The History of Pearl Jam
The band as a whole is from Seattle, Washington, although originally Eddie Vedder is from Evanston, Illinois and later San Diego, California. Jeff Ament originally hails from the state of Montana.
It begins with early Seattle bands such as Stone Gossard's March of Crimes and The Ducky Boys, Ament's Deranged Diction, and Mark Arm's Mr. Epp. These early bands boiled down into Green River with Stone Gossard and Steve Turner on guitar, Ament on Bass and Arm on vocals. After a couple personnel changes, Green River parted ways with Arm and Turner going on to form Mudhoney and Ament and Gossard going through a couple bands and finally settling down in Mother Love Bone with ex-Malfunkshun vocalist Andrew Wood.
MLB started to gain some momentum commercially with a record deal in the works with a major label and some airplay on MTV, after being "discovered" by Kiss bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons. Unfortunately, Andrew Wood passed away due to a heroin overdose stopping Mother Love Bone in their tracks.
Wood's roommate, vocalist/guitarist Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, hit hard by the death of Wood, wrote the songs Say Hello To Heaven and Reach Down about his deceased roommate and decided to record them as a tribute to Wood. This project developed into an entire album entitled Temple of the Dog after a line in the Mother Love Bone song "Man of Golden Words". This project included Cornell on vocals and guitar, Stone Gossard on guitar, Jeff Ament on bass, Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, and recent Gossard/Ament recruit Mike McCready also on guitar.
At the same time that Temple was being designed/written, Gossard, Ament, and McCready had just finished a three song instrumental demo with Matt Cameron helping them out on drums. The demo was driven by the Gossard creation Dollar Short that would eventually evolve into the AOR anthem Alive. This tape made it into the hands of a young San Diego gas station attendant named Eddie Vedder through friend and ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons at a game of one on one at a local basketball hoop. Eddie Vedder's real name is Edward Louis Severson III. He was adopted by the man he not so fondly calls "that lawyer fuck" and had the name Edward Mueller. After his mother divorced, he took her maiden name, Vedder. According to Vedder, after listening to the tape several times and surfing with the music playing in his head over and over, he put some of his lyrics to the music. Vedder dubbed his vocals onto the tape and titled the tape Mamasan ....it consisted of Part 1--Alive, Part 2--Once and part 3--Footsteps. He sometimes refers to this in interviews as his little Mini-Opera.
Ament, Gossard and McCready were impressed and eventually arranged a jam session to test the waters of a possible band formation. Things went well and Vedder joined in on the Temple of the Dog project with backing vocals and co-lead vocals on Hunger Strike. With Temple in the can, the band Mookie Blaylock was born with the addition of Dave Krusen on drums. The band took their name in reference to the New Jersey Nets point guard of the same name. This name was changed in favor of Pearl Jam and the band was solidified. Vedder's grandmother's name was Pearl and she was married to a Native American that influencer her cooking style. She had a recipe for preserves that included a Native American hallucinogenic substance, hence the name Pearl Jam.
The 5-man band Pearl Jam releases their first effort, Ten, in 1991. Ten consisted of the following 11 tracks:
Ten was an enormous success. MTV played videos for Evenflow, Alive, and Jeremy. Over 8 million copies were sold in the United States alone. Pearl Jam then toured in support of Ten.
Dave Krusen left the band in 1991 to attend to personal problems. Matt Chamberlain was Dave Krusen's replacement as the drummer for Pearl Jam. Matt can be seen in the earliest of Pearl Jam MTV videos such as Alive. Matt later left Pearl Jam to join the Saturday Night Live band, suggesting as he left that Pearl Jam check out a drummer named Dave Abbruzzese in the Texas funk band Dr. Tongue. Chamberlain's previous efforts include Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians.
Dave Abbruzzese joined the band, and in 1993, Pearl Jam released its sophomore effort, Vs., a 12-track album consisting of:
Vs. was well received by the United States public, selling over 5 million copies. Vs. also holds the record for the most sales in the first week after release - over 950,000 copies.
Dave Abbruzzese was next to leave the band. No-one knows the exact story yet behind the firing of Dave A. All that is known so far is that he was fired by Stone around Aug. 1994. The story released to the media, at first, said that it was an amicable split and that Dave A. left the band to study music. Then Dave A. later released to the press his version of the story. According to Dave A., he was fired by the band for reasons that are still unclear to him. Why the band released the first statement that Dave left the band is still unknown. No-one from both sides have released any other statements and there is still no replacement for Dave A.
Without Dave A., Pearl Jam continued to tour with Matt Chamberlain again helping them out. Pearl Jam decided in late 1994 to release a 14-track album called Vitalogy (Life). These recordings are with Dave A. on drums, and they are:
Vitalogy is the only vinyl production to crack the top 200 on sales charts. Pearl Jam is now now finished with there next album, and we are waiting for its arrival!