Michael David McCready (born April 5, 1966) is an American musician known for being a founding member and lead guitarist of Pearl Jam. McCready was also a member of the side project bands Flight to Mars, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season, and The Rockfords. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a part of Pearl Jam in 2017 alongside the four other founding members (Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Dave Krusen, and Eddie Vedder), and former member Matt Cameron.
Biography
Early life Mike McCready was born in Pensacola, Florida, but his family moved to Seattle shortly after his birth.The Rock FM. Mike McCready interview on The Rock radio station The Rock. November 19, 2009. When he was a child, his parents played Jimi Hendrix and Santana; while his friends listened to Kiss and Aerosmith, McCready would frequently play bongo drums.Rotondi, James. "Blood On the Tracks". Guitar Player. January 1994. At the age of eleven, McCready purchased his first guitar and began taking lessons.
In eighth grade, McCready formed his first band, Warrior, whose name soon changed to Shadow. Originally a cover band playing during free periods at Roosevelt High School, the band eventually began writing original material and recording demo tapes.Greene, Jo-Ann. "Intrigue and Incest: Pearl Jam and the Secret History of Seattle" (Part 2). Goldmine. August 20, 1993. After high school, McCready worked at a pizza restaurant where he befriended musician Pete Droge.Alvarez, Tina. "Pete Droge". EMOL Music. 1996. In 1986, Shadow relocated to Los Angeles and attempted to cut a record deal. However, according to McCready:
We played to a couple bartenders down there, but even though it was a bad scene, it was a good experience. Basically, we weren't that good of a band, and we didn't realize it until we got down there. I guess we lost our focus, got really bummed out and came back to Seattle.
In 1988, Shadow returned to Seattle and split up soon afterwards. McCready lost interest in playing guitar for some time, stating that he was "so depressed about life".Aledort, Andy. "Aural Exam" . Guitar World. July 2000. He cut his hair, enrolled in a local community college, and spent his nights working at a video store. He credits a friend named Russ Riedner for getting him "out of my college mode and back into playing guitar". McCready was inspired to pick up his guitar again after attending a Stevie Ray Vaughan concert at The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington. McCready said:
As soon as he started "Couldn't Stand the Weather", these huge clouds rolled in overhead, and rain began pouring down. When the song ended, the rain stopped! It was like a religious experience, and it changed me. It lifted me out of the negative mindset I was in, and it got me playing again. I thank him forever for that.
McCready gradually went back to playing guitar and finally joined another band called Love Chile. A childhood friend, Stone Gossard, went to one of the band's shows and appreciated McCready's work after hearing him perform Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Couldn't Stand the Weather". Gossard had known McCready before high school when the two would trade rock band pictures with each other. After the demise of Gossard's band Mother Love Bone, he asked McCready if he wanted to play music together with him. After practicing with Gossard for a few months, McCready encouraged Gossard to reconnect with his fellow Mother Love Bone alum, Jeff Ament.
Temple of the Dog
The trio were attempting to form their own band when they were invited to be part of the Temple of the Dog project founded by Soundgarden's Chris Cornell as a musical tribute to Mother Love Bone's frontman Andrew Wood, who died of a heroin overdose at age 24. Cornell had been Wood's roommate. The band's line-up was completed by the addition of Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron.
The band started rehearsing songs that Cornell had written on tour prior to Wood's death, as well as re-working some existing material from demos written by Gossard and Ament.Alden, Grant. "Requiem for a Heavyweight." Guitar World. July 1997 This was McCready's first recording studio experience, and he took a central role in the project. McCready performed an epic four-minute-plus solo for "Reach Down". According to Cornell, McCready's headphone monitors flew off halfway through the recording of the solo, and he played the rest of the solo without being able to hear the backing track.Weisbard, Eric, et al. "Ten Past Ten" Spin. August 2001. McCready considers this track to be one of his proudest moments.Gilbert, Jeff. "Prime Cuts: Mike McCready – The Best of Pearl Jam!". Guitar School. May 1995. The Temple of the Dog project eventually featured vocalist Eddie Vedder. (Vedder had come to Seattle to audition to be the singer for Ament and Gossard's next band, which later became Pearl Jam.) Vedder sang a duet with Cornell on the song "Hunger Strike" and provided background vocals on several other songs. The band decided that it had enough material for an entire album, and in April 1991 Temple of the Dog was released through A&M Records.
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam was formed in 1990 by Ament, Gossard, and McCready, who then recruited Vedder and drummer Dave Krusen. The band originally took the name Mookie Blaylock, but was forced to change it when the band signed to Epic Records in 1991. After the recording sessions for Ten were completed, Krusen left Pearl Jam in May 1991. Krusen was replaced by Matt Chamberlain, who had previously played with Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. After playing only a handful of shows, one of which was filmed for the "Alive" video, Chamberlain left to join the Saturday Night Live band. As his replacement, Chamberlain suggested Dave Abbruzzese, who joined the group and played the rest of Pearl Jam's live shows supporting the Ten album.
Ten broke the band into the mainstream, and became one of the best-selling alternative albums of the 1990s. The band found itself amidst the sudden popularity and attention given to the Seattle music scene and the genre known as grunge. McCready frequently soloed, and added a blues touch to the music (influenced by Stevie Ray Vaughan). The single "Jeremy" received Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Song and Best Hard Rock Performance in 1993. Pearl Jam received four awards at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards for its music video for "Jeremy", including Video of the Year and Best Group Video. Ten was ranked number 207 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and "Jeremy" was ranked number 11 on VH1's list of the 100 greatest songs of the '90s.
Following an intense touring schedule, the band went into the studio to record what would become its second studio album, Vs., released in 1993. Upon its release, Vs. set at the time the record for most copies of an album sold in a week, and spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard 200. Vs. was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album in 1995. From Vs., the song "Daughter" received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and the song "Go" received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance.
Feeling the pressures of success, the band decided to decrease the level of promotion for its albums, including refusing to release music videos.Ashare, Matt. "The Sweet Smell of (Moderate) Success". CMJ. July 2000. In 1994, the band began a much-publicized boycott of Ticketmaster, which lasted for three years and limited the band's ability to tour in the United States.DeRogatis, Jim. Milk It!: Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the 90's. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2003. , pg. 58 Later that same year the band released its third studio album, Vitalogy, which became the band's third straight album to reach multi-platinum status. The album received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year and Best Rock Album in 1996. Vitalogy was ranked number 492 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The lead single "Spin the Black Circle" won a Grammy Award in 1996 for Best Hard Rock Performance. Although Abbruzzese performed on the album Vitalogy, he was fired in August 1994, four months before the album was released. The band cited political differences between Abbruzzese and the other members; for example, he disagreed with the Ticketmaster boycott. He was replaced by Jack Irons, a close friend of Vedder and the former and original drummer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The band subsequently released No Code in 1996 and Yield in 1998. In 1998, prior to Pearl Jam's U.S. Yield Tour, Irons left the band due to dissatisfaction with touring. Pearl Jam enlisted former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron as Irons' replacement, initially on a temporary basis, but he soon became a permanent replacement. "Do the Evolution" (from Yield) received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance. In 1998, Pearl Jam recorded "Last Kiss", a cover of a 1960s ballad made famous by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers. It was released on the band's 1998 fan club Christmas single; however, by popular demand, the cover was released to the public as a single in 1999. "Last Kiss" peaked at number two on the Billboard charts and became the band's highest-charting single.
In 2000, the band released its sixth studio album, Binaural, and initiated a successful and ongoing series of official bootlegs. The band released seventy-two such live albums in 2000 and 2001, and set a record for most albums to debut in the Billboard 200 at the same time. "Grievance" (from Binaural) received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance. The band released its seventh studio album, Riot Act, in 2002. Pearl Jam's contribution to the 2003 film, Big Fish, "Man of the Hour", was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2004. The band's eighth studio album, the eponymous Pearl Jam, was released in 2006. The band followed it with Backspacer (2009), Lightning Bolt (2013), Gigaton (2020) and Dark Matter (2024).
Other musical projects Mad Season
During the production of Vitalogy, McCready went into rehabilitation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he met bassist John Baker Saunders of The Lamont Cranston Band. In 1994, when the two returned to Seattle, they formed a side band, The Gacy Bunch, with vocalist Layne Staley of Alice in Chains and drummer Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees. After several live shows, they changed their name to Mad Season. The band released the album Above through Columbia Records in 1995, and are best known for the single "River of Deceit". The band broke up following Saunders' death in 1999 due to a heroin overdose. Staley would pass away three years later in 2002, of an apparent overdose of heroin and cocaine.
On February 28, 2010, McCready performed at the "Hootenanny For Haiti" at the Showbox at the Market in Seattle along with the likes of Velvet Revolver, Jane's Addiction and former Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Fastbacks bassist Kim Warnick, Loaded and former Alien Crime Syndicate, Sirens Sister and Vendetta Red bassist Jeff Rouse as well as Truly and former Screaming Trees drummer Mark Pickerel among others.
A number of songs were covered during the show, including Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is a Place on Earth", Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry", The Rolling Stones' "Dead Flowers" among others however one of the more notable covers came when McCready performed a cover of "River of Deceit" for the first time since the breakup of Mad Season with Jeff Rouse performing vocal duties on the song.
Above was re-released in a 3-disc deluxe edition in 2013, and also in vinyl format featuring three new songs with Mark Lanegan on vocals.