Rockline Interview Part Two

HOST Dissident from the new Vs. album by Pearl Jam as we offer you the broadcast premier tonight. Eddie and Jeff live in the studio with us as were all up here in Seattle. And now were going to take it back down to Australia once again listening to us on the Triple-M Network, is Debbie in Perth, Australia. Youre on ROCKLINE with Eddie and Jeff, Debbie.

CALLER Hi guys.

GUEST Perth!

CALLER I just had one question. I wanted to know on your new album there is a track called Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town. Whose the elderly woman and where is the small town?

GUEST Deep in Montana, at least thats what I thought. Oh, no, it could be any small town. It could be any old woman. And basically the title comes from being basically fed-up with one word titles.

HOST You certainly solved that problem with this one.

GUEST No. I was just warming up. One day when I start singing. Just think if you were losing your memory and you're kinda being senile and you saw your old boyfriend from long long ago and he was all hot, driving a nice car and having a real family and you were stuck working in this small town , small towns are fascinating, like do you try to get out, do you stay there and be a big fish in a small town. You know, I think you should get out.

HOST Debbie. Thanks a lot for the call. And were going to play that track now. From Pearl Jams brilliant new release, Vs., here is the track Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town .

PLAY SONG

HOST From Vs that was Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town. Well return for more from Eddie and Jeff. More of the new Pearl Jam album Vs and more of your calls at 1-800-344-ROCK on the Global Satellite Network.

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Back with Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam live from Seattle and more of the brand new album Vs. Exclusively on the Global Satellite Network.

GUEST Oh, Steve. Im raising my hand, see, like we talked about earlier.

HOST Mr. Vedder, yes?

GUEST I remembered a point I wanted to make you know in the magazine Rolling Stone, it's this little magazine some of you might have picked up. There is a picture of me, you can see the front mikes, and the monitors, there is a TV, like a prompter, right there. Ummm, a lot of bands use prompters now and I think thats a bunch of crap and if you dont feel the song, if you dont know it by heart, then I think you dont have any right singing it in front of like 20,000, 15,000, 5,000 even a 100 people. So, anyway, I just wanted to point out that that was an old TV I found in the back of the alley of the Moor Theatre here in Seattle that I put together in order to smash it that night on stage. I just wanna say to all the young budding musicians out there, dont invest in tele-prompters like I just wanted that to be clear.

HOST Didn't that TV when you found it have the lyrics to "Paradise City" on it?

GUEST It did. It did.

HOST No, really! We're going to take a local call here while we're talking about Seattle to Kim who is listening to us right here at 99.9FM KISW in Seattle. Kim, you're on ROCKLINE.

CALLER Hey, guys. First of all I want to say I love you guys and I think you're rad. I was just wondering how you guys feel when they say that the Seattle music scene is just a trend and that it is not real music and that it's just going to fade away and be forgotten?

GUEST Well, we're not threatened by it. I think the music is too strong. Jesus Christ, who said that!

CALLER Every magazine, where people are interviewed or something.

GUEST What are you reading magazines for? Do you listen to music? They have nothing to do with music. All they really have to do with is making a lot of money from it. And they think it's a good trade off cause all the musicians love to see their faces in it and you know that may have worked, 5, 10 years ago, you know, that was the trade off. We'll put them on the cover, it will satisfy their ego and then we can make some money. It's maybe changing, maybe some of the bands won't do interviews anymore. It's not so much interviews, it's basically that the best thing about the press would be to let someone know about a good band that you might know about. So once someone knows about a band, start talking about another one, you know. I mean, everyone knows we play ok music, or I hope they think that and then we, they should talk about other bands instead of us. We don't want to clog up the colon as it were.

HOST Thanks Kim for the call. Dallas, Texas is where we're headed now. To John who is listening to us on Q102. You're on ROCKLINE John.

CALLER Hey, how you guys doin?

GUEST Oh, just real good John.

CALLER Cool. I remember seeing you guys at Trees in the early, small, just awesome show there.

GUEST You're from Texas?

CALLER Yeah. Dallas, Texas. And I want to know how the change in the studios. Did it have a major effect in the outcome? I know you changed producers, too. You're working with O'Brien? That correct?

GUEST But we haven't changed our clothes, so it doesn't matter, you know. I would say good things about Brendan but Aerosmith has already said all the good things about Brendan that could be said about him, so, gross. HOST Hey, John. Thanks a lot for the call. We're going to...

GUEST Hey, does John win something? We've got something to give John. The Sports Illustrated from 1976 with Evil Kenevil on the cover. No, I can't part with that. Let's see, oh I've got a postcard from Dublin. It was actually the one I wrote to Bob Dylan but I never sent it. We can give you that.

HOST How about that John!

GUEST Great.

CALLER I'm also going to give you the new Ricky Lee Jones record that I have on CD right here in my very pocket which I've been listening to all day.

HOST John, you're making out like a bandit tonight, buddy.

GUEST He's a total punk rocker listening to Ricky Lee Jones.

HOST Thanks a lot! Let's play another track from the new album here while we have the time. This one is called "Rear View Mirror" and I believe we were trying to figure out the chronology of songs written and recorded. This was one of the last.

GUEST Yeah. This would have been done about 10:30 that night, 11 o'clock.

HOST There you go. Saw things clearer when you were in my rearviewmirror.

PLAY SONG

HOST "Rear View Mirror" from the "Vs." album. Brand new from Pearl Jam. You're hearing it for the very first time tonight on ROCKLINE. Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament are in the studio with us. Eddie's been threatening something with that Walkman here for the better part of the evening. So I'm not sure what we might be in for, but it certainly looks interesting.

GUEST Hey, don't be scared. Do I look like scared to you?

HOST No. Not at all.

GUEST Bullshit!

HOST Tonica, Illinois , listening to us on the X in Rockford, Illinois, is Amy here on ROCKLINE. Hey, Amy.

CALLER Hey guys. I was reading an article in Entertainment Weekly tonight and the writer, I was wondering if the media ever gets on your nerves. I mean they were really putting you down in this.

GUEST Amy, most definitely. You know, that question before about Seattle being just a fading memory or the music over hyped, isn't it strange the way that everybody picks up on something and squeezes the juice out of it until there's nothing left. There, I have to say, that it is a little bit of exploitation going on and I mean if bands like us are music, and young kids, and drops outs, etc., are being put on the cover of Time Magazine, I mean, you just might look at that and go wow, Time Magazine. Did you ever think that all they're really trying to do is sell magazines by putting the newest rage on the cover. Believe me, we never thought we'd be in this position. It would have just been a joke had someone told me this before. Do people who listen to music, do you not catch on to that. That the bands really have nothing to do with that and the bands don't have anything to do with the exposure and that...

CALLER No. I didn't realize that. I think everybody does.

GUEST We need your trust on that. I mean, this is nothing that we actually set out to do. We set out to make music and it's nice to be heard, but we don't want people to stop listening to us cause we're the latest big thing or we're part of the establishment, etc. which we won't be. You know, we may have money now, we don't act like rich men. There's a big difference there. And I was at a Bad Religion show, a punk rock show last night, in fact the California west coast joke came from the singer of Green Day, I just wanna plug him. Then, you know, I'm singing a song with Bad Religion and there's a guy in the front row flipping me off. Punk rocker, you know, I was really offended, cause I'd been front row at Bad Religion and it was like I was flipping myself off, which, I naturally do occasionally. But it really upset me, you know.

CALLER Yeah.

GUEST So I spit my gum at the guy and he kind of cringed like the pussy he was. But it was an upsetting thing. We don't want people to stop listening to our music just because they see our faces all around. We're trying to pull back from some of that and we can't. These people can't keep their pants on and they're going to be really upset that we said that but we're just trying to preserve our music. Is that right, Jeff.

CALLER In the article, they said basically you should conform to be like every other band. That's ridiculous. Because I like you guys cause you're unique and that's why you're my favorite band.

HOST Sometimes I think the publicity becomes sort of self generating after a while and the momentum can be difficult to stop on some occasions.

GUEST And obviously we're just kind like, you know, kids that get thrown into this thing. It's a little crazy. Gets a little crazy. It seems like the more that we fight it the more stuff that comes out. And then they talk about that I'm an asshole. As soon as we say no it's like...

HOST Hey, Amy, thanks for the call. We've got to take another quick break here. We'll be back with Eddie and Jeff from Pearl Jam on ROCKLINE live from Seattle.

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HOST Alright, we're back here in Seattle. Jeff has the guitar out. I think we may be hearing something live here as we get ready to say goodnight. Let me just say real quickly that thanks to everybody for calling and to our guests, Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament. An absolutely outstanding record.

GUEST You know the Frogs are a really good band. I don't know if you've heard of them.

HOST Not familiar with them.

GUEST You should do a ROCKLINE with them. Milwaukee. Wow.

HOST We'll check it out. Hey guys, thanks for keeping the music alive and your purity is very much appreciated in what you're doing.

GUEST In the spirit of purity we're going to improvise something here. A little song to the Bee Girl. Hit it.

PLAY SONG

HOST Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament from Pearl Jam. I'm Steve Downs...

GUEST Hey. No. No. Wait. This was fun. Are we still on. If you want to call the house it's 206-283-3916. You got that. It's Eddie's house at 206-283-3916. If you couldn't get through tonight. See ya.

HOST See ya. ROCKLINE is an exclusive presentation of the Global Satellite Network.