The Bill Simmons Podcast - Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament on Pearl Jam’s Meteoric Rise, the Future of Rock Bands, Their Nirvana “Rivalry,” GP & Kemp, Dennis Rodman and Their New Album ('Gigaton') | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament to discuss a wide variety of topics, including Pearl Jam’s first concert, the Seattle SuperSonics, hanging with Dennis Rodman, the best music venues, tour stories, their new album ‘Gigaton,’ and MUCH more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. The best teams start with great talent. Just think about Pearl Jam. You know, not only the continuity and the friendship and 30 years of great concerts, great albums, great music, but great talent too. Including one of the great lead singers of any rock band ever and a group that has stayed together for a long, long, long time and continues to do good work. That's a good example of the best team starting with great talent. No one knows the importance of talent more than our presenting sponsor, ZipRecruiter. They deliver qualified candidates fast. It's so effective. Four to five

reporters have posted on ZipRecruiter to get a quality candidate through the site within the first day. My listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network, where we are still cranking out content. Keep an eye on the Book of Basketball podcast because have something special brewing for next week that feed will be active again with an idea that I think is going to be pretty cool. And if you love basketball, you can check out the Ringer NBA show, Ryan Rosillo show, JJ Redick show, and check out all of our Ringer podcasts, actually. Before we get to Eddie Vedder and Jeff Amant, just wanted to wish everybody the best of luck out there. It's been really two weeks since we all kind of retreated into our own homes and apartments and wherever else people are living out there. And this sucks and it feels like it's getting worse. I'm definitely the most scared that

I've been as a 50-year-old guy who's lived in this country my entire life, I have no idea where this goes next. It really, really, really scares me that the person who's in charge of this country doesn't seem to understand how dire the situation is and how scary it is with the hospitals now and hospitals left and right being at capacities, doctors, nurses, everybody else being in, you know, real danger now, uh, at all times, especially as people are running out of masks and equipment and things like that. And, um, you know, if there are people out there on the front lines, um, who are taking a break, They just want to get back to life normalcy for an hour and listen to a podcast. Whoever's out there. Um, you know, we're all thinking about you. Thanks for everything you're doing for us. And for the others out there who are hopefully staying safe and staying out of harm's way, continue to do that. Listen to the experts. Listen to the doctors. Listen to the scientists. Trust them.

They have no ulterior motive other than to protect human beings like you. So listen to them. Don't listen to anybody else. Listen to the experts. This is not a hoax. This is not people fanning the flames. Real shit is happening. I know multiple people in my life who have the coronavirus at this point, or did have it. And we're not fucking around anymore. So if you think life's going to get more normal a week from now or a week and a half from now, and you're going to be back at work or you're going to be playing basketball again, that's not happening. This is going to get worse. Continue to read the news. Continue to read the best newspapers. Continue to trust the smartest scientists we have and the doctors who are all saying the same thing without fail that we have to practice social distancing for the next couple weeks. There is no alternative. There is nothing else that's going to happen other than that. Stay away from people, flatten the curve, and that's all you can do. Every single smart person is saying the same thing.

We are not fucking around anymore. This has to flatten now or the hospitals are going to be overrun if that's not already happening. And we are going to have the all-time catastrophe that has ever happened in this country. So please be safe, trust the experts, don't do anything you don't have to do. And if you can stay away from everybody

other than your family, your significant others, whatever, and you have the means to do that, do it. That's your responsibility right now. So please stay safe and please make the right decisions. This is fucking scary. And I've never been more scared in my life. I'm scared for my kids. I'm scared for my parents. And I just had to say that. I really hope everybody is reading and listening to the right people. So there you go. Coming up, our friends from Pearl Jam. But first, Pearl Jam. All right. We're taping this Wednesday afternoon Pacific time. I wish there were better circumstances to have the first podcast I've ever done with Eddie Vedder and Jeff Amet.

But we're going to cruise through it anyway. They have a new album coming out on Friday. And you had a whole tour planned and then everything changed. Eddie, what has the last five weeks been like for you? Well, if you go back, it was all going pretty great. We were practicing and enjoying each other's company and able to have a fairly small gathering of us and the crew and working on the new songs. And pretty excited about um playing them and and then it all kind of rapidly changed

and uh navigating that was uh uh kind of terrifying because it was people's uh livelihoods and the balance and and the way we think about the folks that come to shows and make plans and travel and all that was, you know, when we made the decision, it was not popular, even within our own little core group of folks here. I mean, it was tricky. And that started on like a thursday and i think we came in on a monday and did the press release and it still felt controversial and we were sticking our necks out and then by tuesday wednesday i think it was nba ncaa mlb everything had shut down everything had changed in a matter of two days and it's been you know changing ever since so it was it was tricky it was uh it was a bizarre set of circumstances and also being at that point washington state was the epicenter of the united states so

um leaving our families was going to be was going to be tricky um and it was going to be, was going to be tricky. Um, and it was going to be part of our job, but, um, in the end it's, it's one thing it's, it's, it, at least we're, we're here at home and, um, uh, but still thinking about all those people out there, who's plans and schedules got changed and very appreciative that for the most part, we got a lot of support. Jeff, you were in Washington, which really became the first American place to get hit pretty hard. Did you guys have a different perspective on what was happening because you were so close to it? Or like, I'm in California, I was reading this stuff. Was it worse to actually be there or was it the same experience I was having?

Yeah. I mean, there was, there was real hysteria, um, at, at that particular time in Washington. I went back to Montana to actually see a couple of, uh, Montana Grizzlies basketball games and there was nobody was talking about it here. And then when we started going down the road, possibly postponing the tour, I started calling, you know, anybody that I knew. I'm friends with a guy in the NBA, Salvatore La Rocca. He's like the global guy. And at that time, they weren't going to, you know, they weren't going to postpone any games. They were possibly thinking about playing games without the crowd.

And they were basically saying the East Coast, there was, you know, there was no worries. So it was a tough decision, you know, because of the place that we were living in at the time and what was going on. You know, people were dying every day and, and the, and the virus was spreading pretty fast. So it was tough. It was an amazingly fast, like a hundred hours there. Cause I remember even that weekend,

um, like my wife and my son went to the Clippers Lakers game on that Sunday. And I was at a soccer tournament outside LA with my daughter and she's banging bodies with 14 year old girls for an hour and a half. And all the parents are on the sidelines. And, you know, we knew that potentially something bad was happening all big NBA fans, it was the Rudy Gobert moment that became the awakening for everybody. When that crossed over into sports and especially the NBA, that feels like the moment when everything changed.

Were you guys watching that night? I wasn't watching, but I'm good friends with Quinn Snyder and Eric Waters, who's one of the trainers. And so when it all went down, I immediately called Eric up and said, what's going on? And he just said, we're in lockdown in the hotel right now and we're waiting to get tested. And it became apparent that at that particular time that the NBA was in big trouble. Yeah. Eddie, what's your responsibility as a band who has been at the cutting edge of a

lot of this stuff, speaking out against certain things and whether it's political or even the Ticketmaster stuff, what's your responsibility now with the new album coming out? I know you guys aren't doing a lot of media, but what you have a huge social media feed. You guys are immensely popular all over the world. Like what, what what you have a huge social media feed. You guys are immensely popular all over the world. Like what, what are you looking at going forward as things you can do? Oh, shoot. Uh, you know, I, our job is, oh, I, I felt that, you know, where, where actually we are, you know, our natural habitat is either recording or, or playing live shows. So our thing was just, you know, the record comes out and then we go play a ton of shows and,

and get the music to the people and get the energy going between, you know, everybody in the room you know transmitting the the music directly and and not having that uh not having that ability or uh is is really uh tricky for us and um because the other stuff you know I think people get good at that stuff with practice. Um, I don't even necessarily want to get good at, I don't care about that kind of, it's probably, uh, you know, it's just not, I've never been kind of comfortable with the whole social media thing um yeah i feel like i have email and i have text and i have voicemail and that's my social media and i can barely keep up so um you know it's tricky i think what i'm really left with is this this thing that we've been taken we've taken it for granted um you know this ability to gather

in in large groups and and play things like you know concerts or attend sporting events or you know things where a whole crowd of people agree on something you know there's such a power to it and community and communal sharing of of energies and music and volume and rhythm and lyrics and all this stuff comes together and now you've got some kind of you know transmission of of communication and energies that it's so powerful and um and i guess you're right now that you'd have to maybe explore other ways of communicating through you know via skype or whatever but that's not um you know even doing this with you now bill is very different for us right we're you know kind of reclusive by nature and and and this you know this is so is so in some ways it feels normal to be on you know away from

people that's it's not necessarily out of my wheelhouse but the ability when I just keep thinking that first time that we'll get to be back in front of people and it's even hard to imagine when or how, um, but it's really, it's going to be different. And, and, um, and it's not like we didn't appreciate it before. I'm just saying that now it's just even tenfold. Yeah, I feel the same way because I think the last three weeks, and granted, there's a million things more important than just missing the ability to go to a concert, the ability to go to an NBA game, the ability to be home on a Wednesday night and pop on a TV and there's five NBA games I can choose from. But you realize the ritual of all this stuff is such a big part of it. Right. And you move from point A to point B to point C to point D as the, as the calendar goes along. And I, you know, I keep an Apple

calendar like anybody else. And I remember like you guys were coming here in early April And I was like, I'm definitely going to that. And then the NBA playoffs is starting too. And then all that stuff's gone. And you're right. It really does make you appreciate this stuff. Jeff, what's the longest you guys have gone in the last 30 years without performing? Has it been more than eight months? It's probably been this stretch.

It's probably been, I mean's probably been i mean it's been i don't know how long has it been it's been 14 months or something or yeah 16 months or something like that really so so yeah so what you know i i'm not a i'm not the first guy in the band that wants to go out and do a huge tour. And so, but I'm actually, I was actually feeling like playing some shows. Right. Yeah. I remember in 98, you guys took a break for a while and I'm sure there's been a couple other points, but you know, I was watching, uh, I, I put in Pearl Jam 20, the documentary couple of days ago, just to kind of refresh myself with some of the early stuff, which I knew, but I'm just getting older and I tend to forget things. the entire time. You know, like when we were growing up, you had these iconic bands

and there's barely any footage of, you know, entire years of their career. There's one concert here, two concerts there. But really everything you guys did was videotaped for the most part. Even like when you, right after you guys got together, six days after the band formed, right?

We've got it on beta videotape from 1991. Great. One of the things that shocked me was you joined the band. I mean, it's a great story. I'm sure everybody knows it at this point, but pretty fluky how everybody gets together. But within six days, you're doing a concert. How did that happen that fast?

What made you guys all say, yeah, screw it, let's just go on a stage and do this. Yeah. I don't know. Obviously it was so early in my tenure that I don't think I was part of any decision-making process. So Jeff, how did that happen? Yeah. Jeff, what happened? I've been wanting to know that too. It could have been me. I have no idea. I think, I don't know. I think there's a part of me that probably, I think I thought that we sounded pretty good.

Right. And that we should like test it in front of the, you know, 50 people or whatever, you know? But it wasn't based on the Bible or anything, like on the sixth day you play a show. I mean. And on the seventh day you go to a basketball game. Yeah, we saw the Bulls and the Sonics were playing at the Kingdom on the seventh day, which is.

I mean, you guys launched a band during one of the best, one of my favorite NBA stretches, actually. And then in the Pearl Jam lore, the initial name of the band was Mookie Blaylock. I was trying to figure out what current basketball player would be the equivalent of naming a band after Mookie Blaylock? Because he was like a borderline all-star. Great name. I'm not sure who that would be. I'm racking my brain. He was better than Patrick Beverly. But it was basically like if you would name the band Patrick Beverly now. That would be

more controversial, for sure. That's true. So he just blocked it, right? He just threw his body in front of it he didn't want it oh no he was totally fine with it he would have i mean he would have cashed in on it i think if he if he could have oh so he was fine so who was not fine with it then jeff what was his middle name uh well darren o'shea right was his real name. Or Darren O'Shea. Darren O'Shea. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. What was the chain of events that led to everybody decided the band should be called Mookie Blaylock?

I've never understood that. I figured it happened at like four in the morning, though. Well, Jeff, wasn't it just that we had basketball cards and we were kind of passing between each other collecting them and and then um i think the cassette that we made because we'd take home the record or the demos the first record that we made on that fifth day or whatever then um then that card just fit perfectly into the cassette and i think we ended up me and or jeff and i both ended up having the mookie blaylock card in our cassette isn't that how it happened i think so and i think i i think i remembered we gave kelly a cassette and it had the mookie card in it that west coast alice inains tour and he said,

we need a name this afternoon and we were like, we don't have a name. That's right. And I think it was just the proximity of the tape sitting there

with Mookie's card in it and it was, I remember it had a white background and he was doing like a finger roll. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

We wanted to put a little bit more thought into naming the band. So we thought if we named it something like Mookie Blaylock, we could easily change it. Right. Were you guys playing hoops back then? Because Jeff, I know you play, but Eddie, you were like kind of secretly playing back then, right? Secretly playing. Well, I, I,

exactly because I do midnight shifts at the petroleum company and then i'd get off at eight in the morning and by the time i got home i'd take my walkman in one hand uh cassette walkman and my left hand and then play with my right hand so i could play music and i remember listening a lot to uh badins and Mother's Milk, a few different records of my favorite for playing basketball, too. And so that's why Jeff knows that I absolutely have no left hand because I was always holding the cassette player but i'd be up there you know at the the uh local uh there was a little park called sunset park in uh near san diego state kind of area down in san diego and i'd always have the court to myself and and that was my thing just to play by myself and so yeah secret no one knew and then you know one cool thing you cut to probably less than two years later, and we ended up opening for the Chili Peppers.

I believe we were in Milwaukee, and whatever the little venue was, it was more of a theater, but they did have a hoop on the far end, on the back end. Right. end on the back end right and and then the peppers so jeff and i got about after our sound check jeff and i grabbed basketball we're shooting hoops the red hot chili peppers are sound checking they're playing the same songs i used to listen to on the cassette and i can use my left hand it's live it's fucking live it was so great that was really one of those moments you thought wow like i think we made it you know that was really one of the memories i'll never forget but yeah a combination of basketball and and music and um you know else i used to shoot around with because we were in a

group for just a tiny bit of time was brad wilk who ended up playing drums with uh rage oh wow and we used to have you know talk about the perfect day would be like you know playing music playing basketball and maybe surfing you know hey jeff you got to give us this guiding report on eddie because i can only judge it from his behavior in concerts in the 90s where he's swinging from 50 foot lights and i i just imagine um he's probably pretty physical right or like give me the who would you compare him to? Well, he's in really good shape. He's athletic. And he has a very competitive spirit.

That adds up to a guy that you usually want on your team. He might be like a Patrick Beverly, actually. He's scrappy. That's what Beverly, actually. He's scrappy. That's what he's saying. He's scrappy. He's a lot like Patrick Beverly. You guys had the Gary Payton influence at the time, too, right? He's doing a lot of trash talking, getting in people's face.

And you're emulating him, probably, no? I would never trash talk, no. No? No, but what's the shot, Jeff? You said that my shot, who is it? George McGinnis? Do you know who that is? Oh, wow.

The one-hander? That's right. Yeah. It's more like I'm playing darts than basketball. It's a, yeah. When you think about Seattle, early 90 90s everybody always talks about what an amazing music time it was but it was also an amazing basketball time and i always felt like the two things went hand in hand that decade you know they had camp and gp and some some really great

sonics teams they finally ended up making finals, but they were really good there for five, six years. And more important, were just cool and fit in with everything else that was going on. And when, like you guys were in singles and so was Xavier McDaniel and it made perfect sense because it would have been weird to have a Seattle movie that didn't have some sort of basketball thing in there. But were you guys, were you embraced by the Sonics

and the whole Seattle basketball scene back then? Or because Eddie has the Chicago ties, was he an outcast? I don't know how that worked out. Well, Jeff is the one who had season tickets from the get-go and lived about two blocks from the Key Arena. So he was a staple. You know, he was, you know and then um remember you knew the poster guy named george costacos oh the costacos brothers yeah was it george or john i'm sorry john yeah

sorry but that was like a big into the that we like knew somebody who knew people in the nba um and we had those posters. In fact, did that off-ramp gig on day six or whatever. Remember, our backdrop was a poster of Barkley and a poster of Jordan. We taped those up on the back. We needed inspiration. Jeff, were you able to go to a lot of those Sonics games, or were you guys always touring?

I probably went to 30 games a year, probably. You know, like, I mean, we were touring half the year and I think I had season tickets starting in 92 or 93. I mean, it was such a... Yeah, totally. Well, I mean,

writing that first check that first year, I think it was like $18,000 for the season tickets and it was like my hands are shaky that's good investment though yeah but it was it was the greatest because that because starting in like 90 whenever george carl came to town and and camp and payton i think they had the best record in the nba like three years in a row leading up to those 96 finals. And it, you know, it was just like a highlight reel every night with camp on the fast break. Like he was just, you know, I mean, people kind of forget,

like he was the second best player in the NBA for at least two years. Yeah. I mean, there's some good, there's some good stuff on YouTube, but now that basketball has gone away, all these games are just popping on NBA TV and all these different places now. And, and sometimes Kemp's kind of the lost guy from that era. Cause you're right. There was a moment when it seemed like he was going to be the successor to Malone and Barkley and all that stuff. And then, you know, it just never happened. Can, can you believe there's been a world now where for the last 12 years,

we have not had a Seattle Supersonics? Oh my God. 12 years already. Yeah. Good God. Do you, do you acknowledge the Oklahoma city thunder, Jeff? I actually liked the OKC thunder. I'm one of the few City Thunder, Jeff? I actually like the OKC Thunder. I'm one of the few. It took me a couple years, but I didn't have a team, so I had to go somewhere

and I just ended up pulling for them. And they had a great team. The Katie, Westbrook, James Harden time, they were a pretty fun team to watch. And they're still a fun team to watch. I mean, they don't have any of those guys. Chris Paul's got that team playing really well. Yeah, they were a surprise success story this year.

I want to go forward to the new album and then I go backwards after. You guys hadn't done an album for almost seven years was there a point eddie where you just felt like that was it there might not be another album or did you always know there was going to be another album no we always knew there was going to be another album it was uh yeah without a doubt um Yeah, I'm not sure the timeline there. If you say it was that long, it went quick. It did.

And you know how it is. You mentioned getting older yourself, Bill. And time does go a little quicker as you get older and you have more, so many more responsibilities now, uh, than those early days. And, um, you know, I, I, I guess we didn't, we didn't have to put anything out until we knew it was something, you know, that was going to be really great really great and and to take the time and we just we came about it in a in a different way and we kind of ended up recording it in our warehouse we kind of not just made a record or were attempting to make a record but but kind of

building a studio at the same time and and working in-house and working with our our crew guys who travel with us um and and that was our our team so it was kind of a a different approach to uh using the studio more as a laboratory and and you know one guy would come in and do a couple experiments and then the other scientists would come in and check their work and look at the hypothesis and then add his bit to it and um you know we we kind of tag teamed in that way and then stuff started just kind of growing and evolving and then we'd go on tour. And then we'd come back, and it might take another month or two before we even started listening to it again. But we never said, like, okay, let's get another six songs

or let's cobble something together or whatever. It actually started to feel kind of important at some point. And the results were surprising even us. Because you said right before we started on air, you said, I really liked the record. And I was actually, Bill, this was you. You said it's really good. And you sounded like surprised i what the fuck i guess i shouldn't have been

i mean my attitude it's it's actually really good no that's not how i said it look i was looking at from a standpoint you get that on tape. Yeah. So you made Backspacer in 2009 and then you only made one album for the next 10 years. And I think like a lot of people who love the band, I think sometimes you just wonder, oh, maybe they've just said everything they have to say. And you hear rumors like, oh, they're in the studio. Well, what does that mean? A lot of times they go in the studio, or any band does. Is anything going to come out of it? But then you came out of it with this, it seemed like you actually had a lot to say. And I also think if you just look at the history of rock bands, once you pass that 20-year

mark, it seems like the degree of difficulty goes way up. I would honestly almost compare it to an NBA player. You think about Tim Duncan in the 2013-2014 finals where he's got 16, 17 seasons under his belt, but he's still able to summon this top 10 ability, even though he's got all these games that he's already played, I was surprised. I was surprised that... I was. I told you.

I was. In a good way, though. I know. I mean, you guys must have been a little surprised, right? That you still had it to this degree? I don't think so. I think I've always felt like everybody in the band is working on music all the time

and everybody's doing side projects and has albums that they make and there's always these little bits on everybody's own things where you go like, ah, I wish we could have snatched that and pulled that into the thing and so you see this constant growth happening individually and and you know that when we all get in the room together that's gonna that's all gonna come back to the center and that's sort of what happened to this record like We sort of allowed everybody to have a voice and a direction, and we fell in love with some things that maybe historically

we wouldn't have gone down those paths. I think we wrote some of the best stuff we've ever written, from my standpoint. It also seems like if a band is together, I don't know, usually it seems like bands stay together five to seven years and then if they get lucky, maybe it ends up being a decade or two decades. But if it keeps going to the level you guys are at now where you hit your fourth decade, the friendships have to be there, right? Like, it just wouldn't be fun to continue to make music with people that you were really tired of

or you weren't friends with. You know, it's almost like a marriage. Do you feel that way, Eddie? Is it like a marriage of multiple people? You know what? There's a scene at the end. Rush did that documentary. I can't recall the title right off the bat,

but it was this kind of all-encompassing maybe put out three four years ago um and i don't know if you know it but the last scene uh i don't even know if they're running the credits the last scene is just getty and alex and neil just sitting at dinner and the cameras are rolling but they they're just they've been doing some interviews and now they're just sitting around drinking some great wine due to it must be getty's house and and it's just the three of them laughing and some of the jokes are a little bit inside to the three of them you know they're brothers at this point but they're really enjoying each other's company and and there's something about And there's something about that. There's something about it.

It's really hard to even describe. It's just this thing. And I think that for at least the last 10 years, I know Jeff and I have talked about it. A few of us have maybe talked about it. If, if for some reason we decided not to play or we weren't able to play or whatever, that was going to be the thing that we would miss. And it would be like a ball player saying, it's not necessarily playing the game that I miss. It's, it's hanging out with the fellas. Right. And, you know, as we travel and as all the in-between

times or actually we kind of crack each other up like most the time you know and then and then we get serious and then if it gets too serious then it's time for someone to make a joke um but it's a camaraderie and it's a you know between that uh that you brought that up and and again what jeff was saying about the musicianship is actually elevated and in the last you know 20 years we've we've actually gotten better at what we do yeah and and maybe even lyrically too so So it's, with all those things, you'd think that we'd be able to make a great record, but there's always this, you just never know.

And so I feel very lucky. There was some kind of also a little bit of magic or good energy or once we got it, you know, it kind of started working itself out into something that we're proud of. Let's take a break to talk about NetSuite. Growing a business takes the same concentrated effort it takes to build a championship team. To do that, you need all your numbers in one place. And that's why companies like Ring, Hint, and Toccoviz use NetSuite to accelerate their growth.

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so much easier. Schedule your free product tour right now. Receive your free guide, six ways to run a more profitable business at netsuite.com slash BS. That's netsuite.com slash BS. Back to the pod. One of the things I've always been fascinated about with bands specifically and the comparison with NBA teams, like you think about what happened with the Warriors, right?

The last couple of years with KD where that first year they were all together is magical and everything was in place they're playing off each other they're they're friends off the court it's just all working they're complete selflessness they all have the same goal and then by the third, KD just wants to leave. And there's some sort of alpha issue and he wants his own team. And now he's gone. And you see that happen with bands a lot. And I even think with your band a couple of times in the 90s where there's the chemistry has to kind of recalibrate.

But you had a couple of moments like that. Like in the late 90s, it seemed like, you know, you guys didn't break up, but it seemed like it was pretty close. And one of the things that a bunch of people said was you just weren't hanging out in the same way. Right, Jeff? Well, I mean the nineties, I mean, that was a tough time. Um, there was a big transition from, you know, working a day job and, and, uh, you know, being a struggling musician and and uh you know being a struggling musician and having you know just

trying to get shows for your band all of a sudden we're on tour with the chili peppers and we're going to europe and we're on lollapalooza and we're you know it's like all of a sudden the world's our oyster and then it really blows up and we go home and all of a sudden you can't go to the store without like 10 people stopping you to talk to you and, and life gets complicated. And, and I, and I started just like bailing. I started going to Montana, which is where I grew up just to get away from it. And I think there was, there was maybe a little bit of a problem with that because I was just like, I was just bailing on the whole thing.

Like, I was like, I just took myself out of the loop. And so even if there was an opportunity at that point to talk through things, like, I just wasn't physically there. I couldn't handle it. And so it is sort of a miracle that we got through that. And I think, you know, maybe some of it was just giving each other the space to sort of go through, you know, the individual fires that we were going through at the time. And, and, you know, somehow the music and that thing that we had is kept bringing us back

together. And I think, I don't think we had just kept bringing us back together. I don't think we ever took any of that for granted. At least I never took that for granted. I knew that there was a real thing that happened when we were together. I never felt that in any other band I've been in. Thank God. Things would be really different. Eddie, how close in the late 90s, how close do you think it was to the band not staying together?

I this is complete, like brand new news to me. just i and i was probably as hard to uh i was having maybe as hard a time as any if not more so figuring it out at the time um but i just never felt like um that there was any kind of uh fragility in the band i mean i i don't think i mean we had a we've never had like a knockdown drag out or someone left the room and we never talked to him again for six months i mean that's that's gonna never happen but um you know a general distancing you know we were practicing social distancing early at it yeah early and again this reclusive nature and and jeff kind of built his place and i kind of started building my place and it all seemed a little crazy at the time um you know because i i was even having a hard time it

sounds so funny now it just sounds funny and and and looking back and reading an interview where you complain about you know success i i get it and and i get how that came off um but it was it it was difficult and and it was weird and it wasn't what we were used to or it wasn't something we were going to get used to right more importantly um so yeah i just remember i remember just as a fan of the band from the get-go around the mid-90s just being concerned because it didn't seem like it didn't seem like you were enjoying no it didn't seem like you were enjoying it. I remember I was reading all this stuff and the music coverage was great back then. I'm sure everything wasn't 100% true, but it was a little pre-internet, but we had Rolling Stone and we had Spin and we had MTV.

I felt like I had a pretty good handle. There were good magazine features back then. And you seem like some, especially after the Time Magazine cover, where you were like, I just never wanted the band to get this big. I don't know how this happened. And I remember in the moment thinking, oh, fuck, he's going to just, he's just going to go away. He's going to leave. He's not going to like this. But it doesn't sound like you ever felt like you were that close oh well personally yes but with the band you know you said the band breaking up no so for me maybe that was just me getting through whatever the complications were so i i now i understand your your theory a bit more but um yeah, no, I was losing my mind.

And I wasn't the only one. Yeah. So, but I'll take credit or responsibility for all my, you know, that time. I mean, you were a young guy at the time with a million things going on that you probably never expected. But what would you tell yourself? You go back to 1994, what would you tell yourself? Well, I don't know if I would. First of all, me in 1994 would not have listened to me.

I wouldn't listen to anybody. Which is also why if I'm around a younger group or whatever, I make sure not to... If I have even a constructive criticism, I just won't say it because they're not going to listen. And they shouldn't. They're going to do their own thing and figure it out on their own. And then we'll have a laugh about it later but um and i'll show them my journal entry after

but um but yeah uh you know in the end i ah you know in between the fights of ticket master you know again take you know not taking your the ability to gather in large groups uh for granted you know that that was kind of being taken away from us a little bit or we certainly had to fight in a different way and that that was just that started out very basic that was a very small thing about surcharges and how much money and compared to the percentage of what was on the ticket price which we were keeping ticket prices low i mean it was a basic small argument that turned into this whole other thing that we had

to deal with for quite some time and um and we're proud of it now. And of course, things have evolved in crazy ways since then. But even to now where we work with some of these people, because obviously there's new people working for the same companies, but they're, you know, we're still trying to do the best thing for the people that come see our shows. We're still, you know, that's never changed um but at the time you know if i could have said anything you know things like you know if you saw your your you know it was weird just being co-opted that's all i'll say it was it was a whether it was and it was the whole scene in a way you know because he had all these these great great bands and then great bands from here that, that never kind of got pushed through to that, um, bigger stage kind of thing, like the fastbacks or my, I mean, the list goes on super suckers and mud, honey and mud, honey, especially just this great group. But I, I don't think they were interested in that kind of, um,

mainstream thing. And, and, and that we all of a sudden were in we were we were kind of in that whether uh we're kind of swept up but um yeah what i i think the thing that uh trying to answer your question now finally succinctly is i would have said to the guy like hey if if you're freaking pictures on the side of a bus just don't get that mad about it like don't take it personally right if if you're on a billboard and they didn't pay you for it but it's somehow doing something and they're using your lyric and it's all to promote the radio station don't get pissed off about it it's a radio station it'll go away there'll be someone else up there next week um but i i used to or time mag like

that was a i just kind of took it personally and and just felt like i wasn't built to handle it you know jeff there was there was a lot of camaraderie with the bands of that era. And I know Chris Cornell and Chili Peppers, you guys kind of all looked out for each other, which was not typical because the generation before you, everybody just wanted to kill each other and beat each other. What was so different about that era? Why was it like that?

You know, I'm not sure. I think some of it was coming up through punk rock and just, you know, those early shows in Seattle, like at the Metropolis and the Grilla Gardens and the Central Tavern and the Ditto Tavern. It was such an all-for-one, one-for-all thing. Half the people in the crowd were in bands that we liked. And so you got used to just being friendly with the bands that you were playing

with because it was all local bands and they were all your friends. And, and so when it, when it became time to kind of jump up to the next level and to do it nationally and then to be asked to go on tour with the Chili Peppers and to have those guys treat us so well. And I mean, it was, it really was just a dream come true to do those 40 shows, those initial 40 shows only weeks after our album came out and um you know and it just it just said it really did just set the tone for how we wanted to sort of conduct ourselves and and and you know you witness bad things happening and you you if

you get treated poorly as an opening band our our instinct was to like, we're never going to do that. If we ever get in that position, we're never going to treat the opening band like that. Or we're never going to treat like we would see bands treat their crew members. Like, and we'd be like, never treat our crew like that. And, um, so consequently we have, you know, a band and a crew that is is it's one organism when we and when we play shows and you know we've had people on our crew that have been with us for

as long as the band and even before kelly our manager has been with us from the beginning. And George and, you know, Kerry Keys, who's been doing monitors from us from the beginning. Smitty, who's our tour manager, has been working with us from the beginning. I mean, it's like, it's such a beautiful thing to be working with people that you love and care about and have so much history with. And we've gone through so much. We've witnessed so many amazing crowds

and we've also been through some hard times. And so I just feel so lucky. I just feel so lucky to be, I think in that way, it is like a marriage. If your marriage lasts 30 or 40 or 50 years, then you've gone through the fire a few times. And it sort of feels that way with this band. Eddie, when did you guys,

when did you feel like the band was at the peak of its powers from a performance standpoint? No, in concert. No, I was listening to our rehearsal tapes. I was an organist. So yesterday, in concert. No, I was listening to our rehearsal tapes. I was an organist. So yesterday, all right. Yeah, no, it's sounding really good. Really good.

All right, but I'm going back. Like in the 90s, there's a lot of trial and error. You're learning each other. No, I'm asking in the 90s. Okay. Like if you're an athlete. When did we peak in the 90s? Is that your question?

It's not peak it's when did you feel on stage like you guys were you just you just knew what you were doing completely and totally as a band well that's a different not knowing what we're doing well that's because no there's there's always going to be a part of that where we don't want to know what we're doing you know that's that's kind of why you know somebody said you know oh come on you don't get nervous before you play and i said actually you do because there's something that's going to happen that you don't know what's going to happen and and you want to be attuned to that whether it's something good or bad or a thunderstorm at wrigley or it's going to be a small kid with a sign with tears in his eyes on the you know that you can see from the from the stage and he's in the first few rows

you know like you know pick up on something that's going to change the show that's going to be like some there's going to be magic to be made but you have to be attuned to it so that's the the nerve-wracking thing is like or you know and obviously we we throw something in the set list that's going to make us all pay attention right and we're going to put ourselves out on a thing so so no we still i mean we are we getting better at that maybe but um but okay don't know what we're doing what was and then again the question i'll explain the question because if you're using the sorry if you're using the basketball analogy well here we go, if you throw a basketball team together, it's going to take a couple years, right? Before everybody completely has a feel for what everyone else is doing at all times.

Or maybe music doesn't work that way. I don't know. You tell me. Okay. Well, you know, I really don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I think we've just been digging. I think that we're just enough balanced between being much better musicians

or having been getting better this whole time. But we are a scrappy band. I think we're pretty scrappy. And we don't necessarily know all the notes. We don't know all the chords. But we do get our focus together. And our intentions are pure. So then it's kind of where you see what happens with that.

And I'm sure that we've gotten ourselves into situations that, you know, on paper seem doable, or they said, yes, you could play, you know, whether it was in early days, a festival with 70,000 people in Amsterdam in 90-whatever, two or one or something, to, you know, would you play Soldier Field and then years later play shows at Wrigley or whatever.

You think like, that seems doable. But then when you get there and you realize how it's kind of sacred ground or whatever, then you really got to pull together in kind of some scrappy way. And you know, who else gets credit for that is the crowd. Our crowds are part of the thing. So they frigging bring it. And then that allows us to do our thing. And then it's a communal celebration of look like we're all a bunch of scrappy folks out here and look how it's, this is pretty good. We've done this together.

What is the exact best venue in your opinion, your favorite type of venue to play? Is it a big 70,000 seat stadium? Is it an NBA arena? Is it a smaller venue? Like Jeff, what, what is like your dream venue? If you're just like, we're going to kick ass for the next three hours. Where is that? Well, I mean, you know, for me, it's Madison Square Garden and Forum and the old Chicago Stadium and the old Boston Garden. And it's those places. I mean, not only is it the places that I watched on TV when I was a little kid watching like all my idols play basketball games that, but those, those arenas sounded and sound amazing. Like, I mean, the forum in Madison Square Garden are two of the best sounding arenas. And it's just, you know, the, the show changes when

everything sounds good, when you can hear everything and the crowd sounds great and it's not a big boomy box you know um so yeah what about you eddie bill all the all the all the old arenas you know chicago stadium boston garden the uh uh the spectrum you know before they put in all the suites and the glass and the you know that kind of changed everything as far as sound um but all those old venues they were they were i remember our sound guy kind of said like you know we've played some like you know like venues that look like fancy cars right but then we get into this old rickety trolley and God, it sounds great. You know, the sound guys were just so excited,

you know, after soundcheck, you're like, how's the sound out there? Like, Oh my God, I wish we could play here every night. You know,

are there any of those arenas left? Well, I guess you'd have to go old school, right? Yeah. The forum, but it just got bought by the Clippers owner. God only knows how long it's going to be around now.

Didn't he say he's going to keep it for a concert venue? I hope so. I never trust any of these people with any of this stuff. I think if he's building a brand new basketball arena, that's going to be the state-of-the-art Clippers arena. He's going to need a parking lot. Yeah. Isn't the move to knock down the greatest Lakers memory place and turn it into a parking lot it seems I don't know I worry about it I I think that one is probably out of all the ones I've been to recently that one was good I was really impressed by the Warriors arena I know you haven't played there yet but I think they did put a lot of thought and care into how it would sound it's still new it's still got suites and stuff but i do think they put more attention into

that stuff than uh some of the later arenas have had but i'm with you like the garden chicago stadium the spectrum those were those are the ogs so you guys would rather be indoors than outdoors it sounds like well there's and then you and then you go to the other side, and then you might be, and mind you, we feel so fortunate to be able to say this, even, that when you play for maybe 100,000 people in Brazil, and they're all getting along incredibly, and they're singing along to the very back, and you can see the sound wave when they clap. You can see the time lapse of the sound to the drum beat as they clap um you know it's like that's that's inspiring too and then a small club like when you get into something small or

play a solo show or the communication in a in a quiet room and you know it's it's nice to have all you know that would be so fortunate to have these different experiences um you know jack johnson he loves to play outside he wants every show to be outside and to me i just i i'm checking the weather like the week before just you know we've been nervous we've been through a couple weather things and um wrigley was one of them the first time we played Wrigley and um you know in the end it's this kind of miraculous event that took place and the owner of the Cubs Tom Riggins had to go toe-to-toe with the uh all the powers that be to allow us to do that and and risk his reputation in the neighborhood and the whole thing and and um he had the courage and guts to back us up.

And that was incredible. It turned out OK. Ernie said, let's play two. And we were like, let's play till two. And it had some symmetry to it. And Ernie Banks was there. And Ernie was going to be the next song when our security guy said, we're going to have to shut it down now.

Um, and then I spoke to the crowd and then we kind of figured it out and everybody had to move off the field into the, and now it's not a big enough venue to hold everybody in those small concourses. Uh, the friendly, but tiny confines you know um but then looking back so all these years later you can look back and and ernie was going to be next he was going to stand up there with me and do all the way and all that so we played 20 minutes and then ernie was going to come up and now, and Ernie's pretty frail at that point, you know? And, um, and he went up in our kind of dressing room area and I said, Hey Ernie, I don't know how long this is going to go. I just talked to the head meteorologist. It might be an hour. It might be two, but just so you know, um, it's going to be a while and and he looked at me and he looked over at the table and he says is that red wine i said yeah he says i'll have me a glass of red wine

and in between talks with the chief of police and the meteorologist i keep coming back to ernie and we had you know a solid hour if not 90 minutes, you know, going back and talking baseball with Ernie at Wrigley Field. It was, yeah. The, uh, the way you guys have evolved with the, with the concert albums, which were initially, initially bootlegs. And I remember in Boston, there was a store that used to have the bootleg CDs. It was near Boston University in the mid nineties. And then all of a sudden everybody kind of realized we should start maybe getting a couple of these out. But it seems like, you know, I think there's been a couple of bands that have been really, I don't want to say the word reinvigorated, but it's

enhanced by this huge concert library where I think Springsteen, uh, the Grateful Dead, uh, where you have like, you, you guys have a serious channel where, you know, you could pop on there and it's just all these different concerts from all these different years and dates and venues. When did you, when did you guys fully embrace that aspect of this whole thing that this was one way to really extend the run in all these different ways well jeff i don't remember what what exact year it was but i know for a fact and we we'd go to what was it camden market in london we were we were voracious with you know finding bootlegs a lot of them were on cassette

you know so my early ones were vinyl you know uh who at madison square garden on vinyl um you know all this this vinyl live bootlegs and then and some of them sounded like shit but they were great you know they were you know if you put your headphones on you could your ears would acclimate and you were there you know even if right put your headphones on, your ears would acclimate and you were there. You know, even if you could hear the guy talking to his girlfriend, you know, halfway through behind blue eyes or some shit. But we, I think we started hearing some of ours. I think the idea was just that we could put them out at better quality.

And I think we allowed a taper section remember didn't we say if you wanted to tape you could and so we made it okay now we weren't and I and I used to do the same I used to sneak tape records and but now I worked at long's drugs so i i would get 10 off at their cost plus 10 in the photo department right for some of the early recording walkmans and then in stereo oh my god come on it was a great time to be alive and and recording the shows and never sold one and never every once in a while someone if they really earned it and really loved the the group or were there i would make them a cassette you know very rare but it was just for me

just to relive and relive because even the best show is going to go away after a little bit you know just the the best show it's going to go away there's going to be another one that takes the place of it or something but this you always you just always had your own personal document. So I always believed it was something important for people to be able to have. Now, do I agree with now that they want to film the whole thing with their phones and hold it up in front of the person behind them the whole time? Now I feel a little differently about that. And Jeff, so when was it? I think around 93, 94, we asked Brett to take out those ADATs.

That's right. And a lot of it was from going into record stores and seeing like, I mean, I remember going into places in New York and there'd be like 40 shows on double CDs and there would be like $40 and you could buy some of them and they sound terrible and so I think we went to the record label with the idea of at least a good year before it actually happened you know that we wanted to do this thing and they were they were fairly reluctant to begin with and that's right and then we thought we sold a shit ton of them and

and then they were on board magically so i think we're in the guinness book of world records because we the the day we released like 10 bootlegs or whatever, they all went into the top, I don't know, 100 or top 50. We were like the only group to ever have 10 records in the top 20 or something. Yeah, something funny. So YouTube comes 2006, and now anytime a band is playing anywhere, you can go find the concert on YouTube within a few hours, or you can find a song, or you can find a song or you can find a moment. How,

where are you, or are you guys have, have that whole thing? And can you, you mentioned you could see the people holding their phones. Like you must hate that because you're trying to connect with all these people. And meanwhile,

they're just pointing a phone at you. Well, and the other thing, well, I'm, I'm also worried about, again, the person behind them.

Cause that's, it's just annoying. And, you you know they're trying to watch you and then there's like a little you in front of you know just whatever yeah um it sucks but the the biggest thing going back to or the initial construct of this idea was that it would sound better and these phones they're gonna you know you know maybe they'll start recording and if they record it in stereo, it might be a little better. Yeah.

I don't like it. And listen, if any band was ever going to pull off, nobody can hold their phones up in front of them during our concerts. It's you guys. So you might have to think about it. But Jack White just takes them away.

You just got to put them in a bag when you get into the show which is really oh god it's good thinking but it's you know what i gotta ask both of you this this is just a super nerdy pearl jam question because i have my own answer and I'm not in the bin. What song in your entire catalog do you feel like hits the crowd the best? What song resonates with the crowd that they're involved, you're involved? It's like a whole, it just, the song is better because they're there and you're there

and it just goes to another level. What's the song? What's your answer? My answer is Porch. Oh. It's a little off the grid, but I think the crowd, there's a couple of parts where the crowd. I was hoping you'd say one that I wrote. I'm sorry.

Good answer. Good answer. Good answer. Porch is, it's an OG song, but also I think the crowd feels a real responsibility at a couple points to go up a level for you.

So that would be, that was my answer. What's your answer? I'm going to pick a jeff song okay but well yeah i don't know i i uh i don't know i mean there are there are certain staples but yeah go jeff i was gonna say you know what song that i that i think about it was the second time that we played buenos aires and when we played evolution that it felt like

we were on another planet and something there was like energy happening at that particular moment that i'd never witnessed before playing music and it was because they were singing every counter melody and guitar melody and it was singing the guitar parts it was awesome it really was one of the most unbelievable things and so i got two i was thinking about it i remember and then and then that song at the garden we were playing the garden i don't know how long ago 15 years 10 i don't know and um we're playing and all of a sudden the the stage started like something was happening i didn't you didn't even know if it was the state you didn't know what was happening but your balance was off like something and all of a sudden you realize the stage was moving so you kind of like lean down as if you were on a surfboard and a on a bumpy wave like lean down and i felt the ground and i was like what the

fuck's going on and didn't know if it was an earthquake or like don't panic maybe it's a train but we had played there before i never felt it and i looked back at matt and he looked at me like what the fuck's going on and he's on his kit and the cymbals are swaying and and we're like what the fuck is going on and the whole the whole floor of the garden the whole stage was was bouncing up and down actually oh wow yeah from a new york crowd to get them that excited that's that's pretty good i only went to one basketball game when that happened. In 87 when Bird stole the ball

against the Pistons. And I was there at the Boston Garden. And I actually thought the garden was, you're going to say like, wow, the garden is going to collapse, like jokingly. It really actually did seem like it was going to collapse. Like the thing was shaking. So it was the only time

I ever remember that happening. I got to ask you guys about rock bands just in general, cause we don't have a lot of them anymore. And you came from this era where, you know, one of the great rock eras we've had that four or five years stretch. That was just, just absurd. And you came from an era where when you want to get into music, the thought was, I'm going to be in a band and I'll be a guitarist or I'll be a singer or whatever. And now over the last, I would say, 15 years, way less rock bands, obviously hip hop, rap, all that stuff has become entrenched. And you see a lot more solo acts and things like that. We don't have that next wave of giant rock bands.

What happened? And do you think that will ever come back? So, Jeff, you can answer that first. Man, I mean, I think there's more great music now than there's ever been. I don't know if there's a big rock band you know uh movement happening right now but i mean there's a there's a there's a punk uh movement happening right now like in ireland and england where there's a a bunch of bands the idols and murder capital and fontaine's DC and shame, um, that, who I think that are making really important music and sort of their ethos is seems really similar to ours in terms of like, um, that it's where we're,

there's a bigger picture involved than just, uh, playing a rock show and getting drunk and whatever. So, you know, I think, you know, I don't know if guitar music is going to, you know, I would guess at some point people will be tired of, like, their Ableton and their Pro Tools and, you know, somebody will just start writing like really great you know heavy rock riffs again i it seems like it sort of has come and gone a few times since the 60s so eddie what do you think yeah i i think i think right before even that era of of uh part of it was um the seattle bands and before that there was talk of of

you know synthesizers taking over the world and um you know maybe it's it's cyclical um you know for me and i think you know i see it with my daughters or their friends or, you know, young kids. There's still, you know, you can see Jack White, the Raconteurs or Jack White, any formation. There's just something about human beings playing the shit out of their instruments working their asses off singing move and play like you know this this thing there's just something about it that just never it's always gonna that's always gonna be for me the the greatest thing you know part of it is the effort you're seeing the effort you. I probably don't have a big appreciation for a DJ-type scenario and the whole thing and the effort was put together before he got there or she or but to kind of you know hit a button and wave your arm around for me that's just not gonna you know it it needs to be you know some of the best shows i've seen are like

mud honey in a small place this band dead moon this three piece i mean that was the it's just so real just so real the humanity of it you know like i want the humanity and i and i think that for me that only comes from you know hands on a guitar and and and the drummer working his ass off and um and that you know i mean the fugazi shows were would change your life you know you could you could see them and and if you never had seen them before you could maybe you'd never even heard a song before if you went into that room that was five dollars all ages and saw what these four people did with plugging straight into their amps, you know, two guitar amps, a bass amp, and a drummer, it changed your life. Like, changed your life.

And there's just, you know, I've never seen anything like it. The Who for me, again, another band that would change your life with four guys up there playing their heart out i my hope is that it comes back my son is 12 and he's been playing the bass for the last i don't know 10 months and he's really into it and i do feel like this stuff cyclical to some degree where you start you start zagging because everybody is zigging the other way. And as you said, going on stage and just playing a song to a group of people the old school way, the way the connection with the fans, I still feel like that's going to win. But it also worries me how easy it is to make music

now where all you need is a beat. You can be on a computer. It could be one person. It could be two people. Whereas, you know, 30, 35 years ago, you kind of needed all the pieces and you needed to get together. Like even when Jeff and Stone were trying to figure out what to do after Mother Love Bone, like they needed a singer, right? There was like, Jeff, what would you have done if you didn't find Eddie? What would have the next two years have looked like? I probably would have gone back to art school. I mean, you know, that first few months. So I ruined a great artist's career.

Oh, man. Unbelievable. Oh, no. Because you'd be shown in galleries across the world i could just tell you that right now well you would not have failed yeah well there was a there was a few things that happened i i started playing um there was this band called war babies in seattle and i was really good friends with richard stewart who's the drummer in that band. And I just started jamming with him. And I played a couple of shows where they needed a bass player. And just getting in a room with a drummer and playing with them

and trying things, it sort of made me fall in love with playing again. And it felt free. And just the idea that on any given day, you can get together with another person or three or four other people, and you can create something out of the ether that, you know, gives you energy to go into the next day. It's, it's, um, uh, for lack of a better word, it's such a gift, you know, like, and, uh, that's, that's, that's still the best thing. It's still the best thing is like just showing up and going like,

what are we going to do? And at the end of the day, I'm like, Holy shit, look what we did. You know, like, where does this, where did this come from? You know? And it's, you know, it's like, it's our magic. It's our God. It's our, the spirit that we feel. And it's, you know, it's like, it's our magic. It's our God. It's our, the spirit that we feel. And it's like, it's, uh, it makes life worth living. Like, and it makes you want to live life. And it makes you want to do better and do more things and help people and all the things that we've gotten to do with the band. And, um, you know,

I just feel so lucky, you know, let's take a break to talk about a podcast from our friends over at Gimlet. We're teammates now. We're both in the Spotify family. Gimlet has a podcast called science versus there are a lot of fads, blogs and strong opinions. And then there's science, science versus that's the show that finds out what's fact, what's not, what's somewhere in between. They do the hard work of sifting through all the science so you don't have to. I can tell you, we've never needed science more than right now because a lot

of people are ignoring it. You can check out Science Versus because all the pods they're doing, they're doing two a week basically. And they're all about what's going on with the coronavirus. I would encourage people out there to listen to smart things like that, like the daily, like wherever you want to go, listen to the smartest people talk about what's happening right now, because there's nothing more important than that. Science versus a podcast from Gimlet. Check all of that out. And while you're checking on podcasts, check out all the great stuff that we have on the ringer podcast network all right back to the pod so the new album how long what was the process

how many months or years before you settled on it's 12 songs so what was the journey it really just it just it kind of grew on its own like I don't that's a it's a good question but

um as i was referring to before there was you know we were kind of piecing together a studio on our own we it just started different and it ended different and um and that's what felt great about it that um you know and at some point we we had to finish because you know there was you know at some point we we zeroed in and thought okay i think we i think we got this so now let's let's nail these these bits and bits and pieces and this is almost there and this. And this one's halfway there. That one's there. That one's there. But actually, let's get a mix on that and then see.

So it was, I guess, this last year, this last fall, I think we really leaned in heavy and hard and gave ourselves a little bit of a deadline finally, which was cool. I thought it was very mature and had grown up of us to say, okay, now let's actually finish. Because that can be the hard part. All that other stuff, again, like Jeff was saying, it's so fun and and the best and then and then after all that fun then there becomes this part about like okay now it has to be we have to set it down in concrete and then those are decisions that are a little tougher to make than you know the rough mixes and the demos are just like oh this is great this is great but you know not quite there but but then that that finishing process is a little tougher so once we got through that you know that that's the end of the process that was

um it it was hard but but not the worst thing ever and um the results were all stuff that we were happy with and i gotta say that um some of that stuff or even sequencing, uh, talking, I'd come together with an idea for the fellas and, and they just immediately agreed. They're like, yep, you did it. You did your homework. And I think that, you know, there might be a tweak here and there, but I'm just saying it was agreeable process and which that can be frightening. You know, if we're all using our voices uh then that can be scary because uh we might not agree but in this case we all did which made what could have been really hard not that hard at all how do you decide what the order of the songs are and how much thought do you put into that because the first song on this album is Whoever Said,

and it's a banger. It sets the tone. And I feel like it was an important choice as the first song, which I think you guys have done over the years. That first song gives you a sense for what's about to happen. But what's the process for that? Shoot. At, I, at some point it's just kind of, you know, just kind of no distillation, you know, you,

you, it kind of certain things find their spot, you know, it's like a set list. And I, and I think that's why they maybe, um, uh,

let me take a first crack at some of that stuff because of the whole setlist thing. So in a way, the record is going to be... Because we still make records to be listened to, not that everybody's going to listen to a record from track one to 12 in a row, or side A, side B, but we still make them. In case somebody does want to listen to it like that that's how we

make them and um but in a way it's it's also like a live show it would be you put the songs together in a way that that have a flow and a thought process that really i think um you know i think a lot of it comes back to keep and score uh when i was a little kid in baseball games you know there's a bit of an accounting that happens or when we do set lists or we're going to play four nights at the spectrum or something and try to play as many different songs as we can. And there's that accountant thing that obviously I wasn't good at math and didn't go to school for accounting. But what I did do is stare at the scoreboard at Wrigley Field. And I think that really helped me.

Just some of those things as a kid that you do that you never thought would come in handy. Yeah, I still feel like that's a big part of it. Yeah, I think we just lost Bill. Hello? Did we lose you? I think we just lost Bill. maybe he'll just jump back in oh my god I started talking about baseball

and he was like basketball but it's hard do you keep score at a basketball game I did keep score for like when i was in junior high uh there had to be a scorekeeper for the high school games and i would keep i would keep score for those oh nice but they don't sell like scorecards at a basketball game like pencils and a scorecard yeah no there's like there's like the high school team would have a scorebook

that they would use. But there was a similarity to the baseball thing. There were like these certain little icons and you put an X or just a single slash for certain things. And if they shot free throws, it was a slash and how many free throws they shot.

Wow. It wasn't as developed as baseball, probably because the game moves so much faster. But the baseball scorekeeping thing is, you know, I think I could have gotten really into baseball had somebody showed me that, you know, and had I had a team to go see. Right.

Well, and it's detailed, but the thing is there's time you can, you can catch up, you know, it's slow enough where you can, you can take a second to write the six, four, three, and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And I, and I was, I was into all that stuff. Like I had all those, I think we've talked about this, but I had all those who's who in baseball, who's who in football, who's who in basketball. And I would air. I mean,

I read those things every night before I went to bed for like five years. Like didn't you used to, I think we did the same thing. Didn't you used to cut out when they'd have like Monday night football, you'd cut out the roster of the TV guide. Oh yeah. No, I love the TV guide.

He tried to get as many. Yeah. Man, you just missed the best conversation. Just keep it going. Can we keep it in? My AirPods died. We turned it around to basketball, so you'd rejoin us. We were talking about baseball for a second, but we lost you.

But now we're back on basketball. I made the mistake of trusting these AirPods, and all of a sudden, I couldn't hear anything anymore, and they were gone. So fortunately, my daughter had a pair of AirPods that got for her. Oh, look at that. Where do we leave off? Did I miss anything? I told kind of a boring story about set lists and baseball scorekeeping. But can I direct the conversation?

Just one second, Bill. You can take it the rest of the way. Take us home. No, no, no, no, no, no. But I was just talking to, I found a in an old like shop or like a vintage shop or whatever and it was for 1970 i had to buy it because it was 1975 punt pass and kick award what for a nine-year-old which would have been how old I would have been. So I was like, okay, I got to buy this fucking thing. And, and, and if people think that I earned it, I'll, I'll maybe let them run with it

for a minute and I'll eventually tell them the truth. But Jeff Amon, he's got three of those things and he didn't buy one of them. Jeff Amon, do you remember this? I don't, Bill, I don't, you said you're getting old. I don't know how old you are, but do you remember the punt, pass and kick thing? Not only do I remember it, I loved it. It was, it was always third quarter of whatever playoff game. And I was always, I couldn't wait to see who made it. Yeah. Here we go. So Jeff Amon has three of those fuckers three of those well i could tell he's a i could tell he was a good athlete because in the cameron crowe documentary they show him playing basketball and

he just casually does this lefty layup that is one of those like very subtle oh this guy definitely plays basketball the way he did it so i I could tell. I could tell there was a coordination level in place. But that was my dream as a kid. That would have been the dream. And then we actually, I brought it up yesterday. And what was the story, Jeff? Like you actually would have gone to the Monday night football thing in Denver?

Yeah, there was a, yeah, I won my little regional one and the winner was supposed to go to denver and i can't remember who they they played and i and we i just couldn't afford it we couldn't afford for me to go to denver you know with one of my parents i don't know what it would cost at that point like probably a thousand dollars or eight hundred dollars or something and but i remember watching the game and sort of being a little bit disappointed that I didn't get to meet Floyd little, you know, or whoever. And they sent the second place guy. Yeah. Jesus. And his name was little Dan, Danny Marino.

Young Johnny. Hey Jeff, how, how has Eddie's personality changed since the Cubs won the World Series? Like much more peaceful, serene? What's he like now? Yeah, he's so easygoing. He's been like that for years. I'm a giant Red Sox fan. So I, I think of when we won in 2004, it was like a before and after it completely changed my perspective on everything. I honestly was worried that I was

going to live my entire life and die and not see them win the world series. And I'm sure you felt the same way with the Cubs. It just, everything felt different after and it's sports and it's stupid but it also isn't stupid because that's how i feel but let me ask you this did you go through a time when you all of a sudden you won and then that kind of then a month later you're like but wait a second this is like part of my dna like i'm no longer the underdog like like oh yeah did that kind of mess with your psyche a little bit because you're like this is strange i never i never felt this way before not only that it it felt like i kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, even though it was already good and, and good things that happened.

And I was in the clear, but your instinct as when you, when you're just as beaten down sports fan is just to assume everything's going to go wrong. We had like this unbelievable run with Boston sports for, you know, the Patriots became America's villain. They won six Superbowls.

The Red Sox won four world series, but the DNA is, yeah, and the Bruins won one and then the Celtics won in 2008. So we won in every sport. But the DNA for that, all of the 2000s was like, oh, something bad's going to happen. They're like, wait a second, why am I worried? We've already won like four titles.

It was weird. It was weird to shake it. I never thought I would see it. What if after the Boston, they win for the first time and Theo and the whole thing, and then they win for the first time, Ortiz, the whole thing. And then you've been champion for a month, maybe two, you've broken the curse. And then they came out and said, they were hitting a trash can. We have videotape. That's a tough one. Yeah, I mean, so.

Who destroyed you? I think about the Houston fans. I mean, it must, you know, they didn't know. We had a piece of it with the Patriots where everybody thought they cheated and some of this stuff's been debunked. But you get super defensive when it's your team.

You just, you think it's, no, no, they're get super defensive when it's your team. You just, you think it's no, no, they did. They're making this up. They're framing us. This can't be true. And you start talking yourself into,

uh, into not being as bad as they're saying or whatever. The Astros thing is really tough because there's just overwhelming evidence. Plus the way the other players turned on them was kind of unprecedented. They're saying anything like it. So which part of Spygate got debunked? I didn't hear that. Well, people think they taped the Rams practices,

and that was definitely 100% debunked. That did not happen. The thing that definitely happened was they taped the first Jets game when they weren't supposed to, and they paid the penalty. The Flategate was, I don't know, that one, that was pretty flimsy. Still not sure what the evidence was with that one. But look, do I think Belichick's trying to get an edge in every possible way? Of course. I'm sure there's stuff he's done that hasn't been reported. But yeah, I feel bad for the Dodgers fans because they haven't won since 88. And, you know, now you look at the two,

they lose to the 2017 Astros who destroy you Darvish. And, you know, that was when it turned for Kershaw too. And now you think like, oh, they were cheating when they kind of ruined our nucleus basically. So pretty tough. What do you think, Eddie? Well, we, you know, then the cubs got darvish and he was still kind of processing yeah what he had been through so you know it affected you know even other teams post script so um i i actually think that the penalties should be extremely harsh for that

kind of thing and i know you're talking about sports and edges and and that everyone you know there's little things that they're trying to do that are maybe you know working outside the lines just a little bit but um for you know the legacy of the game and the whole this it's kind of important stuff 160 games a year and all these kids keeping score and all these record books and all these people that know the stats and they say that the baseball fan is the most intelligent of all the fans because of all the stats they got it johnny ramone taught me that um you know there's and and then it just lays all that to waste um you know i i was wondering why they didn't vacate it like how they do in college where you know it happened they got to celebrate it but then baseball just

doesn't acknowledge it it made me wonder if one of the reasons they didn't do that is because way more teams were cheating than just the Astros. They were just the ones that were the most blatant. But you would think if they were the only ones cheating, everyone else would have really banded together and tried to get them. But my guess is they're all doing something right well they're using technology to to forward their uh ability to you know lock down a pitcher or a delivery or whatever i've

seen some of that stuff and and they all seem to have that technology or maybe some teams are ahead of the curve on that than others. There's different edges. But maybe it was just that it was so, and kind of in an old school way, it was so old school, like bang on a trash can. Right. It's just kind of crazy to think about.

And if you're a pitcher, that's just making you crazy. It's got to make you crazy. Well, you think like baseball has taken so many hits with the integrity. This was the last thing it needed. You guys don't have this in music. Performance enhancing drugs are allowed. I'm not even sure how you would really cheat in music.

I guess you could maybe game download streams or something. I think lip syncing. I think, you know, Milli Vanilli. Oh, yeah. They got caught though. They hit the trash can hard. Yeah. I think they won Best New Artist over Soundgarden for the Grammy.

Is that true? I think so. Well, you guys won the Grammy that time and you famously said you didn't understand what this meant or what the moment was. And I actually thought it was a really good point because why do we give awards for art which is the most subjective thing you can do i think with movies it's different but when you start talking about uh everybody who's made a rock song in 2019 here's the best one like how how are we ever going to possibly decide what that is music hits everybody differently right well and i think i think it was you know and even in

movies you could say well who's the best actor well they didn't have the same part but they um with music yeah it's all subjective and and we were smart enough at that point to know that yeah it's probably a little bit rigged and And, you know, it just by the time we got there, it just wasn't we weren't at our happiest time of, you know, we we didn't want to buy into all the shit. Right. That's the bottom line. I mean, we kind of knew some of the stuff that goes on. And sometimes you kind of you think like, oh, and would I have told myself at a younger age? Like, yeah, just buy into some of this shit. It's no big deal. I still wouldn't have done it. You know, I don't know.

It's just, there's so many great groups that never got recognized and never will. They won't be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Fugazi probably won't be in there. Sonic Youth should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. You know, all this uh there's a lot of little bits of uh uh injustice but um you know to be honest you should probably get the award and thank the people and you know the fan look i'll watch the grammys with my daughters or something and i'll be rooting for somebody to win. Like, oh, I really, you know.

Come on, Lana Del Rey. Win this one. You know, like, she's great. But when you got Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, that was meaningful. No? No, I think it was. In a whole nother kind of way.

And, you know, again, there's other bands that probably you'd feel better about being in that group if they were included as well. a celebration and a reason to get everybody together and, and families and crews and, um, you know, something that I guess if nothing else, we had, you know, done our time and, you know,

we never broke up and, you know, I, I think we've done good things for, uh, the art form. And you had David Letterman there. And Dave.

That was cool. Yeah. Well, it was going to be Neil. And then Neil got nervous. I think in the end, I think Neil, because when we went and did it with Neil, or we inducted Neil and we were part of that, which ended up turning into a record, which was a big turning point in our lives too. When we talk about those early days and where we're thinking about breaking up and all that stuff.

And then we made a record with Neil and we thought, well, that's how you fucking do it. Right. And, um, and being around him and his energy and his knowledge and wisdom. And, um, being around him and his energy and his knowledge and wisdom and um but that was at a small when when we were part of that ceremony you know was it the world of ristoria and it was a and i think when he found out it was at the brook you know the big the large arena and i think he was just like, I'm just not feeling that, guys.

Wow. So, yeah, Letterman came to a rescue. He's a hero. He's so great. And I used to watch Letterman when I did the midnight shifts at the petroleum company all those years. So he was like my co-pilot. And it was, you know, I'd be alone at work in this little booth and getting to watch dave every night never miss it and he had great music he was always pulling out like warren zeevan or uh mary margaret o'hara you know all these musicians you wouldn't normally hear of and

um he just said uh he was he was good for music, Dave. And then, um, to get to know him over the years of being part of the show and that it meant a lot to us. And then for him to do that was, was really, um, just awesome. I'm a huge Letterman guy. Cause I I'm in the exact age range. I was like 13 when the show, you know, when he got the NBC show. And music was such an important part of the first five to seven years of that show because he actually had an awesome band. You know, like nobody,

no late night show had a band like that. I remember one of the best things I've ever seen. Hiram Bullock in the early days. Oh yeah, and Schaefer. But I remember he had, and I think it's on YouTube, he had Mark Knopfler on. But without Dire Straits, it was just him. But they played Romeo and Juliet or one of those songs or Skate Away. And he just played it, or maybe it was

Espresso Love. It was one of those three. He played with the band and they just filled in as the rest of Dire Straits. And it was incredible. Killed it. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like in the mid eighties, there was nothing like that on TV unless SNL had somebody good, you know, and SNL would kind of go in waves with, sometimes they'd have good years where they were on it. When you guys were on the first time, that was actually one of those eras where they, they, SNL was actually, you know, introducing a lot of these artists that were pretty relevant. And it wasn't just like pop acts. It was, you know, they had you guys on, they had Nirvana, Soundgarden was on. They were really kind of wired into that culture. But other than that, unless you went to cable, um, network TV, it just wasn't the same.

Jeff, I have a question for you. Out of all the bands from the era that you guys popped out of, so we're going like 89 to 94, which band from that era do you think should have been a bigger deal than they were? Well, I mean, I can think of two different bands and it's sort of two different levels but um mud honey is the obvious one because um they encapsulated like you know all of us sort of got thrown into this seattle sound grunge thing and that's what mud honey was

mud honey was the seattle sound um and you could even say the melvins too but the melvins moved to san francisco and later on to la around that time but um both of those bands um should have been a bigger deal and to be honest even though sound garden had like tons of hits soundarden to me was like the greatest band from our town like they um musicianship and songwriting and just the whole thing like I you know there were so many shows that I saw them at from what's that drummer that guy not camera yeah oh yeah yeah you ended up with him you you were talking earlier about the peak of the peak of us in the 90s and about 10 shows into matt cameron playing drums with us was when i felt like we were like a great band when i felt like holy shit like that was yeah

that's the answer yeah that, that's the answer. Yeah. That's, that's the answer you're looking for before bill. Yeah. Yeah. See Eddie, I knew there was an answer.

You made me feel bad. And then it turned out there was an answer. No, there was an answer. And Jeff had to come up with it. Yeah. But I remember that, that first few months that we played with Matt,

it just felt like the honeymoon to me. It felt like the honeymoon that maybe we never had or whatever, but, but yeah, you know, Mudhoney, Melvin's, Soundgarden, you know, all different ways, but they all should have, I don't know. They should have had, they should have, I mean, the Melvins and Mudhoney are still bands, you know, still bands and making great records and making great music and playing shows. So you could argue that they're still relevant.

Still. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Eddie, do you have a different answer or you have the same answer? No, Mudhoney is the same. Actually, all across the board, same answer. But Mudhoney, Mark Arm is, know i i uh and he knows this i've talked to him about it and we're friends but i still am slightly nervous around him he's such a great front man and lyricist and performer he's gonna kill me um you know it's he and that whole group you know the greatest drummer greatest bass player great steve turner guitar uh dan peters matt lukin um it was just an and it was an event in Steve Turner, guitar, Dan Peters, Matt Lucan.

It was just an, and it was an event in Seattle. A Mudhoney show was like an event. And it was going to be eventful. You knew it. Even their manager, Bob Whitaker, their tour manager, he was an event um so it was just part of you know as you know when you talked about earlier about uh did you guys get along or you know it's interesting that you guys got along when the previous generation like johnny ramone or whatever like he didn't he didn't want to know the talking heads. He wanted to hate the talking heads. He was kind of friends with Blondie, but you know,

he just saw every band as competition. Um, you know, I came up and I was just, I was the new guy and man, it just meant the world to me that, that I could have friendships with, you know, Kim Thile from Soundgarden or, um, the guys from Mudhoney and Bob, the manager. And it just, and it still means the world to me. You know, I still, I'm like Ronnie Wood in the Rolling Stones. Like I'm still like the new guy. Right.

I remember when Coban initially criticized the band, like that had a pretty dramatic effect I know you worked everything out and got along with him later but that one time that he lobbed a grenade and you guys were pretty open like it really made you reevaluate um everything you were doing when you look back at that now do you think like should it have impacted you guys that way or was it legitimate well i think that was more a construct of the press right is that right jeff yeah for sure i mean there there's that rolling stone article where the guy i mean i can't remember

his name michael azerod or whatever he he wound me up and then i ended up saying something like i can't remember what i said like there's something about riding who's bandwagon and who's writing and but he he was working it from both ends um and that article was the thing that sort of blew it up a little bit i mean i mean to be honest we didn't really know those guys i mean even, even in the early Seattle scene, like I knew Chris Novoselle a little bit because he was friends with the Melvin's guys and with, he would roadie Melvin shows, but, um, you know, those early green river mother loved on days,

like the Nirvana was kind of a South Bay band. So we, we didn't really hang out with them until we didn't, we didn't even so we didn't really hang out with them until... We didn't even really have the opportunity to hang out with them until much later. And by that time, you know, it was too late. Right. What do you remember about that time now, Eddie? Oh, shoot. I have a couple of voicemail messages from Kurt on a tape somewhere,

you know, back when your voicemail was on a cassette. There was some cool intro. There was a Valentine's party at Nova Selig's house and there's a jukebox in the basement and Tad and Kurt and we're wrestling in the corner. And then somehow I got involved in that and then you know it was it was just just great great times and and you know one weird thing i remember we were there's this thing in japan

called is it yo yogi park jeff is that what it is yo yogi park yeah yeah so it's it's groups it's it's kind of funded by the city or whatever and they it's like this whole street it's like uh three football fields long and there's bands on both sides separated by to a 20 foot walkway to walk into and and and it's you walk down that street and it was it was like turning the radio dial. There was an NSYNC kind of cover band, or maybe it was before that, so New Kids on the Block, whatever. And then another band, and then Elvis impersonators, and then da-da-da. And there was this Nirvana cover band.

The drummer was total metal uh the bass player had a thing going on but but the guitar player was exact kurt he's a japanese version of kurt and he had the cardigan and bit of a haircut and the whole thing the the converse and the whole thing, the converse. And in between songs, he would kind of be very dour and walk back to his amp and switch it and then come back and do the thing. And I just wanted to tell him, Kurt's not that sad. Kurt's, he's a good person. He's funny.

Everyone's funny. You watch clips of that band or interviews or whatever they're fucking funny and uh you know it's just weird to think that everybody's you know and of course the way things turned out it didn't help with the uh uh kind of caricature of it all but um it wasn't like that you know it wasn't they were i was just very grateful even to have my my little bits of time um it was enough to make me uh deeply regret uh everything that happened and happened and wish that it wouldn't have. Let's take a break to talk about feedingamerica.org. Go there. You can donate meals just for $1. You can donate 10 meals. So think about if you do more than $1, how many meals that is. Every dollar you

give can provide at least 10 meals to children and families in need through the Feeding America network of food banks. They also, you know, they have a whole network of food banks. You can see what's going on in your city, in your region, wherever you live, and whether you want to help out people who live near you and try to feed some people and do some good stuff out there. Give what you can. I know times aren't great right now, but check out feedingamerica.org and that will really help you with all this stuff. Coming next week, I'm going to have some, we're going to do some reads for some different charities that are helping people on the frontline, whether it's nationally or in different cities or something, but we need more resources for everybody in the hospitals

right now. And not just for the people there, but just getting them food and supplies and everything else. So I'm hoping by Sunday night's podcast to have more information on that. But for now, feedingamerica.org is a great place to start and check out their network of food banks as well. Back to the podcast. What out of the next generation, so talk about the 2001 range, the strokes come up, white stripes, yeah, yeah, yes. And there's like all of a sudden this new era that's rock is back, even though the old era is still going. But every like 10 years, this happens. Out of those those bands which is the one that would have fit in with that whole 89 to 94 era because i would say the white stripes but i don't know if you guys feel differently well and slater kinney and i love the first kings of leon well i

still love kings of leon obviously um but like that first record really hit me hard or the EP and then the first record, uh, and the second, you know, but, um, and they kind of went through their shit and I tried to help a little bit. I feel like an older brother to that band. I think they, they, uh, they liked that relationship. I certainly do. Um, but I think all of them, right. I think it's, it's all. It felt like the younger brother era to your era. What do you think, Jeff? Yeah, I think, I mean, I mean the times that we spent hanging out with the strokes guys,

um, it seemed like if it would, if they were 10 years older that we would have been hanging out with those guys you know like they they had real similar sensibilities and art and music and just general enthusiasm and originality and um you know jack white's the greatest i mean you know it's like anything he touches is like it's amazing so and his aesthetic and every you know jack white's the greatest i mean you know it's like anything he touches is like it's amazing so and his aesthetic and every you know he takes it to the full like he really thinks about everything and he's right like it's so commendable and and we appreciate that as listeners or consumers or whatever it's like this guy really thought this through and, and even his, you know, his business and his label and his bat company, you know about that, right?

Bill. Baseball bats. Yeah. He makes it war stick baseball bats. Incredible. There's guys using them, uh, in the major leagues. I somehow didn't know that you yeah war stick wow i i think one of the things i liked about those guys the yeah yeah yes and the and the

strokes was it was what you were talking about earlier with the the connection with the crowd like i remember i saw the white stripes probably summer of 2003 at like one of the k-rock things here and when they played it, I don't know how many people, and you know, those festivals, the bands are changing. People are half paying attention.

And it was just, it was the same thing. Like what you're talking about. Like they just were able to connect with everybody that was there. And I still feel like that's going to be the advantage that rock is always going to have over all these other genres. Like I just have never felt that way at a hip hop concert. Yeah. That's going to be the advantage that rock is always going to have over all these other genres. I just have never felt that way at a hip-hop concert.

Yeah. And Billie Eilish. They connect. It's about that connection. And lyrics. These people write great lyrics and they're connecting with their audience. Are your kids into Billie E alish oh absolutely and they're mine and they should be like it's it's really great you know what i was going to say uh when you talk about the strokes or whatever it's interesting because you see a group and like when i was a kid you know trying to find bands or be in bands

and i did a lot of tascam home recording four track cassette you know the whole thing and then trying to be in a band and like like it was difficult to find the right people different you know and then and then you how do i say When, when you get to the strokes or what you realize, like they seem like a band, like a four headed monster, like the red hot chili peppers or the who, or Led Zeppelin. They're like four,

they must be all similar enough. So when you're in a young group, you're trying to find people that are similar to you and your musical tastes or your ethics or, you know, how, you know how you know uh and and then even fugazi which would be like the perfect example like they must be all exactly the same like they must all the the cool thing that that you want young musicians to know or whatever is like the band is made up of different people

and you're not going to find for you know you think the ideal band is like three other guys that think like you it's that band's gonna suck right and so it was so cool to be in a band and realize we were different and and that that, that, and then when you, but then it was actually getting to know the older bands or the bands that came before you. And when you actually really got to know them outside of reading interviews or something like being their friends, wow, this is what it takes. So I want people to know that like you sometimes forget, like you have to,

it's the diversity, it's the tension it's the different uh approaches that that actually make it all work well i wonder you know you see that in sports now where everybody's changing teams after a couple years right and especially in basketball everybody just every three four years is like i I'm going to go here. Now I'm going to be on this team now. And you see these guys that aren't willing to really work through some of the rough patches, you know? And I remember right after LeBron left Miami, right before he left Miami in 2014, and Pat Riley gave this press conference. And at that point, we didn't know if LeBron was staying or if he was going to go somewhere else. And Pat Riley gave this press conference. And at that point, we didn't know if LeBron was staying or if he was going to go somewhere else. And he was just talking about like, Hey,

we didn't win this year. It's okay. This is hard. You're not supposed to win every year. What only one out of 30 teams could win. And you know, sometimes when you don't win, that's when you find out who you are and you got to fight through it. It needs to say LeBron left. But, you know, I wonder that with, uh, you know, he was gone for the two days. Uh, but, um, but I do think that would be like, you know, you guys have been together 30 years now, basically, but, uh, you know, there's, you hit those spots and the relationships have to keep it together and a whole bunch of other things, but it's not going to be easy. It's like what Jeff said earlier. If it was going to be easier the whole way through, then everybody would be doing it. So I don't know. I still

haven't been able to figure out why there hasn't been that next rock era like we had 01 to 04 like we had from 90 to 94 like if the next one's coming or if music has just changed or if there's been too much rock music at this point I mean we've had like 65 years of rock music so I just don't know I don't have a prediction for it I'm rambling but

I don't know the answer there's a group called White Reaper and they're playing sold out shows shows in kind of decent-sized venues. And, you know, I think there's, you know, I think that art form, well, yeah, I think it'll always exist. We kind of talked about it before. Greta Van Fleet, I think, has a chance too. I thought, first of all, they're related, which is good.

That means they're going to stay together. But I think they have a second album, I think, coming out at the end of this year. But that's another one that maybe can do it. Can I ask you why that first song you released, which is really cool but is also way different than just about any Pearl Jam song

you've ever put out. It almost seemed like you were fucking with your fans a little bit. Oh, come on. A little bit. No? No. It was the most interesting first song to put out. Fucking with them is a... We would never.

Well, I think people thought, wait, is this going to be a... Is this going to be a totally different sound for Pearl Jam? Or is this one song? Like, that was a debate for a couple weeks there. Right. Well, I guess we knew that the whole record wouldn't end up being completely uh directed more that route so um if they panicked i i think we knew that it would be fine you know it's it's like you know a thrill ride you're like oh shit but you're gonna be okay you're gonna be you know

it's interesting it wasn't panic It was kind of like, oh, what is this? It was more like, I don't feel like people were upset about it. Oh, good. I actually thought people were like, whoa, this is something is happening on this album. They've obviously, they're going to

try some stuff and stuff's going to happen. Jeff, do you read that stuff? Are you online reading the reaction? Are you on message boards? Are you looking at any of that? No, but I had enough friends call and say that they

liked it or, well, that's different or there's a handful of friends that are huge fans that I didn't hear from. But it was one of those songs that we knew we were sort of like pushing the envelope a little bit and yet everybody like sort of attacked that song when we were putting it together and then when ed wrote the you know the lyrics and the vocal melodies started happening to it it was like seriously like one of the best days of the last 10 years of creating things because it felt like

we were doing something brand new and it was great it felt it felt like it was a really good song uh even though there were some keyboards and and stone was playing bass and uh you know the drums uh, you know, the drums had, uh, you know, even though it's Matt actually playing most of the drums that are on that track, um, it sounded, uh, like a drum machine. Um, so that's the stuff that I get excited about is the stuff that may be pushing the boundaries a little bit. And it feels like we're, I don't know,

there's, there's excitement in that. I think as a band, you know, when you try something and it, and it feels, it still feels natural. Was it, was it, wasn't it a drum, a Matt Cameron drum loop that started it? Is that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Matt Cameron, how many drummers did you have before Matt Cameron? At least four, right? Four or five? Five? It was so long ago.

Four or five. Come on, these are people. Four drummers? Matt's been in the band for, what, 23 years? And he's still the fifth drummer. Oh, five, yeah. Yeah. Eddie, what song are you most excited to play in concert from this new album oh shoot you know I can't uh can't pick yeah no it's just I I want to give you a better

answer and it's the usual answer of like you know we just like the whole damn thing but you know we went through uh as we were getting ready for tour we went through everything um you know our one our one issue was that our first show was going to be out before the record came out our first show was before the record came out so it was like all of a sudden we had a week of shows in canada and there would only be two maybe three songs out from the record so what do we do in the set list do we not play these other new songs so that's one thing i guess we don't have to worry about anymore by the time we get out there it'll'll be out. See, I mean, it's going to be, I can't, I hesitate to guess, but it'll at least be four months, three or four months

until people are going to concerts again, hopefully. I mean, we have the, I guess we'd be leaving in mid-June to go to Europe and we're all in a holding pattern. Is this the first time you've ever put out an album but then not been able to tour with it it has to be yeah because usually it's tied together yeah yeah well yeah that's what we do oh my goodness it is crazy it's just crazy and then every once in a while you you have to you know my my instincts are you know don't react respond you know deal with the situation don't react but but every once in a while and almost in a it's just crazy to think like we had no idea any of this was coming down you know a month ago or two months ago like it was not even a word that we had heard now some people maybe in an

administration or you know some world leaders might have heard about it, it, it's so crazy that the people we trust weren't able to get ahead of this. And, um, that's crazy. I feel the same way. Hey, we, we probably should have at least had some idea by the beginning of February, but you know, as we talked about earlier, even that weekend before everything started to get shut down, everybody was going to basketball games. So whenever there's a Laker game that Tuesday night, and there were NBA games that Wednesday night, and all of it's nuts in retrospect.

Well, I wish you the best of luck with the album. I encourage people to listen to it. I thought it was excellent. And I can't wait until you're finally out there and touring whenever that is. I know it's gotta be frustrating for you guys, but, um, at some point you'll be out there. Uh, Jeff, any last words? Uh, who do you, I have a question. Who do you think would have won the NBA championship this year? Oh, good question. So it's funny, the week before...

Other than the Celtics. No, I actually thought the Lakers were going to win. I thought they had the best team because of the... I just thought the LeBron-Anthony Davis combo, when it got to playoff time, when it just gets so much more physical and the respect that the officials have for them. And they're just always going to be able to get to the free throw line 25 to 30 times in any big game. And it's just that trumped anything

that anybody else had. But I thought it was going to be whoever won the Lakers Clippers series, I thought was going to be who won the title. Well, how about this too, that the Lakers are going to win it for Kobe as well? Oh, yeah. The fans were definitely focused on that. But there were some unknown variables, right? Davis had never been in really a huge playoff game before.

And LeBron was on pace to play over 3000 minutes, regular season and playoffs. And so who knows? Cause you see all the time with injuries and why, who do you think would have won Jeff? I thought maybe the Lakers were peaking a little bit too soon. Very possible. I thought the Clippers were still, you know,

a lot of that depended on Paul George. And then I think, I think the Clippers were still, you know, a lot of that depended on Paul George and then I think the Bucks were, you know, right there in the mix, you know? Eddie,

do you have an opinion on this? No, my basketball history, I know everything about like Jordan, Rodman,

Pippen. That's my era. After that, I literally retired. Once they won those last ones, Rodman, Pippen. That's my era. After that, I literally retired. Once they won those last ones, I literally, I didn't even go to another professional sporting event. Like I retired. I didn't even go to Wrigley.

I was just done. Wow. It was that good. Couldn't get any better. I'm done. I'll focus on other things. Unbelievable. You just dropped the mic yeah and then and then i slowly started breaking my uh you know i i became my own scab like i i our crew guy george he's like you know so i'd i'd go to uh i'd go to Wrigley and I'd go to batting practice and I'd meet Harry Carey.

And he said, I heard you broke your strike. I said, no, I didn't watch the game. I went to batting practice. I left. And then another time I used the technicality and I watched it from the rooftop in the back. He said, you went to the game. I said, not technically. No, it was that good.

It was that exciting. Nothing could beat that. whatever, crowd surfing, you know, jumping off, jumping off a 20 foot balcony with drinks in our hands after the bulls win against Utah and Chicago. And then, and then he jumped out and I was like, Oh fuck. And then the crowd caught him and then we're bouncing around on the crowd. I was like, that's pretty good. You know, they have that big Michael Jordan documentary coming out that my friend Jason Hare did that I think they're now going to move up to the end of April, but it's 10 parts.

Oh, the Bulls, not just Michael Jordan, but the Bulls. Yeah, it's the last. Well, it's about Jordan. It's the 98 Bulls and Jordan. And it's 10 hours, 10 parts. And they've worked on it for two years. They interviewed everybody. And I think it has a chance to be really great. So when I was at ESPN, when we were doing 30 for 30, we finished the first series. And then we had always heard about this secret documentary that had been made about Michael Jordan's last season, where they

had all this practice footage of him yelling at teammates and just being Michael Jordan, like being the guy we'd always heard about. And we were always trying to figure out what can we do? Can we get a director? And Jordan wanted no part of it. And he controlled all his rights and was just like, no, nobody's, nobody's doing that. That footage will not be seen. So I don't know what changed over the last few years, but it's all coming out and the footage is amazing. And I think I put it this way, Eddie, I think you're going to be happy. You're going to be happy with the 10 hours. Well, and you know what, who else was just so incredible during that time and was really great and gracious to Jeff and I all over all these years is Phil Jackson. And, you know, we have a connection with his kids and we, he was, you know, he would he was uh he was a cool force of nature to be around you know at that

time and um he was kind enough to know who we were and and he would give us shit he would fuck with us a little bit but as as you as you should get fucked with. Um, but he was, you know, at one point, I think after, uh, the bulls disbanded and Phil was just in with the Lakers. I was like,

Phil Jackson was my, he was my favorite player in the NBA, you know? Yeah. Did, who's the most surprising person who's ever loved your band? The one that you guys were just like, wait a second i haven't i haven't answered oh great octavia spencer wow what yeah when we played when i did uh something at the oscars or something

um i walked off and she was there and maybe it was towards the end of the show or something. And she stopped. She put down her phone. It was still on the side of the stage at the little theater or whatever. Yeah, it was so sweet. And her friend was next to me and next to her. And she said, oh, you should hear her sing. She sings you like you wouldn't believe.

Oh, my god. It was you like you wouldn't believe. Oh my God. It was really sweet. It was awesome. But as far as, you know, you wouldn't have guessed it. That was really cool because I love her so much. Jeff, you have an answer?

I think in the early days, I remember this wrestler named Brett the Hit man heart, I think was his name. He showed up at a show like in Edmonton. And I think he and Dave Aberdeen ended up being like really super good friends. But I remember you thinking like,

I remember he showed us his forehead where he like, he ran the razor blade and he had this giant scar, like right at his hairline where he'd make, you know, the blood come out of his head. And I just remember thinking like wow that's really weird that that but you know the other one when it first came about was actually dennis rodman and then that was the beginning of a long long deep friendship and um you know it was a little nerve-wracking it you know at the beginning there it was like who the fuck is this guy but

he really the music it it fueled him it was pretty. And that's when they were going through all this stuff. It was getting hot and heavy in Chicago. But that was his thing. He would put on our music and watch the tapes, put on his music and watch the tapes. That guy worked so hard. There was all the wedding dress and you know all the the stuff he would do but man that guy worked hard and would ride the bike you know a half hour after the game

he'd ride the bike on the side of the you know near the on the bench, like he worked, that guy worked and then watch the tapes and about rebounding, like knew every, he knew if one guy, if he shot it, it was going to be short. He knew, you know, especially on his own team, his own team, he had it memorized. He's like, Scotty, always like, he's going to shoot long. He's going to shoot long. Like he always knew. Yeah. They did a documentary about him last year. That was going to shoot long. He always knew. They did a documentary about him last year. It was okay. I was frustrated by it, though,

because I would have devoted five minutes to the science that he created about rebounding. Like you said, he had this fifth sense for where the ball was going because he spent so many hours studying people's... you know,

like Scottie shooting long or like if this guy's in the corner, it's going to go to one of these two spots. I think he was the first guy who figured all that stuff out. And it was, and he would just, you, when you went to the games, you could see him moving the spots, even as the ball was in the air and not totally understand what he was doing. And he'd be like, Oh, that's why. Cause he's the ball's about to go there.

And, and there he is. I always thought he was kind of like a rebounding genius. Um, and we tried to be at a good influence, you know, just, just settle down.

Let's read a book. You got three titles out of them. We, we had this one. Can I tell a quick story? quick story yeah hey john yeah can you get me a beer yeah um so real quick though it was seattle it was regular season uh they had a practice and then they were going to play the next day back when seattle had a team and uh we're at the Four Seasons, da-da-da, and Phil Jackson's in the lobby, and he's smoking a cigar, and I wave to Phil,

and then George's security guy, Dennis' security guy, George, holds out three plane tickets to Vegas. I said, what the fuck is that? I said, I thought we were going to go up. I brought a book. I was like, let's sit on the couch. You sit on one side.

I was like, well, read books. And he said, Jane's Addiction is playing in Las Vegas. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. It's like fucking 6 o'clock. He's like, we'll get there by nine. They don't go on until 9.30. And I said, Dennis, just fucking, you know, and I think the reason Phil likes me is that I'm like one of his friends

that will like calm him down, right? So I feel like, you know, Phil's looking at me like going, what the fuck's going on over there with the plane tickets? So sure enough, we end up, because he's persuasive, and we end up going through the fucking Seattle airport. I mean, old ladies love Dennis Rodman. I mean, we're like running through the airport people are like creating a running trail behind him like this river dennis dennis screaming and he's going eddie vetter right

here eddie vetter right here he's pointing at me uh we go to vegas we fly to fucking vegas we get to the thing we get a car we dot it up blah blah blah we get to the side of the stage jane's addiction starts playing fleas playing with him and we're sitting on a road case on the side of the stage we each got a light beer in our hand and music's great jane's addiction comes on and just mountain song is killing it and uh and dennis looks over he goes he goes it's relaxing right that was great to think of dennis rodman relaxed is like the craziest part of that story i didn't know that's that's that's how on rocket

jet fuel that he was that that was relaxing and then you know we didn't spend the night we got on another commercial play commercial but you know like get back and then he had fucking whatever 20 rebounds the next night or something but that was thing. I think Iverson was like this too. The guys that could burn the candle at both ends like that because they were such athletic freaks. When it goes, it goes immediately. You can do it. And then like Rodman, they win the title in 98. He's basically out of the league the next year. Iverson went from like, was second team all NBA or something in two years. He's basically, he's done. Cause at some point you can't be up 19, 20, 21 hours a day going wherever and then play basketball.

Like your body's not going to hold up. Even Jordan, the Jordan stories, like him, he just didn't sleep and he would play like 36 holes of golf and then play in the finals and stuff like that. So those people are just wired differently. Although some would say that you guys, I mean, Hey, the amount of, think of the amount of two and a half hour to three hour concerts you've put in, um, over the years is,

but you have to be at least somewhat of an athletic freak, right? The 30 years of concerts. What I think Jeff and I had had a conversation didn't we about like it's good that we're in this group right because it it makes us stay in shape we have right the good thing about being in this group you got to be in shape so um yeah they said mick jagger was always the first one who figured that out. Right. Like he, he was always staying in shape and during a,

during an era when nobody even knew that you were supposed to do that. And then he would go out and do his thing and now he's still doing it. I actually, I think Tina Turner taught him. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Wait, before we go, I have to tell you guys one story. So I started dating my wife in July 1998, and she loved Pearl Jam, as did I. And then probably about two, three months in, you know when it starts to feel like, oh, this is starting to get serious.

September range, you guys play at Great Woods. And so this is September 98. And I think, I don't know how this worked out and I don't know what the karma of this is, the good karma, but I think it's one of the legendary shows you guys have had. There was a Great Woods 98 show that if you go on like the super nerdy Pearl Jam sites and they talk about the great shows you guys have had, this was one of them. And somehow I was there with my wife. So I feel like that's what I think.

Maybe we're destined to be together and have kids that love music. I don't know. Jeff, why is that? Because we started with an acoustic set. What was the story of that? There was a reason we had to. You got mad during the show

at somebody or something and went to another. It was like, because you would do this from time to time. You're like an athlete. You would take some slate and you would put it into the concert. And I think that's what happened. You got mad. Somebody got kicked out or

somebody threw a bottle or something and you just got mad. And then all of a sudden it was on and you just like laid the smack down. I mean, all this stuff probably blends in together for you guys now at this point, right? Well, no, I remember most shows and, and, and I, I, I can't remember exactly. Somebody throws some, like a hit me in the head with a quarter or something? What was it? Maybe that's what it was. I think somebody threw something at you and it made you mad.

Well. That sounds right. Dime well spent. I don't. Yeah, no. Piss me off with the sign. Don't do that again. People listening, don't. I'll deliver.

I'm going to come through. Don't do that again. People listening, don't. I'll deliver. I'm going to come through. Don't worry. All right. Well, I would love to do. Great talking to you. Now I'm talking over you. I'm sorry. You know, you've interviewed William Goldman, one of my heroes.

Oh, yeah. That's my guy. You talked about Bill Russell. You were out here in Seattle talking to him. That was so powerful. I just really appreciate your writing. And I know Jeff and I are very happy to have this time with you and really, really appreciate you. Oh, I appreciate that. And obviously, since I've been playing one of your songs as the lead of the podcast this

whole time as an homage, you can understand how I feel. Jeff, thanks for doing this as well. This was really great. By the way, it's really hard to do these with three people in three different locations, but I thought we did a half decent job. It would have been better in person, but I still enjoyed it. So thanks, guys. Good luck with the new album

and can't wait to see you when you finally get to tour. All right. Love to you and the family. All right. Thanks. Take care. All right.

I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did. It would have been so much more fun to do that in person, but on the other hand, that might have gone 10 hours. It's really hard

to do these things with three people in three different spots, but I thought it came out pretty well. Thanks to Eddie and Jeff and thanks to Pearl Jam. Don't forget their new album, Gigatron. It's out there. It's happening. It's coming midnight, late Thursday night. So by the time you hear this, it's probably out. It's tremendous. I urge you to check it out. And we will be back on The Ringer on Sunday night with Brian Russell. Until then, stay safe. I don't have.