand it can cause that grief to

(01:07:18):
the people in your life who love you. And you
almost get a sense of his psychology there too, that
he was a little more grounded and with it than outside.
People didn't know him, probably thought he might might have
been as fragile as we thought. Um not to say,
you know, not to psychoanalyze Eddie better. I know that's
at the point of this because I just like, I
hate doing that, and I hate trying to defend my

(01:07:40):
fandom or the band. I just like enjoy it, you know, well,
you know, I mean, I think the thing you can
say for sure if you look at his songs that
Eddie Vetter is a humanist. You know he is. I
think from his songs, the impression I get is that
he thinks that people are inherently good, you know, like
he there's not many cynical songs that he's written. In

(01:08:02):
the cynical songs that he has done, I think ring
false like a song like Rats, for instance, from verses.
It doesn't ring as true to me as a song
like Elderly Woman behind the Counter in a Small Town,
which is a song about having empathy for you know,
this older woman who is whose life hasn't turned out

(01:08:22):
the way she wants it to be, which, by the way,
what an extraordinary song for a rock star like in
his mid to late twenties to write like There weren't
a lot of dudes and bands writing songs about like
old women at the time, but or you even mentioned
he writes from the perspective of women a lot, right.
He does that throughout his career, and I think that

(01:08:43):
speaks to his inclination to empathize with people and to
to care about where they come from. And and so
I know that that's true of his songs, and it
leads me to believe that like if you, if you
have that perspective in your in your art, I think
it stands to reason that in life in general, you're

(01:09:06):
going to probably be a class as half full person,
you know, And I think it also speaks to the
you know, that's also why the band I'm sure is
so into activism. You know, that they've never lost that
idealism that a rock band can change the world in
a positive way. Which just saying that out loud, we'll

(01:09:27):
strike a lot of people as being corny and naive,
you know. But yeah, Pearl Jam I think has always
taken that to heart, that like we're in a band,
we have an audience, a platform, and we can use
that to affect a positive change, whether it's fighting Ticketmaster
or you know, doing all the charitable work that they
do on a more low key Yeah, in a more

(01:09:48):
low key way. But you know, it's not just railing
against the president or politicians. It's it's actually doing work
that will help people. Yeah. And again it's like a
very humanist point of view. It's like a you know,
we fundamentally think that people are good and that if
given a chance, they can be helped, you know. And

(01:10:10):
that's another thing I'm sure that's that's helped them leather
a lot of hard times, you know, and a lot
of the university that they've had. I think if you
always have that in your mind is truth. Like we
talked to Tony Realley on this podcast from ESPN and
you know, saying how his battles with mental health, and

(01:10:30):
he would say, you know, I said, how do you
get past the point of you know, narcissism versus trying
to get the whole battle of mental health and you know,
trying to deal with your inner demons. How does it
not cross the path into narcisism that you're only concerned
about yourself and trying to get it. And he says, well,
the best way to do it is to think about
helping others to help, it'll make you feel better. And

(01:10:53):
I think that's the kind of thing that if you
always have that as your truth, I'm going to help
people at even when when Pearl James getting booed in
Nassau Coliseum, and I think it was two thousand and three, right,
because they're playing Bush Leaguer, and it's like he didn't
just give him the middle finger and screw you and
walk off the stage. He tried to just win him

(01:11:14):
over and remind them of the shared commonality of their
goals in life to be happy and UM look out
for each other, humanist like you said, Yeah, I there's
one other thing. And before I I you also mentioned
Mike McCready being your favorite member of the band. Um,

(01:11:35):
I have a I have a Mike McCready anecdote if
you want to hear it. Of course, that goes to
that because I admire him too the way he's gone
through some of the adversity in his life. Um with it,
the the ibs that he has, and then he had,
you know, he had problems with alcohol. He talked about
how you know they did staring at live that time.

(01:11:57):
He didn't remember that they did, daughter, you know, like right,
and so people overcoming that and I um, they played
see here now at Asbury Park a few years ago.
It was the first shows they got back to after
the pandemic. And my wife was kind enough for my
fiftieth birthday to have gotten me like the ultra VIP

(01:12:17):
package to go see this show because they were there.
And you know, we're as very all the time. It's
a great it's a special place to us. And to
think that Pearl Jam was coming there was unbelievable, you know,
and so I part of it. I got this hotel
room in this little, this nice luxury condo building and
one floor of it as a hotel, and I'm even
in my mind, I'm going, I wonder Pearl Jam staying here,

(01:12:41):
Like there's no it's not like there's a ritz Carliner
four seasons around here, like this might be where they are,
so I'm happy to be. The Friday before the festival,
I'm waiting outside the hotel for my wife to come.
She was moving the car, and I'm a wheelchair user,
so I was I was out on the street and
I'm sitting there and there's nobody else around. It's a

(01:13:01):
gray day, and all of a sudden, Mike McCready walks
by with his wife and they go into they're about
to go into the hotel, and I said, here's my moment.
I mean, yeah, yeah, like, I can't let this go,
so I just go, hey, Mike. He just kind of
turns and hey, Hi, you know, like I go, uh, Mike,
I just need to tell you that, um, your music

(01:13:25):
has been the soundtrack of my life for thirty years
and I can't tell you how much I appreciate. And
he just was. He just came over. He was as
nice as can be. Introduced him to his wife. My
wife showed up at that moment um and this is
around COVID service wearing masks, and yeah, you know, he
just he was just so pleasant and and I said, Mike,

(01:13:46):
could I have a picture? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you know
I think you might on zoom you could see it
over my shoulder. Down here, there's a picture of me
and Mike and he's got a guitar pick in there
with where he gave me. And then he goes, you know,
he goes inside. And the next morning, I'm in the
lobby with my wife. It's just a little like a
fourier of a lobby, like it's it's a private, little
boutique hotel thing. And me and my wife are just

(01:14:08):
chatting with a woman who was working behind the counter,
and all of a sudden, here from the behind us, Hey, guys,
and it's Mike and his wife and they were about
to go stroll out in Asbury on a Saturday afternoon
while the festival was just starting, and he's like, hey,
what are you guys doing? And we well, we're out there.
We're gonna go see some music. Oh that's great. We're
gonna walk around. He's had his polaroid camera with him

(01:14:29):
and we just chatted for a little bit and it
was really just now, he's just a pleasant person, asked
me where we were from and everything, so as a
non rock star as you can possibly be. And we
go to the show and I'm right in front. This
was a bucket listing for me to be on the
rail at a pro jam show. And because of Mike,
you know, the way I have to use this wheelchair.

(01:14:50):
What they had done at the show is they made
this little spot for me on the sand and they
had brought me down on the road behind the stage
and put me right there in the front with everybody
at the rail. And about three songs in, Mike sees
me and he does the recognition thing where you know,
puts his eyes like his eyes to my eyes, you know,

(01:15:11):
and gives me a thumbs up, you know, and then
he periodically given me acknowledgement during the show, throw picks
and things like that. And then the last song they're playing,
Rocking in the Free World. It's been a great show.
Maybe not the cleanest show. It was their first show
playing after COVID, and but it was. It was unbelievable,
right and Uh and he just walk he jumps off
the stage and he comes up right to me and

(01:15:34):
he starts and he starts playing the uh, the solo
and Rocking in the Free World right in front where
I could have strummed his guitar. And then he gave
me a little nod and he jumped back up onto
the stage. Jeez. And then and then this topped it
all off. Seconds later, Eddie comes walking over and throws

(01:15:54):
me at me and my my eighteen year old son
is next to me, and he gets my son's attention
and he throws the Hanbury to him. Jeez, Louise, that
was my I don't know if I should ever go
to another show. I know I'm debating. It's gonna be
so run of the mill after that. Jesus, Louise, that
was Gray. I said. I had a person nearby got

(01:16:15):
the whole thing on video might jumping off the stage
and coming up to me and then texted it to
me after the show. Oh that's so awesome. Yeah, yeah,
what a memory. I'm glad to share that with others.
Appreciate that. That's awesome. That's good for you, man, that
was That's fabulous. Uh. Stephen Hyden Long Road, Pearl Jam
and the Soundtrack of Generation. I'm I embarrassed to say

(01:16:37):
it's the first book I've read of yours, but I
know that I am definitely going to dive into your
Radiohead book because I'm a huge fan of Radiohead and
I love the Black Crows over the years, and I'm
and I you have a book about the Black Crows also, yeah,
co writer on that, I think, Yeah, Steve Burman, the
former drummer. It's like a first person memoir and to

(01:17:00):
put it together that yeah, from the Black Crows. Yeah,
from the band. Yeah, he's like a founding member. He
was like sort of the buffer between the Robinson brothers
for about twenty years. That's a wild book, by the way,
if I could say so myself, that's if you if
you like stories of just I mean, they're like the

(01:17:21):
opposite of Pearl Jam yea. As far as being functional,
they are the most dysfunctional rock band I think of
all time. Yeah, well it so happens. You're getting you
get involved with family. Yeah, there's lots of other things too,
but I won't spoil it. Well, I saw them. I
saw them once at Irving Plaza and I saw them
at Beacon Theater and both shows were ridiculously good. Yeah,

(01:17:44):
they're a great band. It's a shame they couldn't keep
it together. I mean they're they're touring now with a
different lineup. It's like Chris and Rich and a lot
of hired guns. But that nineties lineup was one of
the great live bands of that era and Stephen Hyde
much to tell folks where they can hear you know,
or you have a podcast where where they want to
read your stuff? Where do they go? Yeah, so I

(01:18:07):
you can read me at up rocks dot com. I'm
a columnist over there. Otherwise, my books are available wherever
you buy books. So host a podcast called Indiecasts about
rock music comes out every Friday with my friend Ian Cohen.
And that's probably enough things to plug for now. But
they were all liner notes for a Bob Dylan. Yeah,

(01:18:29):
that that came out, that had to be an unbelievable
thrill for you. Yeah, there's a new bootleg series about
Time out of Mind. Yeah, that was He's my number
one guy, So that was. I didn't interact with Bob
at all for that, but but still being to have
my name into something, yeah, yeah, to have my A
lot of people interact with Bob No, but yeah, to
have a couple thousand words that I wrote my name

(01:18:52):
inside of a Bob Dylan record, That's definitely one of
my career highlights. Before I let you go, I do
this along my gap. Remember that Jim Valvano speech at
the SPS. Never give up. Yes, he said to do
three things every day to live a full life. And
music does a lot of these things for us. I think,
so maybe you could even relate all these things to music.

(01:19:14):
But he said everyone should should laugh, they should cry
or be moved their emotions moved to tears, and and think,
spend some time and thought and what makes them think.
So I don't know how much music makes you laugh.
I don't really go to music for laughs, but movies do,
and actors do and friends do for me. So what
makes Stephen Hyden laugh? Oh man, there's so many things.

(01:19:36):
I'll say. My wife, my wife funny. Yeah, my moufe
is funny. And we make each other laugh. So that's
that's a big part of I think, just being in
a relationship. If you can make each other laughs, you're
you're gonna be okay. Um, as far as crying, I
don't cry every day. Actually, to like feel your emotions, everybody,

(01:19:57):
maybe there's a song, I guess. I guess music just
you know, I mean, really, that's the thing I'm always
looking for with music more than anything, like just the
emotional connection. So yeah, definitely music. Is there a particular
song I mean while I'll let you think in terms
of crying. In terms of crying, there's a Stevie Wonder
song called Lately that it's hilarious to me because I'll

(01:20:21):
put this song on when I'm in a great mood
and it always makes me cry and I usually start
laughing because this is something with Stevie's voice where I
don't know if you know that song, it's like this
song where you know he's pining for this woman, and
it's not really about the subject matter of the song.

(01:20:42):
It's just Stevie Wonder's voice because he does this thing
where he kind of like this is part where he goes,
I might start crying even just saying it. It's almost
like a Pavlovian thing. It's not even that I'm sad,
it's just the sound he goes. It's time like we
say good bye good bye. He kind of goes out

(01:21:02):
really high. It always makes me cry, and it actually
in the song, I think he actually says I always
start to cry, and I think when he says that,
I start to cry. Well, it's not so much that
I even think the Valvano what he meant by it
was not like I'm gonna cry and something should make
me sad every day? Is that something should move my emotions? Yeah,

(01:21:25):
to that level Stevie wonder lately for sure. That's like
the or if we're gonna say Jason Isabel's songs, I mean,
Elephant is a song I can't really listen to. That's
more of like the subject matter and the writing of it.
Whereas Stevie, it's just Stevie's voice. He's like, you know,
maybe the greatest singer of all time, and I'll give

(01:21:46):
you I'll give you one. I don't know if you
know this man. I recently started listening to a lot.
There's a couple that do it for me. Um that
really moved my emotions a lot of times. Frank Turner's
Won And in another you know this song you wrote
about in his recent album about his friend from another
band that had killed himself, called Wave across the Bay

(01:22:07):
And I heard him do it live and he explained
he told the build up of the song and it
all of a sudden, I listened to it in a
different way and it's just it's heart wrenching. Y. Then
there's a band, the band Camp, and you know, I
kind of like I think the way I'm drawn to
isbel I'm drown to camp a lot of I'm drawn
to interesting singers and good lyrics and things. And they

(01:22:30):
have a there's like a B side called Strawberries, and
it's all these things, and then at the end it
just says, you know, I wish you were my home.
I know I had you from I know I have
you till the end. I wish I had you from
the start. And it made me think about my relationship
with my wife and it made me kind of get
choked up. And the way they sang it, and even

(01:22:51):
though last song, the last song on their new album
We're Sure Of Where, it just sounds like he just
took an acoustic guitar and put an iPhone on the
desk and recorded it and it's two minutes of just perfection. Yeah,
at the end, he said, you know all I know,
you know, the rain has left me still standing and
in the morning, the only thing I'm sure of is

(01:23:11):
the morning. And that's like it just oh it just
a singer can do that to you, man. I mean,
as you get older, you feel more right. Yeah, you
cried everything. I mean I think I think you just
get more settlemental as you get older, so you know,
it's not even achievement. Sometimes I'll cry, I'll create stupid
songs too, you know that were You've been said in
the book too about how sirens you listen. You probably

(01:23:32):
hear it differently as you would ever, exactly, totally, totally, exactly. Um,
what about the think part was? I always say, you know,
if you could put a message up on the message
board outside Barkley Center for everybody in New York City
coming off the subway is going to look at it
and uh and and and make them think about something. Oh,
I don't know about that. I mean I think for

(01:23:53):
a living, so that's kind of like I wouldn't be
so much like an inspirational thing. The things that make
me think are you know, we like would if yield
came up before no code, you know, and just thinking
about that for an hour. There's not some you know,
philosophical I'm a rock critic, you know, I you know,
so there's not some great philosophical insight or something. It

(01:24:15):
just be like, you know, you know, would if but
you can drag out a lyric that you can put
up there that maybe people would love. Yeah, I don't know.
I'll think of an answer in ten minutes probably, but yeah,
I don't know. I look, I I was unlucky in
that I, you know, was able to figure out a
way to make thinking about music my job, which is

(01:24:38):
the thing I like to think about anyway. So you know,
I always feel like I'm robbing a bank every day.
You know. Would I make money doing this because it's
a really weird way to make a living, But I'm
really grateful for it, you know. I just think about
this fun stuff all day long and fortunately make some
money from it. You know. But just as you, as

(01:24:59):
you tweeted out the other day, Rick Rubin was doing
an interview with was it uh Cooper? Anderson Cooper? Right,
and you had a little little thing there and you
you and he basically was saying Anderson Cooper because you
were saying, oh, you don't play an instrument, you don't
know how to read music, Like what do you do?
Why do they pay you? And He's like, well I could.
I know what I like and I can articulate it

(01:25:19):
and help them be better and right, and you were like,
this is basically my job. Well and not even that's
part of it. Yeah, And not even to be better part,
you know, because I feel like I don't feel like
i'm talking. I never feel like I'm not talking to
the artist, right, Yeah, no, I I well, you know
I would never deign to like be like, hey, take
my advice. Yeah, it's more because like I'm talking to
the audience, but you're enhancing their enjoyment. I hope. I

(01:25:45):
think critics even when I watch a great movie and
I want to go back and look at what critics say,
it's not because I want them to tell me what
I should think of the movie. Sometimes they may articulated
what I was thinking, right and put it into perspective.
And I think that to music critics like yourself, do
that's always thinking about stuff really, Yeah, and entertain or

(01:26:05):
maybe just to irritate you. Whatever the case may be,
whatever it makes, whatever, I'm whatever you need, I'm here
for you. Uh, Stephen, really appreciated you taking the time.
I had fun talking to and uh, thank you so
much for doing this. Hey, no problem, thanks for having
me my Thanks to Stephen Hyden. The book is called

(01:26:30):
Long Road. You could read them on up rocks dot
com as well Indiecast podcast. If you're Springsteen guy's got
a lot of good stuff on Springsteen lately with Springsteen touring.
But uh, Steven's a great writer. Uh, he's got He's
gotta also a book about Radiohead, This Isn't Happening Black

(01:26:51):
Crows Hard to Handle. Your favorite band is killing Me,
which is a good book if Stephen Hyden, So check
that out, and my thanks to him for joining us
here on our little musical detour on the Voice of
the Nets podcast. Before I leave you, I'll give you
my top five Pearl Jams studio recordings. All right, I

(01:27:11):
already gave you the song Sometimes, so I'm gonna throw
that in there at number five. That was from the beginning.
I told you that story about the song Sometimes. Number four,
I'm gonna go Not for You. I love the hard
pounding rock and I loved it early in their career
when they were just an absolute beast, and that was

(01:27:35):
one of those really hard pounding rock songs where Eddie
Vetter is just rebelling against the music industry and the
record company. Number three I'm Gonna go Hale Hall, another
record off of No Code, an underrated album from Pearl Jam.

(01:27:55):
I liked the studio recording again a hard hitting recording
even more than the live version, which a lot of
times I like the live versions better than the studio
recording if you talked a lot about that with Stephen Hyden,
But I love the studio recording of hall Hell. I
always felt like that's still the best version for me.
Number two Animal. If anybody has a chance to see

(01:28:19):
the show The Bear, it's a great show on fact
Steason two is coming out, highly recommended, one of one
of my favorite shows that's come out in a long time.
At the very end of the first episode, Animal comes
in on the credits, and the show had me from there.
It's another rollicking, hard rock song, the first song that

(01:28:44):
I heard off of verses that story we told them
doing it in the MTV Music Awards. So number two
for me Animal, and number one is the song that
oftentimes opens a lot of live shows, but it closes
the first album, the iconic album ten and that is
the song release still my favorite Pearl jam song of

(01:29:08):
all time. I want to thank you for going down
this indulgence with me and talking geeking out about Pearl
jam My. Thanks to my producer Tom Dowd for setting
this all up. Steve Goldberg as well our engineer Isaac Lee,
always making us sound good again. Thanks to Stephen Hyde,
and talk to you again next week for another edition

(01:29:29):
of the Voice of the Nets, I'm Chris Carino.