"Some bands like to recreate themselves through fashion," says Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament. "That
doesn't really interest us. We try to work on the inside as opposed to the outside. Change means
getting deeper with our music."
Ament is talking about Yield (Epic), Pearl Jam's impressive new album, their first since 1996's No
Code. But he's also referring to the Seattle band's constant, and often overlooked, attempts to
reinvent themselves amid the hurricane of hype (and anti-hype) that's often threatened to throw them
off course-and, at times, has.
The band's travails have been numerous and highly publicized. Early on, Pearl Jam made admirable
but misguided efforts to fight the media hoopla and star-maker machinery that threatened to swallow
them up. They would overreact to legitimate problems, fighting Ticketmaster, for example, in ways
that only increased their fans' difficulties when the alternative venues they chose proved inadequate.
But while Pearl Jam's stormy seven-year career has been marked by tremendous internal and
external strife, they've never stopped evolving as musicians. Their first attempt to remake themselves
was heard on their sophomore release, 1993's Vs. Band founders Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament
turned over the reins to the remarkable and then volatile Eddie Vedder. The result: a leaner, punkier
Jam. No Code (Epic, 1996) was another breakthrough, brimming with spiritual insight, world beat
overtones and glimmers of a newly-found self-deprecating humor.
Their latest effort, Yield is at once both edgier and deeper than No Code-harder rocking, yet more
subtly nuanced. Of course, hard-core fans will still be able to quickly identify those familiar Stone
Gossard riffs on the roaring opener, "Brain of J," and Vedder's contemplative lyrics on "Pilate" and
the hymn-like "Low Light."
But these hard-core fans would be dead wrong. For the muscular skronk that powers "Brain of J" is
not Gossard's, but comes courtesy of Mr. Mike McCready, who also wrote the music for "Faithful"
and the album's first single, "Given To Fly." And the lyrics-as well as the music-to "Pilate" and "Low
Light" are not Vedder's, but were penned by bassist Ament. What's amazing is that you'd never
know the creative furniture has been rearranged if you didn't check the liner notes.
The fact is Pearl Jam's latest creative evolution is both their quietest and most profound to date.
With Yield, they have taken a quantum leap towards becoming a true band of equals. Vedder and
Gossard, who dominated previous albums, took a step back, allowing the other band members to
fill the void. In doing so, they've opened up the creative process in ways few other established
bands would ever dream of.
GUITAR WORLD: Mike, Stone always said he wanted to get you writing songs. You did three
on the new album, including the music for the single, "Given To Fly." Has your relationship with
Eddie changed as a result?
MIKE McCREADY: Definitely, yeah. I used to be afraid of him and not want to confront him on
things. I felt I was always walking on eggshells around him. Now I just feel more confident and
comfortable with myself, and maybe the mutual respect comes out of that. We talk more now, and
hang out and stuff.
GW: Jeff, you had told me that, in the beginning, you were all getting passive-aggressive with each
other and not communicating because of the stress. Yield implies you're going with the energy rather
than trying to fight everything that comes up. Or fight each other. That's what destroyed great bands
like the Clash and the Police.
JEFF AMENT: Yeah, I think we've finally arrived at the calm in the middle of the storm. Now we
realize that so much more gets done-even in terms of creating more good energy-by giving in and
flowing with it. I think we've all learned how to leave our egos at the door when someone else has
an idea, or has a song to work on. For me that particularly was important in terms of dealing with
Stone and Eddie. They're amazing talents, but their energy and their egos could be so strong-willed
that sometimes it was hard to break through. I didn't always know how to approach it. Sometimes I
was too aggressive, or let things build up to much. We've learned to take a step back and really
have a heartfelt conversation with each other. For example, I don't even play bass on a couple of
songs on the new album. Stone played on them, and I didn't think I could improve on them. That
would have been much harder for me to do three or four years ago.
GW: It sounds like one person wrote the lyrics and music to everything. Yet you wrote the
complete music and lyrics to "Pilate" and "Low Light," and Stone did the same for two songs. So
everybody was both yielding and stepping forward. What sparked that?
AMENT: When we were making No Code, Ed said, "It would be great if everyone brought in
more complete songs and ideas next time." And everybody stepped up to the challenge. We hadn't
been together for a couple of months , and when we got together and played each other demos of
songs we'd been working on it was amazing how musically and lyrically we were all coming from
similar places. Before, we'd bring in fragments of music, and it often took a few hours before Eddie
could have something to try and sing with.
Now we were all able to work off each other's demos and begin to hammer something out after 20
minutes or so. It was so much easier to approach these songs as "our," as opposed to "my," song.
When everybody got excited about a few of my songs, including the lyrics, that was a huge relief for
me. I've been putting pressure on myself for years to come up with complete songs and lyrics that
Eddie would be excited about singing, and wanting Stone to be into playing the guitar parts I wrote.
For those guys to let down their egos and get into it, to sit playing bass in the studio and watch
Eddie put his heart into singing lyrics that I wrote, was an experience I can't put into words.
GW: Mike, you've totally redeveloped your style since Ten. Your playing seems much more
assured and adventurous on Yield, experimenting with tones and textures, than the last few albums.
McCREADY: That probably comes out of having written three of the songs, including "Faithful"
and "Brain of J" along with the single. Each of us did demos of our own songs before we brought
them in, so I got to work on guitar tones before the band even heard them. Writing songs, I get in
that mind-set with the guitar where I'm looking to layer sounds to fit the song. Like for the guitar
tone on "Brain of J," I was looking for a crazy effect that I finally got by combining two guitar
sounds. The really menacing-sounding one involves a chorus and a wah wah pedal set halfway
down, and the other track is just a heavy, distorted guitar without any effects on it.
GW: As a band and as individuals you've had to reinvent-or find yourselves musically and
personally. Where there moments when you thought, God, this is all going to fall apart?
McCREADY: I was probably close to being kicked out of the band around the time of Vitalogy. I
was pretty fucked up. When we were recording that album I was drinking the entire mini-bar, eating
Valium and doing all this stupid shit like not showing up for sessions. Sure, I was in jeopardy of
losing my position. Not that anyone ever said that to me, but I'm sure that had I kept going like that,
it would have happened.
GW: Did you feel you had everybody's support when you went into rehab?
McCREADY: They were completely supportive, especially Stone. He came out and visited me in
rehab, as did our manager, Kelly [Curtis]. But everybody was there for me. In terms of the band,
the low point was when we had to cancel that show in San Francisco with Neil Young a few years
back. Eddie had collapsed on stage from food poisoning. We had just started the tour, and then as
a band we got together and just canceled the rest of it. Ed was so worn out, and we didn't know if
we wanted to be on the road, and what the situation was within the band. We were all exhausted; it
was a very confusing and low time.
GW: Jeff, I heard there was a point during No Code where you actually walked out.
AMENT: It was hard to get in the studio and work on a song you'd written at that point. I think my
frustration was probably just my ego being disappointed or whatever. It was like, I wish I could
have been a little bit more creative, or I wish I could have been a bigger part of this or that. But
there was a great lesson in that, too. It's okay not being that involved at times. And it made me
reassess and appreciate what I've done, and made me want to work harder-but in a different way.
That's when I began to think it would be interesting just to see what would happen if I wasn't
aggressive at all in terms of pushing my musical ideas. And that led togetting out of the
passive-aggressive thing and being able to be open and vulnerable, to having an immediate
conversation about whatever conflicts came up instead of suppressing it. In some ways, we were all
so sensitive to what the other person was going through that we didn't want to burden them with
what was going on within ourselves.
GW: Stone told me that getting Jack Irons in as your drummer may have saved the band. Other
than being a great player, how has he helped you all grow?
McCREADY: He's been a big influence in terms of opening up our communications with each
other. He's a big spiritual influence, if not the biggest. He and Ed, for sure. If there are problems or
whatever he's not afraid to call them out. If the rest of us start to skirt over certain issues, Jack will
always raise a red flag and then we'll sit down and deal with it. He'll just cut through and go, "Hey,
something's wrong here and this is how I feel about it-let's discuss it." It's made us 100 percent
closer than we were before.
GW: Are you guys more comfortable now that the limelight is finally on someone else?
McCREADY: Totally! It's very much a sense of relief. We can focus more on the music and live
our lives rather than deal with the hype and get caught up in Ticketmaster bullshit. We're focusing
more on the music.
GW: So is the Ticketmaster battle something you're still involved in, but not obsessing about?
McCREADY: Not obsessing, but we're still a little bit concerned about it. We might actually do
some shows with them in certain cities, because you can't really deal without them in places like
Chicago and Philadelphia.
GW: On the last tour, there were those who felt you were taking things too far, even though you
had the best intentions. But many people felt you were rigidly self righteous and insensitive to use
alternative venues that couldn't handle the volume. A lot of people couldn't get tickets and a few I
know were actually physically hurt. Did you eventually realize it was counterproductive?
McCREADY: We definitely lost some people because of that. I'm sure there are fans who would
have preferred to pay the ticket price-I've actually had people tell me that-instead of having to go
through alternative routes. Maybe we took that a little far, I agree. I guess it was the only way we
knew how to do it at the time. That probably turned off a lot of people, which is unfortunate. As I
say, we're not going to push so hard about it this time, and may even use Ticketmaster in certain
cities where you can't find anywhere else to play.
GW: Jeff, do you agree with Mike that all of you feel more centered now-about outside pressures
as well as your band relationships?
AMENT: I think as you get older and more aware, you just can't sustain that kind of tension that
we carried around. You get to a point where you have to learn to deal with that energy and let it be
transformed and pass through in a new way. For us, over the last few years, that's meant working
on new perspectives by stepping out of that hurricane and not touring so much or doing interviews.
When we get into a room to work at creating a song, all that other stuff we were talking
about-Ticketmaster and battles with certain magazines-it all seems so unimportant. Some of the
people we were fighting thought they were bigger than the music. And none of us are.

- Vic Garbarini, Guitar World