Rolling Stone Australia - May 2016

viting to that, to whatever they’ll turn
into.’ And I was also impressed with
the focus of Stone and Jef at the time
to embark on something creatively like
that at such a horrible moment in their
lives. That was something that I don’t
know if I would have been able to do, to
justcontinueandtomakeprettyhuge
strides musically as artists. It was pret-
ty incredible.”
Aftereditingthetapedowntofive
songs, Gossard and Ament reached out
to Michael Goldstone, their former A&R
manatPolyGram,toseeifhecouldhelp
with their recruitment process. Specifi-
cally, they wanted Goldstone to get the
songstoformerRedHotChiliPeppers
drummerJackIronstoseeifhemight
consider joining their f ledgling group.
Their timing, however, was lousy. Irons
hadjuststartedanewband,Eleven,with
his old friend Alain Johannes, his wife
was pregnant, and he’d signed up for a
three-month tour with Redd Kross, rul-
ing out any consideration of him uproot-
ing to Seattle.
“He was a real gentleman though,” says
Gossard. “He listened to the tape and said,
‘It sounds great, and I’d love to do it, but I
can’t.’ And I said, ‘Well, if you know any
singers, we’re looking for one.’ And he said,
‘In fact, I may know a guy.. .’”
Irons fi rst met Eddie Vedder in Novem-
ber 1989 at a Joe Strummer gig in San Di-
ego’s Bacchanal club, where Irons was
drumming for the former Clash frontman
and Vedder was on the local crew. The
pair became hiking and surfi ng buddies,
and Irons was aware that the earnest, in-
tense 25-year-old singer was looking for a

new gig following the dissolution of his old

band Bad Radio.

Vedder listened to the cassette Irons

passed on while working a graveyard shift

behind the counter of a San Diego pet-

rol station in the early hours of September

13th. Like Chris Cornell, the singer was at-

tracted to the spacious dynamics of the in-

strumental tracks, and he began sketch-

ing out inter-linked lyrics for three of the

songs: “Dollar Short” (originally written

for Mother Love Bone and performed by

that band with Andrew Wood’s lyrics at a

gig at Portland’s Satyricon club in August

1989), “Agyptian Crave” and “Troubled

Times”. The following day, at his girlfriend

Beth’s beach-front house, he recorded his

vocals on a four-track tape deck, dubbed

the songs over a copy of Merle Haggard’s

Best of the ’80scompilation, titled the cas-

sette Momma-Son, created some bespoke

artwork and posted it back to Ament.

When the bassist opened the envelope he

saw three new song titles listed – “Alive”,

“Once” and “Footsteps” – and heard a com-

pelling three act mini-opera, encompass-

ing birth, betrayal, incest, murder and im-

prisonment.

“I listened to it and thought, ‘Man, that’s

really good’,” Ament recalls. “And then I

listened to it a couple more times, and by

the third time I was like, ‘This is the guy I

think I’ve wanted to be in a band with my

whole life.’ We had a little bit of a phone

relationship in that we called each other

every day and without really talking about

the music on the tape, more about why we

loved music and bands that we liked and

PEARL

JAM

Rolling Stone | 66 | May, 2016

(1)Pearl Jam spent three weeks

at London Bridge Studio

recordingTen.(2)Eddie Vedder

(with Soundgarden’s Chris

CornellinJuly1992)wroteto

friends that Seattle “had

embraced me”.(3)Vedder

penninglyricsinMarch1991.

1

e

NewBeginnings

3

2