Graceful in an alley fight: The album that threatened to destroy Pearl Jam
No album can be considered a walk in the park for any rock and roll band. As much as people like to claim that they make music for the masses and are able to make it home in time for dinner, there’s no way that there aren’t at least a few headaches that make something that sounds so easy extremely difficult. But when Pearl Jam were making their first records, some of the biggest blows to their career only came when they ventured outside the studio for the first time.
Then again, it would always be a bumpy ride once Eddie Vedder settled in. The frontman may have been one of the most engaging presences on and off the stage, but since Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were still reeling over the death of Andy Wood, it wasn’t like Vedder was going to snap his fingers and make that grief go away. They were all struggling in the beginning, and that went into every song they played.
But from the first show they performed together, their energy was infectious from the moment they got onstage. It was hard to take Vedder seriously sometimes, with the hair in his face and doing his best to avoid the audience, but once he found his sweet spot as one of the biggest wildmen of his time, it was only a matter of getting their songs down on tape when making Ten.
And when fans got to hear it, it was a welcome change of pace from standard rock and roll. Nirvana had already wiped out all of hair metal with the rise of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, but when songs like ‘Alive’ and ‘Jeremy’, fans were reminded that it was still okay for people to play with real chops and not have to wear lipstick or have three cans of hairspray at their disposal. But just because someone is successful doesn’t mean they were happy.
Throughout the band’s early years, Vedder said that becoming one of the biggest stars of the moment forced him to pull the rest of the band back and refuse any kind of attention, saying, “I knew it wasn’t graceful, the way we were handling it. At the same time, it’s like being graceful in an alley fight. You’re just trying to get out of there alive. We held tight to each other and held tight to music.”
It wasn’t the worst idea for them to take the foot off the gas, but it did make for some strange detours as well. Vitalogy is close to being their best album outside of a few oddball production choices, and while No Code has the makings of a great album buried in there, it’s hard to listen to the band being so frustrated and making an album that doesn’t even sound like it wants to be listened to.
Then again, if they hadn’t pulled back when they did, there’s a good chance we would be talking about them like some rock and roll casualty. Mike McCready was already not taking care of himself when the next few tours kicked in, and while Vedder managed to tiptoe his way through red carpet events, he was more interested in protecting himself than worrying about whether someone liked his new record.
Whereas most people would have sprinted towards fame as fast as they could, Pearl Jam realised pretty quickly that it was better for them to make a career they could be proud of rather than riding a rocket to the top of the world. There’s nowhere to go but down once you reach the top, so it’s better to go the route of a marathon runner than making it a sprint.
