PEARL JAM BAND PAGE
 PEARL JAM
|
CURRENT NAME
|
Pearl Jam |
|
FORMER NAMES
|
- |
|
ORIGIN
|
Seattle, Washington, USA |
|
STATUS
|
Active |
|
FORMED IN
|
1990 |
|
LABEL
|
Epic Records |
|
GENRE
|
Grunge |
|
STYLE
|
- |
|
LYRICAL THEME
|
- |
|
BAND ADDED
|
2004-04-05, 00:00 |
|
LAST UPDATE
|
2009-01-30, 05:02 |
Pearl Jam rose from the ashes of their 1989 band Mother Love
Bone to become the most popular American rock & roll band of the '90s.
After vocalist Andrew Wood overdosed on heroin in 1990, guitarist Stone
Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament assembled a new band, bringing in Mike
McCready on lead guitar and recording a demo with Soundgarden's Matt
Cameron on drums. Thanks to future Pearl Jam drummer Jack Irons, the demo
found its way to a 25-year-old San Diego surfer named Eddie Vedder, who
overdubbed vocals and original lyrics and was subsequently invited to
join the band (then christened Mookie Blaylock after the NBA player).
Dave Krusen was hired as the full-time drummer shortly thereafter,
completing the original lineup. Renaming themselves Pearl Jam, the band
recorded their debut album, Ten, in the beginning of 1991, although it
wasn't released until August; in the meantime, the majority of the band
appeared on the Andrew Wood tribute project Temple of the Dog. Ten !
didn't begin selling in significant numbers until early 1992, after
Nirvana made mainstream rock radio receptive to alternative rock acts.
Soon, Pearl Jam outsold Nirvana, which wasn't surprising — Pearl Jam fused
the riff-heavy stadium rock of the '70s with the grit and anger of '80s
post-punk, without ever neglecting hooks and choruses; "Jeremy,"
"Evenflow," and "Alive" fit perfectly onto album rock radio stations looking
for new blood.
Krusen left the band shortly after the release of Ten; he was replaced
by Dave Abbruzzese. Pearl Jam's audience continued to grow during 1992,
thanks to a series of radio and MTV hits, as well as successful
appearances on the second Lollapalooza tour and the Singles soundtrack (Stone
Gossard also embarked on a side project called Brad, which released the
album Shame in early 1993). Despite their status as rock & roll
superstars, the band refused to succumb to the accepted conventions of the
music industry. The group refused to release any videos or singles from
their second album, 1993's Vs. Nevertheless, it was another
multi-platinum success, debuting at number one and selling nearly a million copies
in its first week of release. On their spring 1994 American tour, the
band decided not to play the conventional stadiums, choosing to play
smaller arenas, including several shows on college campuses. Pearl Jam
cancelled their 1994 summer tour, claiming they could not keep ticke!
t prices below 20 dollars because Ticketmaster was pressuring promoters
to charge a higher price. The band took Ticketmaster to the Justice
Department for unfair business practices; while fighting Ticketmaster,
they recorded a new album during the spring and summer of 1994. After the
record was completed, the group fired Dave Abbruzzese, replacing him
with former Red Hot Chili Peppers and Eleven drummer Jack Irons.
Vitalogy, the band's third album, appeared at the end of 1994. For the
first two weeks, the album was only available as a limited vinyl
release, but the record charted in the Top 60. Once Vitalogy was available on
CD and cassette, the album shot to the top of the charts and quickly
went multi-platinum. Pearl Jam continued to battle Ticketmaster in 1995,
but the Justice Department eventually ruled in favor of the ticket
agency. In early 1995, the band recorded an album with Neil Young.
Meanwhile, Vedder toured with his wife Beth's experimental band Hovercraft in
the spring of 1994 as Stone Gossard founded an independent record
company; Mad Season, Mike McCready's side project with Layne Staley of Alice
in Chains, released their first album, Above, in the spring of 1995.
Comprised entirely of Neil Young songs, Mirror Ball appeared in the
summer under Young's name; although the individual members of the band were
credited, the name Pearl Jam did not appear on the cover due to l!
egal complications. Pearl Jam released a single culled from the
sessions, titled Merkin Ball and featuring the songs "I Got Id" and "Long
Road," in the fall of 1995.
In late summer of 1996, Pearl Jam released their fourth album, No Code.
Although the album was greeted with fairly positive reviews and debuted
at number one, its weird amalgam of rock, worldbeat, and
experimentalism dissatisfied a large portion of their fan base, and it quickly fell
down the charts. The record's performance was also hurt by Pearl Jam's
inability to launch a full-scale tour, due both to their battle with
Ticketmaster and a reluctance to spend months on the road. The band spent
most of 1997 out of the spotlight, working on new material; Gossard
also released a second album with his side project Brad, titled Interiors.
By the end of the year, Pearl Jam had completed a new, harder-rocking
record entitled Yield. The album was greeted with enthusiastic reviews
upon its February 1998 release, but its commercial fortunes weren't
quite as clear cut. While their sizable cult embraced the album, sending it
to number two its first week of release, Yield quickly slipped!
down the charts. Pearl Jam supported the record with a full-scale
arena tour in the summer of 1998, issuing the concert LP Live on Two Legs
at the end of the year; Jack Irons did not participate due to poor
health, and was replaced by ex-Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron. In 1999,
Pearl Jam scored an unlikely pop radio smash with their cover of the J.
Frank Wilson oldie "Last Kiss," originally released as the seventh in a
series of fan-club-only singles which had also featured several
incongruous covers in the past. Demand from fans and radio programmers
resulted in the nationwide release of "Last Kiss," and it eventually became
the band's highest-charting pop hit to date, peaking at number two and
going gold. The group returned in 2000 with the Tchad Blake-produced
Binaural. In order to circumvent bootleggers, their subsequent European and
American tours were recorded in full and released in an unprecedented
series of double-CD sets, each of the 72 volumes featuring a compl!
ete concert.
| Session musicians Add - Fetch |
| Unknown / none |
