“Close to being kicked out”: The album that nearly saw Mike McCready fired from Pearl Jam
Along with being lauded as excellent musicians, Pearl Jam are often characterised in the contemporary era as survivors of grunge, however bleak that sounds. Yet, just as so many of their friends from the scene would ultimately meet tragic ends and their musical outfits implode because of it, there was a time when the ‘Even Flow’ group also danced dangerously with oblivion. While much of this had to do with drummer Dave Abbruzzese, lead guitarist Mike McCready had a significant part to play.
The band burst onto the scene in 1991 with their acclaimed debut, Ten. Fusing punk and classic rock influences into a hard-rocking, heavy-grooving mass, with frontman Eddie Vedder’s dark lyrics and elemental bellows acting as the tip of their spear, the band’s sound was unique and effective, earning them legions of fans. Two years later, they beat the second album syndrome with the much rawer and aggressive Vs.
However, by 1994, the writing was on the wall for grunge. The effects of global fame, relentless touring, and increasingly debilitating addictions took hold, as tragically symbolised by the arc of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Not only had the movement’s leaders lost their original verve due to these complications, but listener tastes were changing, too.
When it came to making Pearl Jam’s third album, Vitalogy, the band encountered a few issues that could have threatened to end them. Bassist Jeff Ament would later explain that inner group communication was at an “all-time low”, with drummer Abbruzzese not getting on with most of the other members, and guitarist Stone Gossard relinquishing his taxing duty as mediator. The album’s co-producer, Brendan O’Brien, noted that “there was some imploding going on.”
Unsurprisingly, this would be the last album Abbruzzese made with the group. He was eventually fired during the process and replaced by former Red Hot Chili Peppers family man Jack Irons, who helped steer the ship.
Significantly, it was such an impasse that Gossard even debated leaving the band. Communication was so poor that the group struggled to collaborate, and most of the songs were developed out of impromptu jams, which were quickly recorded afterwards. This is a remarkable point, given the brilliance of the album and its strange flecks of experimentation.
One notable aspect of Vitalogy is that it’s a rhythm-heavy body of work, with guitar solos nowhere near as prominent as they had been before. While this is undoubtedly a product of jams naturally being centred on a collective groove, McCready’s situation at the time also fed into it. Just like many of his peers at the time, McCready – one of his generation’s finest axemen – was struggling with the all-encompassing effects of alcohol and drug abuse, and this was seriously impeding his ability, with him sometimes not turning up to sessions. He would also later state that the death of the band’s friend, Kurt Cobain, had also had an effect on him spiralling.
Things got so bad for McCready that he also thinks he “was close to being kicked out” by the band. He told Guitar Worldin 1998: “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.”
During the production of Vitalogy, instead of being kicked out, McCready would enter rehab. Despite the stress of the time, he cites the deep-lying friendship and love the band have for each other as what helped him, instead of them opting to kick him out. He cleaned up his act for a time, before, like most addicts, he relapsed in 2000 during the making of Binaural. He has since got back on the horse and continued to display his skill on the fretboard. Understandably, though, the 1994 album is not one he revisits.
