How Pearl Jam Survived Pearl Jam

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A few months ago, coinciding with the release of his latest solo album,

, leader and vocalist of Pearl Jam, gave an interview to

.

In it he talked about his beginnings in the world of music, when he worked loading equipment in a San Diego club in the late 80s, those times when MTV looped video clips of guys in leopard tights, hair bouffant, mascara on the eyes and hordes of girls in thongs.

«

and

.

He hated it," Vedder acknowledged.

(The expletives in between were censored by the

.)

"He hated how they showed the guys.

He hated how they portrayed women.

It was such an empty thing... Then came the

and, thank God, at least they had some teeth."

Just a few days after his remarks, Mötley Crüe bassist

– yes, the one with the mascara on his eyes – responded from his Twitter profile: “It made me laugh to read how much the Pearl Jam singer hated Mötley Crüe.

Considering they're one

, that's kind of a compliment, right?

And he continued in an interview: "The guy flies on private jets, lives in a mansion in a gated community, fills the stadiums and then dresses in the thrift store and tries to pretend that he is a type of the years 90".

Don't tell me that the brawl is not endearing...

Eddie Vedder has 57 cues;

Nikki Sixx, 63. And there you have them both, pulling each other's hair like two old rockers, each with their own little reason -why lie-, reminding us that there was a time when not only the two of them had long hair, rock was not a piece of archeology and some guys with greasy plaid shirts and melancholic lyrics shook the industry while on TV (centuries before reggaeton) pimps surrounded by hot girls were already triumphing.

"Pearl Jam represents a time when people started to approach music differently," explains music critic

.

"Today, when guitar music has become irrelevant, if not obsolete, Pearl Jam takes us back to a time of great songs, of great albums, to a generation of musicians who used their platform to bring about political change and educate their audience. ».

Pure boredom, in the words of Mötley Crüe.

Givony (Florida, 1978) has just published

(Alliance), probably the most complete biography of a band that has sold 70 million records worldwide, but about which very little has been written.

“There are a lot of books about Nirvana, Metallica, even about Green Day, but there is very little material about Pearl Jam.

», Regrets the journalist, who recalls the journey through editorials until he managed to sell his project.

"I remember one editor in particular who looked at me as if to say, but do you think people who like Pearl Jam know how to read?"

Pearl Jam has seen five US presidents parade and three popes.

It is one of the few groups that can boast of having achieved

and today, already machucos, they continue to fill stadiums around the world.

Ronen Givony has

seen them live 57 times, yet he still considers their music something of a guilty pleasure.

"Why do I fearlessly proclaim that I've seen Radiohead two nights in a row and keep quiet about Pearl Jam?

Why do they seem corny, outdated and cheesy if they have millions of fans (or maybe that's the reason)?

Does it influence that they have not recorded any really good album two decades ago? ”, He asks in the book.

«

And even if it were so, why are they a vice that I cannot leave?

Pearl Jam is a very underrated group, but few bands can attract 20 or 25,000 people every night.

Ronen Givony

Throughout more than 400 pages and using hundreds of concerts as a thread (the band has sold more than 3 million copies of the live performances it publishes since 2000), Givony x-rays the origins of Pearl Jam, from the days of Mudhoney and Mother Love Bone to the overdose death of singer Andrew Wood and the signing of an Illinois surfer named Edward Louis Severson III, better known as Eddie Vedder.

And it travels throughout the entire career of the group, from its live debut, under the name of the NBA player

, on October 22, 1990 in a Seattle club, until the publication of its last album in 2020 ,

.

Along the way, his battles with the record industry, the

for the abusive price of his concert tickets, the refusal to record video clips, his unplugged on MTV, the tours with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the friendship with Soundgarden, the influence of

, the quarrels with Nirvana, the grunge phenomenon, the death of

, the tragic festival in Denmark in which nine fans of the group were crushed to death, the years of political activism, the happy ukulele and more than an album that invited the question if Pearl Jam was still worth it.

"There are two keys to its success," Givony concludes.

«The first is that for almost a decade, in the nineties, they published four or five fabulous albums and hardly had any failures.

And the second is their live

: there aren't many bands today, with guitar and bass, that can attract 20 or 25,000 people, reinventing themselves, moreover, at each show.

They have never played the same repertoire two nights in a row.

And that's what keeps fans coming back again and again.

Pearl Jam has been playing for 30 years and surely they still have at least one or two great albums and several concerts left to show that we still need to listen to live music, surrounded by strangers, outside of our bubbles.

Did you know that one of the most Googled questions about the group is:

?

Not For You.

Pearl Jam, living in the present

,

by Ronen Givony, is out now (Alliance).

you can buy it here

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