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Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam put the pieces back together
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By Greg Kot
Tribune rock critic

November 12, 2002

"Love Boat Captain," among the finest songs in Pearl Jam's career, is the
centerpiece of the band's new album, "Riot Act" (Epic), out Tuesday. The music
evokes a voyage through a storm, while the lyrics try to make sense of the
senseless:

"Lost nine friends we'll never know, two year ago today," Eddie Vedder sings,
"And if our lives become too long, would it add to our regret?"

On June 30, 2000, Vedder and Pearl Jam were headlining the Roskilde Festival
in Denmark when nine fans were trampled to death as a huge crowd surged toward
the stage when Pearl Jam began to play.

"To have that happen while we were playing, it was hard to continue on from
there because your memories get connected to things, especially music, and
that was a matter of life and death that absolutely had us thinking the band
couldn't go on," says Vedder in an interview from Hawaii, where he's on
vacation after finishing up "Riot Act."

It gave Vedder perspective on the dilemma facing The Who when they decided to
soldier on in recent months even though bassist John Entwistle died of a heart
attack on the eve of a national tour. Vedder may not be the world's biggest
Who fan, but he's probably the most famous. For nearly a decade, he has been
telling anyone who would listen that The Who's coming-of-age rock opera
"Quadrophenia" was the album that helped him through a difficult adolescence.

So it was no surprise to find Pearl Jam opening for The Who at the British
band's recent charity show at the Chicago House of Blues. For Vedder the
moment was bittersweet, seeing Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend perform
without Entwistle and founding drummer Keith Moon, who died in 1978.

"How do you make God laugh? You make plans for tomorrow," Vedder says. "I
thought the day John passed, that was it. I wasn't just mourning John, I was
mourning the fact that I'd never see them play live again. But they kept
going, and didn't lose much of their stride. Instead of going home, they
played on, which enabled them to process it as a group, a family of people,
which they are, including the crew. It was healthy for them to process it that
way, rather than sit in a corner of a room that doesn't feel like it's got a
floor to it. I understand the people who criticize them for going on. But
ultimately it's their choice and the fact that they went out and used the
music to process it with the fans, I thought it was a courageous option."

Vedder says Pearl Jam came to a similar crossroads after their Danish debacle,
and decided to keep going.

"We'll never play another festival again," he says. "That was a decision based
on making a little bit of money, and that's something we have to live with.
But afterward when we were trying to figure out what to do, the thought was
not to react, but to respond. How to make the best of a really screwed-up
situation."

That sense of the world's fragility courses through "Riot Act," the most
poignant and yet strangely life-affirming Pearl Jam album yet, with tracks
such as "Love Boat Captain," the acoustic prayer "Thumbing My Way," the
uplifting sea chantey "I Am Mine," the mournful a cappella "Arc" and the
wearily philosophical "1/2 Full."

The album is populated by drifters and dissenters who are awed by the universe
and humbled by their insignificance in the face of it. It's a vantage point
culled from years spent alone at sea. Vedder has been surfing since he was 12,
but the breakup of his family soon after and then his quickly expanding role
as the singer in a rock 'n' roll band kept him from hitting the waves as often
as he'd like. But he has been making up for lost time in recent years -- which
explains his recent Hawaiian vacation.

"The ocean demands humility," Vedder says. "A few days ago I caught a 15-foot
wave, and it doesn't give a [expletive] who you are or what you do. It's just
rolling and it's going to hit the shore with you or without you. You can't
overpower a wave, you have to work with it, and you end up forming a deep
connection with the water, the power of the ocean. It's terrifying at times,
but also something I seek out, because it's pretty grounding."

Takes things seriously

Pearl Jam's bassist, Jeff Ament, isn't a surf fiend. But even though he's
calling from his native Montana -- a world away from Vedder's Pacific retreat
-- his perspective on himself, the band and life is similar: "We take what we
do very seriously, but we also realize that in the grand scheme of things,
we're not all that important."

Once the biggest band in the world, swept along by a tide of grunge-mania that
elevated Vedder and the late Kurt Cobain into reluctant mainstream poster boys
for a generation, Pearl Jam has been going about its work relatively quietly
in recent years. "Riot Act" isn't packed with the kind of roof-raising anthems
that distinguished the quintet's multimillion-selling 1990 debut, "Ten."
Instead, it's an album built on a more subtle foundation of melody, groove and
introspection. It's the type of gimmick-free rock 'n' roll that would have
sounded just as potent in 1972 as it does in 2002. It's the sound of five
musicians clustered in a room (abetted by keyboardist Boom Gaspar) captured
with no-frills production. The interplay between Ament's bass and Matt
Cameron's drums is alone worth hearing, a clinic in how a rock rhythm section
can support the music and elevate it.

Solidifying volatile position

Cameron has solidified the band's most volatile position; he has played on and
written songs for the last two studio albums. His four-plus years in the band
mark the longest tenure of any Pearl Jam drummer.

"The great thing about him is his consistency and commitment," Ament says.
"Every time he sits down you know he's going to bring it all. In the past
we've had drummers who were pretty interesting characters, and on a good day
it would be great but on a bad day it would be really awful in terms of
knowing what we were going to get. Matt is just a rock back there, not just as
a drummer but in bringing a new angle to the songwriting."

Cameron's reliability has helped turn Pearl Jam into a stellar live act; gone
are the volatile early days when Vedder would scale the rafters or surf the
crowd in search of transcendence.

Now the power is all in the music rather than the antics. The gestures are
smaller, but the themes in the music are broader.

None resonates as deeply as "Love Boat Captain."

"I know it's already been sung," the song says, but Vedder sings it anyway:
"Can't be said enough, love is all you need." Instead of shouting those last
lines, Vedder practically whispers them, amplifying their impact.

"It feels a little strange talking about love that openly, but if you can't do
it now, when can you do it?" he says. "I had just been to a funeral when I
wrote those lyrics, and you feel like you've just witnessed the fragility of
life up close. We certainly felt that last September and we certainly did in
Denmark. What else is there? Love is one resource that the corporations aren't
going to be able to monopolize. Which means there's hope for us human beings
yet."

Cobain's take on Pearl Jam

In Kurt Cobain's recently published private "Journals," the Nirvana singer's
ill-will toward Pearl Jam is the subject of at least two entries. He viewed
Pearl Jam as an example of how the major labels would co-opt Seattle grunge
and turn it into the new corporate rock.

"I would love to be erased from our association with Pearl Jam," Cobain
writes.

Yet after its initial burst of success, Pearl Jam rarely kowtowed to the
mainstream media. The band refused to release singles, make videos or grant
interviews, and put its career in jeopardy by taking on Ticketmaster in a
losing battle over escalating ticket prices and service fees.

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder says his relationship with Cobain improved in the
months before the Nirvana singer's suicide, in April 1994.

"Kurt wanted to distance himself from the corporate side of Seattle music,
which apparently was us, but it played itself out a lot differently than he
might have thought it would have," Vedder says. "I felt some of those feelings
were dispelled before he died. We had come together with a phone call and then
another meeting, so at least between us as people, we hashed over a few
things, and it seemed everything was OK and we had each other's support. It
turns out we really saw how bad it could get years later, with all the
manufactured bands. I don't think we were quite the violator that he thought.
On the contrary, I hope he would have been happy with what we ended up
doing."

-- Greg Kot


Copyright (c) 2002, Chicago Tribune


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