60 Fun Facts About Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam formed in 1990 in the largest city of which U.S. state?

Pearl Jam formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990, after Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament's previous band, Mother Love Bone, ended with the death of singer Andrew Wood.

Under what name did Pearl Jam briefly perform before settling on their permanent name?

They borrowed it from an NBA point guard, and when they were forced to change it they named their debut album after his jersey number.

Which Vs. single topped both the Billboard Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock charts in 1994?

Daughter, the second single from Vs., reached number one on both the Mainstream Rock and Modern Rock charts in early 1994; Vedder wrote it about a child misunderstood by her parents.

The 'Jam' half of Pearl Jam's name was inspired by a concert by which musician?

Vedder has said the 'Jam' came from watching Neil Young stretch songs into long jams on stage; Jeff Ament supplied the 'Pearl' half of the name.

Gossard and Ament's earlier band, Mother Love Bone, ended when Andrew Wood died of what?

A heroin overdose killed Andrew Wood on March 19, 1990, months before Mother Love Bone's debut album Apple reached stores; Temple of the Dog was formed in his memory.

Before Mother Love Bone, Gossard and Ament played in which Seattle band, often called the first grunge band?

Mark Arm and Steve Turner went on to form Mudhoney; the band's name was linked to the Green River Killer.

Eddie Vedder was born in Evanston, Illinois, under what name?

He was born Edward Louis Severson III on December 23, 1964, and later took his mother's maiden name, Vedder; he was pumping gas in San Diego when the demo tape reached him.

Vedder won his spot in the band by recording vocals for a three-song 'mini-opera' he called what?

Vedder titled the demo Momma-Son; its three songs became Alive, Once and Footsteps, and Gossard's instrumental version of Alive had been called Dollar Short.

Pearl Jam's debut album Ten was released on which date?

Ten was released on August 27, 1991, by Epic Records; it went on to be certified 13 times platinum in the United States.

Which artist's album kept Ten from the top of the Billboard 200 in 1992?

Billy Ray Cyrus's debut Some Gave All, which logged 17 weeks at number one in 1992, held Ten at number 2.

Which drummer played on Ten?

Dave Krusen drummed on Ten but left the band in May 1991, before the album was released; Dave Abbruzzese played on the next two albums.

Who produced Ten at Seattle's London Bridge Studio?

Rick Parashar co-produced Ten with the band at London Bridge Studio in 1991; Brendan O'Brien, who produced Vs. and Vitalogy, remixed the album for its 2009 reissue.

What is the two-part hidden instrumental that opens and closes Ten called?

Master/Slave is the instrumental that fades in before Once and returns after the closing track Release to bookend Ten.

'Jeremy' was inspired by a report about a teenager who shot himself in front of his class in which state?

Jeremy Wade Delle died in Richardson, Texas, in January 1991; the band barely made videos again after the one for this song.

Who directed the 'Jeremy' video, which won Video of the Year at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards?

Mark Pellington directed it; MTV would not air the shot of the gun in Jeremy's mouth, so the broadcast edit left many viewers thinking the boy had shot his classmates.

After 'Jeremy', Pearl Jam did not release another music video until which 1998 animated clip?

Todd McFarlane's animation earned a Grammy nomination for Best Short Form Music Video.

Vs. sold how many copies in its first week in 1993, a record that stood for five years?

Vs. sold 950,378 copies in its first week, more than the rest of the Billboard top ten combined; its working title had been Five Against One.

What animal appears on the cover of Vs.?

An angora goat behind a wire fence fills the cover of Vs., in a black-and-white photograph taken by bassist Jeff Ament.

Which company did Pearl Jam accuse of monopolising concert ticketing in a 1994 antitrust complaint?

Pearl Jam filed a Justice Department complaint against Ticketmaster in 1994; Ament and Gossard testified before a House subcommittee, and the band spent years playing venues outside its control.

How long after Vitalogy's November 1994 vinyl release did its CD version arrive?

Two weeks separated Vitalogy's vinyl release on November 22, 1994, from its CD and cassette release on December 6; the packaging imitated an old medical book Vedder had found.

Which Vitalogy single won Pearl Jam their first Grammy, for Best Hard Rock Performance?

Spin the Black Circle won Best Hard Rock Performance at the 1996 Grammys, the band's first; it was also their first Billboard Hot 100 entry, peaking at number 18.

On the Vitalogy track 'Bugs', Vedder plays which instrument, bought at a thrift shop?

Accordion is the instrument Vedder plays on Bugs, bought at a thrift shop; the album's closing track was built from looped recordings of psychiatric patients.

Vedder wrote 'Better Man' as a teenager for which San Diego band?

Vedder first recorded Better Man with Bad Radio in San Diego in the late 1980s; the Pearl Jam version later topped the Mainstream Rock chart without being issued as a commercial single.

Which former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer joined Pearl Jam in 1994?

Jack Irons, who had passed the band's instrumental demo to his friend Eddie Vedder in 1990, joined in 1994 and left during the 1998 Yield tour for health reasons.

Temple of the Dog, the 1990 tribute project to Andrew Wood, was conceived by which singer?

Chris Cornell, Wood's roommate, wrote the first songs in his memory and assembled the group; its single Hunger Strike was Vedder's first featured vocal on a record.

In Cameron Crowe's 1992 film Singles, Vedder, Ament and Gossard play members of which fictional band?

Matt Dillon fronts Citizen Dick as Cliff Poncier, with Vedder, Ament and Gossard as his bandmates; Crowe later directed the 2011 documentary Pearl Jam Twenty.

The 1996 album No Code came packaged with how many Polaroid photos?

It debuted at number one but slid quickly; the band said it saw the record as a chance to experiment.

What was the lead single from Yield (1998)?

Given to Fly, issued ahead of the album in early 1998, was Yield's lead single; Wishlist followed as the second single.

Matt Cameron joined Pearl Jam in 1998 after drumming for which band since 1986?

Matt Cameron had drummed for Soundgarden since 1986; invited to fill in on the 1998 Yield tour, he became Pearl Jam's longest-serving drummer.

What position did Pearl Jam's 1999 cover of 'Last Kiss' reach on the Billboard Hot 100?

Last Kiss peaked at 2nd on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1999; Vedder had found the 1960s single at a Seattle antique mall and released the cover as a charity single for Kosovo refugees.

How was Pearl Jam's 'Last Kiss' first released, before its wider 1999 issue?

As a fan-club Christmas single in 1998, Last Kiss went only to Ten Club members; the song was written by Wayne Cochran in 1961 and was a 1964 hit for J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers.

Which producer, known for two-microphone binaural recording, made Pearl Jam's 2000 album Binaural?

Tchad Blake co-produced Binaural with the band; his binaural technique uses two microphones to mimic human hearing for a 3-D stereo effect, and the album was the first with Matt Cameron on drums.

The cover of Binaural is a Hubble Space Telescope image of which nebula?

The cover is the Hubble Space Telescope's 1996 image of the Hourglass Nebula, MyCn18, a planetary nebula in the constellation Musca.

How many official live 'bootleg' albums did Pearl Jam release from its 2000 tour?

Pearl Jam released 72 official bootlegs from the 2000 Binaural tour, 25 from Europe and 47 from North America; several debuted on the Billboard 200 in the same week.

How many fans died in the crowd crush during Pearl Jam's set at the Roskilde Festival on June 30, 2000?

Nine young men were crushed to death near the stage; the band stopped the show and pleaded with the crowd to step back, and the tragedy reshaped festival safety across Europe.

Which 2002 Pearl Jam song, a satirical jab at George W. Bush, stirred controversy on tour?

Bu$hleaguer, from Riot Act, drew boos in Denver in 2003 when Vedder performed it wearing a George W. Bush mask; Riot Act was the band's last studio album for Epic.

Which keyboardist debuted on Pearl Jam's Riot Act after jamming with Vedder in Hawaii?

Boom Gaspar, a Hawaiian organist who played with Vedder at a jam on Oahu, joined for Riot Act and co-wrote its track Love Boat Captain.

Which fruit on its cover gives Pearl Jam's self-titled 2006 album its nickname?

Avocado is the fruit sliced open on the cover, so fans call the album Avocado; it was the band's only studio album for J Records.

Eddie Vedder's first solo album was the soundtrack to which 2007 Sean Penn film?

Into the Wild, Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's book, got Vedder's first solo album as its soundtrack; its song Guaranteed won the Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

Which unusual instrument gave Eddie Vedder's 2011 solo album its title?

Ukulele Songs, released in May 2011, was Vedder's second solo album, built around the four-string Hawaiian instrument; his third, Earthling, followed in 2022.

Backspacer (2009) came out on which label owned by Pearl Jam?

Monkeywrench Records, the band's own imprint, released Backspacer in the US in 2009, with Target as the exclusive big-box retailer and independent record stores alongside.

Which editorial cartoonist drew the cover of Backspacer?

Tom Tomorrow is the pen name of Dan Perkins, creator of the strip This Modern World; the cover images were hidden across websites in a pre-release scavenger hunt.

Pearl Jam Twenty, the 2011 anniversary documentary, premiered at which film festival?

Pearl Jam Twenty premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2011; Cameron Crowe sifted through some 12,000 hours of footage, and the film later aired on PBS's American Masters.

Lightning Bolt (2013) won Pearl Jam a Grammy in which category?

Lightning Bolt won Best Recording Package at the 2015 Grammy Awards for its artwork by Don Pendleton, the band's second Grammy after Best Hard Rock Performance in 1996.

Which Pearl Jam album, released March 27, 2020, ended a gap of more than six years between records?

Gigaton arrived March 27, 2020, more than six years after Lightning Bolt; its lead single was Dance of the Clairvoyants and the cover is a Paul Nicklen photograph of an Arctic ice cap.

Pearl Jam's twelfth studio album, Dark Matter (2024), was produced by whom?

Andrew Watt, who had also produced for Ozzy Osbourne and the Rolling Stones, produced Dark Matter; most of it was cut in about three weeks at Shangri-La in Malibu.

In which year was Pearl Jam inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, its first year eligible?

Pearl Jam entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, in its first year of eligibility; the ceremony was held at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on April 7.

Guitarist Mike McCready has spoken publicly about living with which condition, diagnosed at 21?

McCready has lived with Crohn's disease since a diagnosis at 21 and plays benefit shows with his UFO tribute band Flight to Mars for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation.

Which Alice in Chains singer fronted Mad Season, Mike McCready's 1990s side project?

Layne Staley sang on Mad Season's only album, Above (1995), alongside McCready, Screaming Trees drummer Barrett Martin and bassist John Baker Saunders.

Which Pearl Jam song, co-written by McCready, has become the band's regular set closer?

Yellow Ledbetter, co-written by McCready, Ament and Vedder, was the B-side of Jeremy in 1992 and never appeared on a studio album, yet it has closed hundreds of Pearl Jam concerts.

Jeff Ament grew up in the small town of Big Sandy in which state?

Ament grew up in Big Sandy, Montana, where his father was the town barber and mayor; his Montana Pool Service Foundation has funded dozens of skateparks in the state, many on reservations.

How many of the eleven tracks on Ten were musically written or co-written by Stone Gossard?

They include Alive, Even Flow and Black; Gossard also runs Studio Litho in Seattle and released the solo album Bayleaf in 2001.

Eddie Vedder is a famously devoted fan of which baseball team?

Vedder grew up a Chicago Cubs fan in Evanston, just north of the city, and wrote the team's fan anthem All the Way in 2008 at Ernie Banks's request.

Which No Code single reached number one on the Modern Rock chart in 1996?

Who You Are, No Code's lead single, topped the Modern Rock chart; its tribal drum pattern was the new drummer's, and the album sold about 366,500 copies in its first week.

Which drummer left Pearl Jam after a handful of 1991 shows to join the Saturday Night Live band?

Matt Chamberlain, formerly of Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, played a few 1991 shows and appears in the Alive video before leaving for the Saturday Night Live band; he recommended Abbruzzese as his replacement.

Pearl Jam backed Neil Young on which 1995 album, uncredited as a band for contractual reasons?

Mirror Ball was recorded in Seattle in early 1995 with Pearl Jam as Young's band, credited only by individual names; two leftover tracks, I Got Id and Long Road, became Pearl Jam's EP Merkin Ball.

Which director asked Pearl Jam for an original song for Big Fish, resulting in 'Man of the Hour'?

Tim Burton asked for a song after screening an early cut of Big Fish for the band; Man of the Hour was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Original Song in 2004.

Which label head announced in 2006 that Pearl Jam had signed with J Records?

Clive Davis, the J Records founder and BMG veteran, announced the signing in 2006; J Records was absorbed into RCA Records in 2011.

Who inducted Pearl Jam into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

David Letterman delivered the induction speech as a late substitute; later that year the band released the concert film Let's Play Two, shot at Wrigley Field.

What is the name of the digital concert archive opened to Ten Club members in 2021?

Deep, launched at deep.pearljam.com in 2021, gave Ten Club members a searchable archive of nearly 200 shows from 2000 to 2013.