Pearl Jam is an American rock band from Seattle, Washington, that formed in 1990. One of the key bands in the grunge movement of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam has outsold and outlasted many of its contemporaries and is considered one of the most influential bands from that decade.
The band has consisted of guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, bassist Jeff Ament, and vocalist and guitarist Eddie Vedder since its formation. The band had a revolving cast of drummers throughout their early days, including Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abbruzzese, and Jack Irons. The band's longest-tenured drummer was Matt Cameron, who joined the band in 1998 and departed in 2025. Keyboardist Boom Gaspar has also featured with the band as a session and touring musician since 2002.
Formed after the demise of Gossard and Ament's previous bands, Green River and Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with their debut album Ten (1991). Ten stayed on the US Billboard 200 chart for nearly five years, and has gone on to become one of the highest-selling rock albums ever, being certified 13× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Released in 1993, Pearl Jam's second album, Vs., sold over 950,378 copies in its first week of release, setting the record for most copies of an album sold in its first week of release at the time. Their third album, Vitalogy (1994), became the second-fastest-selling CD in history at the time, with more than 877,000 units sold in its first week.
Pearl Jam's members often shunned popular music industry practices such as making music videos or participating in interviews. The band unsuccessfully sued Ticketmaster in 1994, claiming it had monopolized the concert-ticket market. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having "spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame".
Pearl Jam had sold more than 100million albums worldwide, including nearly 32million albums in the United States by 2012, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 in its first year of eligibility. They were ranked eighth in a readers' poll by Rolling Stone magazine in its "Top Ten Live Acts of All Time" issue. Throughout its career, the band has promoted wider social and political issues, such as abortion rights sentiments and opposition to George W. Bush's presidency, with Vedder acting as its spokesman on these issues.
History
Background and formation (1984–1990) Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of Seattle-based grunge band Green River during the mid-1980s. Green River toured and recorded to moderate success, but disbanded in 1987 due to a stylistic division between the pair and bandmate Mark Arm.Azerrad, Michael. Our Band Could Be Your Life. Little Brown and Company, 2001. , p. 422. In late 1987, Gossard and Ament began playing with Malfunkshun vocalist Andrew Wood, eventually organizing the band Mother Love Bone. In 1988 and 1989, the band recorded and toured to increasing interest. PolyGram signed the band in late 1988. Mother Love Bone's debut album, Apple, was released in August 1990, five months after Wood died of a heroin overdose.
Ament and Gossard were devastated by the death of Wood and the resulting demise of Mother Love Bone. Gossard spent his time afterwards writing material that was harder-edged than what he had been doing previously. After a few months, Gossard started practicing with fellow Seattle guitarist Mike McCready, whose band, Shadow, had broken up; McCready in turn encouraged Gossard to reconnect with Ament. After practicing for a while, the trio sent out a five-song demo tape in order to find a singer and a drummer. They gave former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons the demo to see if he would be interested in joining the band and to distribute the demo to anyone he felt might fit the lead vocal position.
Irons passed on the invitation but gave the demo to his friend Eddie Vedder.Wall, Mick. "Alive". Nirvana and the Story of Grunge. Q p. 95 Vedder was the lead vocalist for the San Diego band Bad Radio and worked part-time at a gas station. He listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. He then recorded the vocals to three of the songs ("Alive", "Once", and "Footsteps") in what he later described as a "mini-opera" titled Mamasan. Vedder sent the tape with his vocals back to the three Seattle musicians, who were impressed enough to fly Vedder up to Seattle for an audition. Within a week, Vedder had joined the band.
With the addition of Dave Krusen on drums, the band took the name Mookie Blaylock, in reference to the then-active basketball player. The band played its first official show at the Off Ramp Café in Seattle on October 22, 1990. They opened for Alice in Chains at the Moore Theatre in Seattle on December 22, 1990, and served as the opening act for the band's Facelift tour in 1991. Mookie Blaylock soon signed to Epic Records and renamed themselves Pearl Jam. In an early promotional interview, Vedder said that the name "Pearl Jam" was a reference to his great-grandmother Pearl, who was married to a Native American and had a special recipe for peyote-laced jam.Neely, Kim. "Right Here, Right Now". Rolling Stone. October 31, 1991. In a 2006 cover story for Rolling Stone, Vedder admitted that this story was "total bullshit", but added that he did have a great-grandmother named Pearl. Ament and McCready explained that Ament came up with "pearl", and that the band later settled on Pearl Jam after attending a Neil Young concert in which he extended his songs as improvisations (i.e. "jams") of 15–20 minutes in length.
Ten and the grunge explosion (1991–1992)
Pearl Jam entered Seattle's London Bridge Studios in March 1991 to record its debut album Ten.Pearlman, Nina. "Black Days". Guitar World. December 2002. McCready said that "Ten was mostly Stone and Jeff; Eddie and I were along for the ride at that time."Weisbard, Eric, et al. "Ten Past Ten". Spin. August 2001. Krusen left the band in May 1991 after checking himself into rehabilitation for alcoholism;Greene, Jo-Ann. "Pearl Jam and the Secret History of Seattle Part 2". Goldmine. August 1993. he was replaced by Matt Chamberlain, who 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 band for Saturday Night Live. Chamberlain suggested Dave Abbruzzese as his replacement. Abbruzzese joined the group and played the rest of Pearl Jam's live shows supporting Ten.
Released on August 27, 1991, Ten (named after Mookie Blaylock's jersey number) contained 11 tracks dealing with dark subjects like depression, suicide, loneliness, and murder. Ten's musical style, influenced by classic rock, combined an "expansive harmonic vocabulary" with an anthemic sound. The album was slow to sell, but by the second half of 1992 it became a breakthrough success, being certified gold and reaching number two on the Billboard charts. Ten produced the hit singles "Alive", "Even Flow", and "Jeremy". Originally interpreted as an anthem by many, Vedder later revealed that "Alive" tells the semi-autobiographical tale of a son discovering that his father is actually his stepfather. In "Alive", the son's mother's grief leads her to sexually embrace the son, who strongly resembles his biological father.
The song "Jeremy" and its accompanying video were inspired by a true story in which a high school student shot himself in front of his classmates. Ten stayed on the Billboard charts for nearly five years, going 13× platinum.
With the success of Ten, Pearl Jam became a key member of the Seattle grunge explosion, along with Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Soundgarden. The band was criticized in the music press; British music magazine NME wrote that Pearl Jam was "trying to steal money from young alternative kids' pockets".Gilbert, Jeff. "New Power Generation". Guitar World: Nirvana and the Seattle Sound. 1993.
Pearl Jam toured relentlessly in support of Ten. Ament stated that "essentially Ten was just an excuse to tour", adding: "We told the record company, 'We know we can be a great band, so let's just get the opportunity to get out and play.'"Coryat, Karl. "Godfather of the 'G' Word". Bass Player magazine. April 1994. The band's manager Kelly Curtis stated: "Once people came and saw them live, this lightbulb would go on. Doing their first tour, you kind of knew it was happening and there was no stopping it." Early on in Pearl Jam's career, the band became known for its intense live performances. Looking back at this time, Vedder said that "playing music and then getting a shot at making a record and at having an audience and stuff, it's just like an untamed force... But it didn't come from jock mentality. It came from just being let out of the gates."
In 1992, Pearl Jam made television appearances on Saturday Night Live and MTV Unplugged and took a slot on that summer's Lollapalooza tour with Ministry, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Soundgarden, among others. The band contributed two songs to the soundtrack of the 1992 Cameron Crowe film Singles: "State of Love and Trust" and "Breath". Ament, Gossard and Vedder appeared in Singles under the name Citizen Dick; their parts were filmed when Pearl Jam was known as Mookie Blaylock.
Vs., Vitalogy and dealing with success (1993–1995)
The band members grew uncomfortable with their success, with much of the burden of Pearl Jam's popularity falling on frontman Vedder. While Pearl Jam received four awards at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards for its video for "Jeremy", including Video of the Year and Best Group Video, the band refused to make a video for "Black" in spite of pressure from the label. This action began a trend of the band refusing to make videos for its songs. Vedder felt that the concept of music videos robbed listeners from creating their own interpretations of the song, stating that "Before music videos first came out, you'd listen to a song with headphones on, sitting in a beanbag chair with your eyes closed, and you'd come up with your own visions, these things that came from within. Then all of a sudden, sometimes even the first time you heard a song, it was with these visual images attached, and it robbed you of any form of self-expression."Neely, Kim. Five Against One: The Pearl Jam Story. "The Lost 'Jeremy' Video. pp. 109–113. New York, NY. Penguin Books. "Ten years from now", Ament said, "I don't want people to remember our songs as videos."