Pearl Jam’in Chicago konserinin ardından Billboard dergisi sitesinde yayınlanan makaleyi BURADAN okuyabilirsiniz…. Eddie Vedder’ın, büyüdüğü şehre dair “Why Go” şarksıında “why go home, I am home” nüansları ile birlikte!
Pearl Jam’in Kanada’da Toronto konseri öncesi, Alan Cross tarafından, Eddie Vedder ile yapılan samimi bir sohbet… isteyenler BURADAN dinleyebilirler.
Q Dergisi, Pearl Jam ile igili makalesinde grubun merkezi olan binadan çekilen fotoğraflarla birlikte; kısa ama sıcak, samimi bir yazı yayınlamış. Tüm hayranların okumasını tavsiye ediyorum.
Yeni albümle birlikte gelen yazılara bir de Billborad dergisi eklendi. Bu harika yazıyı okumak için BURAYA tıklayınız.
İngiliz müzik dergisi UNCUT’ın Eylül 2009 sayısında Eddie Vedder hayran mektuplarını cevaplıyor. Hayranların arasında ünlü müzisyenler de yer alıyor! Derginin her ay yayınladığı bölümün bu ayki konuğu Vedder’ın cevaplarından oluşan oldukça neşeli bir yazı… İngizce orijinal metinden aynen yayınlıyorum (zira dergiyi burada bulmak oldukça zor olacaktır diye düşünüyorum); meraklılar ve hayranlar keyifle okuyabilir:
“ Eddie Vedder attracts curiously obsessive fans. Uncut’s mailbag for this Audience With…far outstrips any other we’ve done, and not all of them in the “When are you next playing Portugal?” category.
“Why didn’t you turn up to our wedding last year?” asks one slightly hurt fan from Ohio. “And would you and the band like to come and play at our first anniversary?” There are other invitations to weddings in Colombia, christenings in Denmark, safaris in South Africa and surfing holidays in Western Australia. There are fans who promise to come along to a gig and accompany the band on the accordion, others who want Vedder to be godfather to their child, others offering him a spare tent to come to Glastonbury.
“That’s kinda…nice”, says a genuinely humble-sounding Vedder. “I guess that people have always seen me as a kinda regular guy. We’ve never tried to erect boundaries between us and the audience.” It’s this balance of messianic stadium rockers and “aw-shucks” regular guys that made Pearl Jam the real kings of grunge, outselling their rivals Nirvana several times and maintaining their position on the arena circuit two decades on.
Vedder, with a cigarette and a coffee in hand, is speaking from the band’s headquarters in Seattle. “You could call it ‘Pearl Jam Towers’, I guess” he says. “But it’s more of a refuge. A couple of offices, a bit of storage, a fan club operation, some areas where we distribute music and other things, and then a practice space. And a refrigerator that used to have beer in it until last night. We had a bit of a party and drank it all, so excuse me if I sound a bit hungover…”
Seeing as you were both icons of grunge, what do you think of Chris Cornell’s new LP with Timbaland? -Einat Shaul, Israel
I haven’t heard it. Isn’t Timbaland a make of shoe? It’s a producer? I don’t know who that is. Oh well. I really like Chris’ records and I think he’s the best singer that we’ve got on the planet. I first met Chris when I moved to Seattle, and we started hanging around. I didn’t know what musicians did with their life, and I quickly realized that what he did on a Friday night was to get a 12-pack of shitty beer and chase his dog around on the mud for four hours in the forest. That was about an exciting an epiphany as I had! I haven’t seen him in town for a while, but I have taken over the whole dog-chasing practice – me and my Hawaiian mutt. The beer’s gotten slightly better too.
You do lots of great cover versions live – have you thought of doing a studio album of them? – Jeff Tweedy, Wilco
I’m not sure why we all play songs we didn’t write, especially when nothing can be better than the original. One reason is to play them for people who’ve never heard them. When I play Cat Stevens songs, of course I don’t do them as well as him, but I feel I’m introducing him to a new generation of fans. As for a whole LP, well, imagine how many records you could put out if you didn’t have to write the songs! That’s why Elvis released so many albums!
Is there one book that you have read that has been life-changing for you? – Jennifer Coppertino, New York
One that jumps to mind is Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. He talks about being a humanist, about it being a little different from being an atheist, which had a profound effect on me. I ended up reading pretty much everything he wrote after that, two, three, four, five times. The only other author who’s had a similar effect has been Charles Bukowski, who opens your eyes to the fact that there’s beauty in everybody’s life. The life of someone on the lowest rung of the ladder is as colourful and meaningful, if not more, as some character in an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. So it makes you realize that we are all individuals and we all have something going on that is worthy of introspection and respect.
When you have felt most scared and alone while surfing and where? – Selin Hall, California
If you’re in any big body of water, you get a healthy sense of feat. I would recommend surfing to anyone who thinks they’re high and mighty. It takes all your focus, and it doesn’t allow you to think about anything else. You can even get hurt on a small, insignificant looking wave if you’re not careful. So when you’re on the wave, it’s one of those rare, purifying instances, where you can’t think of anything else apart from surviving and celebrating this wave as it hits the shore after travelling for 2,000 miles. There’s also something quite profound about it, because the ocean is the place where we all came from, and I believe that there is something about the ocean that will protect you.
You’ve been lined with David Lynch’s Transcendental Meditation movement; you’ve worn an Aleister Crowley t-shirt and you’ve stated that you’re an atheist. What do you personally believe in and how did you get there? – Stephan Rott, Germany
Well it changes! And I think we have to be flexible. Any belief system that is inflexible, closed off to other belief systems, is profoundly unhealthy. I also think that if you look at life as a long line of evolutionary changes that started billions of years ago, from little things crawling in the mud, and the you realise where we’ve got to now, that is a remarkable set of circumstances. There is more magic in that, for me, than someone creating the planet in six days and taking a day off. When you realize how long humanity has taken to get to this point, it makes you respect another person’s life in a deeper and broader sense. I wouldn’t think of killing anybody because their lineage goes back to the primordial seas, not because there’s some eye in the sky, looking out for how many commandments you’re going to break.
Be honest. Even you not 100 per cent certain of the words to “Yellow Ledbetter”, are you? – Ed Byrne, comedian
Ha ha ha! This is the comedian who does stuff about me, right? Well he’s quite right – the lyrics to “Yellow Ledbetter” do constantly evolve…I admit that, at times, I have sung total nonsense! The song was originally written about the first Gulf War, and I’d created this image of a young guy with long hair and funny clothes, who had just got a yellow telegram telling him his brother has been killed in action. He’s walking by these conservative-looking, older folks on a porch, flying an American flag, and he waves to them in a show of solidarity, and they brush him off and give him the finger. So, you know, what did his brother die for?
Last time Pearl Jam played Wembley Arena, at the end of the show you offered to buy the entire audience a drink. Well? It’s two years on, and we’re thirsty…. – Thomas Birch, Harefield, Middlesex
You don’t remember? We all went around the back to that little pub in Wembley. Most of us had two drinks! Hell, I’ve still got the receipts, Thomas. Oh shucks, I paid cash. Oh well. But it was a great night, Thomas, pity you couldn’t make it…
Is it true that you recorded an albums worth of ukulele songs back in 2000? Do you plan to ever release them? – Scott Kobleske, Chicago
I did record it and gave it to a few friends. I was going through a rough time – it was after Roskilde [the Danish festival where, in 2000, nine Pearl Jam fans were trampled to death in a stage crush] and after a number of things in our personal lives. And this tiny little instrument with four strings, which could almost fit in your back pocket, became like a good friend. The uke is an incredible machine for learning about melody and chord structure – you’re suddenly able to write ragtime classics! So I wrote these sad songs on a happy instrument. It helped me process some really painful things at the time, but I didn’t want to release it because it felt too personal. It’s funny now, with some distance, they’re not as heartbreaking as I thought. So…it may get released. We’ll see.
What are your top most misinterpreted lyrics? Keep it funny if possible – Michael Stipe, REM
Maybe my diction isn’t so good! Ha! But it reveals a lot about Michael that he’s asked this, as it’s happened to him more than me! His stuff was always so open to interpretation. There’s a track on Murmur called “We Walk”, y’know, “Take a recess…up the stairs and to the landing”. I was in the car with my daughter, who was two, and she started singing along. I almost had to pull over and start weeping. It was one of my proudest moment. My daughter knew an REM song! Of course, she was singing it wrong, though I don’t know if there’s a right way. Those lyrics are oblique and yet they mean so much. Michael is a magician that way.
What were your inspirations when your wrote the soundtrack to Sean Penn’s Into The Wild? – Irene Mariani, Italy
When I was 12, I remember seeing the movie, Harold and Maude, a film that is accompanied by several Cat Stevens songs. Cat’s voice represents the interior voice of the character throughout the movie, and he does it absolutely perfectly. It’s a perfect synergy between film and music, and it really inspired me to try writing for film. Take the final scene, where it looks like Harold is going to drive off the cliff, with the rain hitting the windshield and you know how he feels. Suddenly they play “Trouble” by Cat Stevens and it’s utterly overwhelming, heartbreaking. So seeing it work there made me think I could give it a go.
Has Olivia gone all four floors on the fireman’s pole yet? – Neil Finn, Crowded House
Tell Neil I never talk about the pole! Ha ha! As Neil knows, I’ve got an adventurous young daughter who’s very rough and tumble. I guess things change as they get older and there’s a restructuring of power in the male/female dynamic. But right now my daughter’s as tough as anyone, male or female, under the age of about 15. The fireman’s pole? It’s a long story. Basically, I started smoking dope after a long period of abstinence, and I had an epiphany. I realised the house I was living in had a couple of connected closets. And after having this nice hit, it occurred to me that you could put a fireman’s pole in this house, connecting all four floors. Three months on, we had one installed. It’s really practical! I do all my songwriting in the basement, so if I’m, upstairs, I just slide down. Otherwise you might stop by the laundry room to wash some clothes and you’ll have missed a couple of songs. So it has paid for itself in songwriting royalties.
What was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan like to work with? – Zak, Leytonstone, London
Well, it was intimidating on many levels. We worked together for a few days – we were put together by Tim Robbins for the Dead Man Walking soundtrack – and everything had to go through an interpreter because I was told he didn’t really speak English. He was very centered, like a Buddhist statue in many ways and he looked like he was made of stone! And when he sang, it was like he was channeling something incredibly powerful and spiritual. After two days of talking through the interpreter, we were left in the room alone, and he looked at me and said, in perfect English: “You have a very nice voice” And it was like that scene in One Flow Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, where the Indian guy finally talks to Jack Nicholson. I thought, you son of a bitch! And of course, we then talked and talked and got on great. I met him a few times after that. I think he pretended not to speak English as a defence mechanism. I wish I’d thought of that! Sadly, he was taken away from us much, much too early. And so many of the secrets of qawwali music have died with him. “
Albümle birlikte birer birer röportajlar çıkıyor… meraklananlar dinleyebilir / okuyabilirler!
Ed & Mike “The Fixer” anlatmışlar…
Pearl Jam, Jeff Ament ile yapılan yeni bir ropörtaj yayınlandı… Yazanların tümünü özetlemek pek mümkün değil; ama yeni albüm, Eddie Vedder, müzik endüstrisi ve festivaller, grubun geçirdiği süreçler, Ten’in yeniden piyasaya sürülmesi gibi pek çok konuda konuşan Ament’in söylediklerini okumak çok keyifli.
PEARL JAM – TEN (Reissue)
By JACQUI SWIFT
Published: 20 Mar 2009
A FEW miles from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in the district of Georgetown is a huge converted warehouse in an anonymous industrial neighbourhood.
It looks an unlikely location for a world-famous band, but for any Pearl Jam fan walking inside, it’s like entering Aladdin’s cave.
It’s the band’s HQ, rehearsal space and merchandise hub and impressively has all the stage sets, band memorabilia and instruments used throughout their 19-year history.
And the full guided tour offers more treats. The late Johnny Ramone’s baseball card and photo collection — he and singer Eddie Vedder were close friends — is on show near a skateboard ramp and an enormous baseball cage plus pitching machine.
Fatherly demands … Vedder tells how he juggles the band and parenthood
Fatherly demands … Vedder
Steve Gullick
Polaroid photos on display show Kings Of Leon in full baseball gear, ready to take a hit as a ball is spat out at 50mph.
Upstairs in the warehouse apartment — a place to crash if rehearsals extend into the night — Eddie is celebrating.
We meet on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration and for Eddie, who was so central to the Vote For Change campaign, which urged people to choose John Kerry over George Bush in the 2004 presidential election campaign, it’s an extra special day.
�Let’s not even have his face anywhere on show,� he says with a beaming smile, as he turns over a copy of Rolling Stone magazine which features Bush glaring out from the cover.
�I’ve just watched him fly off to Texas on television. Finally we have got rid of him. I don’t ever want to see him again.�
Exploded
As passionate in his beliefs as he is engaging in his manner, it’s no surprise Eddie remains one of rock’s iconic and most compelling frontmen.
Pearl Jam’s Ten stands alongside Nirvana’s Nevermind as one of grunge’s seminal albums and remains one of the all-time greats.
It sold 12million copies and introduced Pearl Jam — guitarist Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament, guitarist Mike McCready and their then recent recruit from San Diego, Eddie — to the world’s rock arena.
Ten’s fired-up riffs and the guitar interplay between Gossard and McCready together with Eddie’s lyrics meant Pearl Jam exploded out of Seattle in the Nineties.
Lyrically Ten was dark. Songs such as Alive (Eddie’s semi-autobiographical tale of a young boy discovering his father is actually his stepfather), Even Flow (a song about homelessness), Why Go (about mental hospitals) and Jeremy (influenced by the story of 15-year-old Texan schoolboy Jeremy Wade Delle who shot himself in front of his English class) gave a voice to tortured adolescent souls.
Now, in the run-up to the band’s 20th anniversary, Ten is being reissued in four exclusive editions.
20th anniversary … band are re-releasing Ten
20th anniversary … band are re-releasing Ten
They include the remastered version of the album, a remixed version by long-time producer Brendan O’Brien, a DVD of previously unreleased footage of the band’s MTV Unplugged show, Eddie’s original three-song �Mamasan� tape demo of Once, Alive and Footsteps and a copy of his composition notebook.
Eddie says: �We are so humbled by the amount of people who have stuck with us over the years that if we can provide them some new insight or something that’s really cool, then we will.
�I know how I react when something special is released by The Who so we wanted this to be something thrilling. We have pride in our material and going back through old material was really special. I don’t think I’d even heard the three-song demo since I sent it in.�
Over the years the band have expressed they were not 100 per cent happy with the sound of Ten, which was produced by Rick Parashar and mixed by Tim Palmer.
They felt it had too much reverb and too many guitar overdubs, but now the remixes by Brendan O’Brien have given them what they wanted.
Eddie says: �A few of the other guys were passionate about that being done. At the time Jeff and Stone had much more political power in the band (regarding) who we got in to mix the record than me and Mike. We were just the new guys.
�Tim had worked with Bowie on Tin Machine and was a great guy but over the years we’ve become used to how those records sound played live and so with the remixes we wanted to get to the core of what it sounded like live. The remixes strip away some of the atmospheric additives of the record’s sound.�
As one of two defining albums of grunge, Ten has always been and remains Pearl Jam’s benchmark album.
Lighting up a cigarette, Eddie explains: �Ten was our first kid, so it’s the oldest. So it’s the one that kind of brought up the others and gets all the attention. But I don’t know if we were ready for what came with it.
�We were ready to play music, be a good band and be good playing live but it was so intense and some of the intensity makes that period even hard to remember.
�What it did do was keep our world floating. Now I think ‘Wow’, because I didn’t really try that hard. I remember distinctly that demo, being an exercise in song writing.
�I didn’t know that was going to be something that would change my life, change other people’s lives.
Pearl Jam … Yes
Pearl Jam … Yes
�There’s been times when I’ve been standing in a line at a movie and someone’s hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful.
�With the Roskilde families (in 2000, nine Pearl Jam fans were crushed to death at Denmark’s Roskilde Festival), we still have a close connection with them. It’s inspiring to see how they’ve got through it.�
With Ten reaching No2 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1992, Pearl Jam upgraded from Seattle to stadium rock band and with it arrived the backlash.
They were accused of being careerists, of betraying grunge, with their most vocal critic, Kurt Cobain, slating them for �pioneering a corporate, alternative and cock-rock fusion.�
In terms of follow-up albums, in the next year, 1993, it seemed grunge fans disagreed with Kurt and Pearl Jam’s Vs sold five times as many copies (nearly a million) as Nirvana’s third album, In Utero (200,000 copies) in their first week of release.
�I don’t think Kurt understood us at the time, but we became friends and I’m glad we had some of the great conversations we had, that I’m always going to keep up here,� says Eddie, pointing to his head.
�I don’t talk too much about him in respect to Krist (Novoselic) and Dave (Grohl) and I know he said that early stuff about not liking us.
Insanity
�But there’s a couple of complimentary things that he said in public about me as a human being, which I’m proud exist. But if Kurt were around today, I know he’d say to me, ‘Well, you turned out OK.’�
In fact, few bands in recent history can match Pearl Jam’s integrity and authenticity when it comes to music.
�Any conversations we hear about ‘So who are Pearl Jam marketing to?’ are despicable,� says Eddie.
�People offered us money to sell out but do I look like a whore?
�It’s always about being honest and the positive side of the huge success for whatever negatives there were, was that it gave us the power to say no and be able to commit to making decisions on our own and stick by them.�
In 1994 Pearl Jam cancelled their summer tour, and tried to sue Ticketmaster, alleging they were a monopoly which allowed them to push up ticket prices.
However, when fans complained they weren’t getting to see their shows, it became a bigger issue to them.
�The Ticketmaster problem was stopping us focusing on the music. We were putting on our own shows and talking more about portable toilets in venues than set lists.
Advertisement
�We were annoyed that other bands didn’t follow our lead and boycott Ticketmaster too.
�There were people in so-called ‘bands of the people’ who bought in with the other side. But we learned a lot about politics then.�
And so looking back, what does he think of the whole grunge scene?
�It was more unconscious to us. There are a lot of different styles on all our records. I don’t think there’s any colours on the palette that we think we can’t use.
�And when it comes to grunge or even just Seattle, I think there was one band that made the definitive music of the time. It wasn’t us or Nirvana but Mudhoney.
�Nirvana delivered it to the world but Mudhoney were the band of that time and sound.�
Today, 18 years on from the release of Ten and Pearl Jam are halfway through making their ninth studio album. �It’s taken two weeks to get halfway there and that’s writing it from the bottom up, so we’ll see how long it takes to finish it.
�I’m not sure what the recording process is going to be, but we will be playing shows,� says Eddie.
�One of us is having a baby next year so there’ll be no touring then so we have to get it done this year.
�I think the hardest thing about making music now is being a great dad at the same time,� adds Eddie, who has two young daughters with model Jill McCormick.
�There’s an insanity that goes with writing — a mad scientist thing that you have to go through and sacrificing a kid’s upbringing to do that is not an option.
�But at the same time, I don’t want to go the way where music becomes a hobby. I don’t trust art that’s made without some pain and insanity, so it’s just about trying to balance that out.
�We all want to make music together as much as we did when we were making Ten.
�We get along and work really well together and as yet, we still don’t have a band therapist. And that’s something I’m particularly proud of.�
kaynak:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/sftw/article2329546.ece
