The artist Pete Townshend called his musical son: “Like a brother”
Pete Townshend was never in the music business to write a catchy tune. Others may have liked the adulation, but Townshend saw his craft as being about making something more than just a singalong, and the entirety of The Who’s career was about breaking out of the standard rock format to pave the way for something different. It was all about moving forward, but Townshend couldn’t help but see a few glimpses of himself in the eyes of Eddie Vedder.
But by the time the grunge icons in Pearl Jam hit in the early 1990s, The Who were a distant memory. Yes, they were able to struggle on without Keith Moon and even managed to get some incredible hits out of the deal like ‘You Better You Bet’, but from the tone of ‘Eminence Front’, even Townshend knew that the artist trying to show people the way was practically a fantasy at this point.
It was time for people to move on to the commercial brand of rock and roll, but Vedder came from a generation that still had something to say. Other artists like Poison and Cinderella had a firm grip on the industry, but once he hooked up with fellow musicians in Seattle, they hit on something far more powerful than just a bunch of absent-minded party songs.
No, this was something raw, and Vedder could thank Townshend for instilling that in him. Aside from the fact that he got into the group by making a mini rock opera, half of Vedder’s work with Pearl Jam involved him peeling back the layers of his mind the same way Townshend did, whether that was leaving his heart open on ‘Black’ or telling disturbing stories with a pertinent message like on ‘Jeremy’.
Although Townshend was more interested in creative writing rather than songwriting at that point, he was still interested in what Vedder was doing. Throughout his rise to fame, even Vedder remembered having talks with his idol about what he should do to keep himself from going insane, with Townshend later telling him that he didn’t really have a choice once people started relating to his songs.
While it would take a long time for Townshend to reconnect with Roger Daltrey for tours, he admitted that he would arrange a time to work with Vedder in a heartbeat, saying, “I love Eddie like a brother (or a surrogate son). If he had to do what Ronnie Lane did and came to me and say, ‘Pete, I’m broke, I need to make a record, will you help me?’, I would do so.”
Then again, Vedder does have a voice that seems to match what Daltrey continues to do every night. Even with over a decade under his belt by then, hearing Vedder cover a song like ‘Love Reign O’er Me’ is an emotional experience to watch, and even to this day, the band occasionally close out their live shows with a cover of ‘Baba O’Riley’.
Even though Townshend and Vedder are separated by different generations, they both seem to have identical rock hearts. They know what music is capable of, and they will try to move the Earth if it means getting someone to understand the power that a great song wields.
