The guitar solo that knocked out Mike McCready: “It came from another planet”
For most of the grunge movement, guitar solos were never a top priority. Since most of the biggest acts of the hair metal scene emphasised having sweeping solos that relied on technical virtuosity, the Seattle sound was about making songs that were intentionally unsophisticated, with most artists mocking what the traditional solo was supposed to be. Even though Pearl Jam may have been one of the founders of grunge, they did have some fretboard fireworks coming out of Mike McCready.
Before the band had even formed, though, there was a good chance that McCready would have been a member of a hair metal outfit. When cutting his teeth, the guitarist initially found himself in Los Angeles with Shadow, looking to catch a break on the Sunset Strip. Once his first band fell through, however, McCready became fascinated by the sounds of blues rockers like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix.
Playing the kind of electric blues reserved for the blues bars worldwide, McCready found himself in an ideal spot when jamming with Stone Gossard. After local legends Mother Love Bone fell apart due to the death of Andy Wood, McCready would become a foundational part of Pearl Jam, laying down amazing licks across tracks like ‘Daughter’ and ‘Alive’ in the group’s early years.
Even though he had undergone his blues conversion, one of McCready’s idols still came from the world of hair metal. Years before the genre had a proper name, Eddie Van Halen was showing legions of aspiring guitars what to measure up to behind the fretboard, creating tapping licks that no one could truly understand.
When dissecting his playing closely, Eddie’s signature style does rely on a fair bit of blues credentials as well. Aspiring to be like Eric Clapton, many of his trademark licks can still work within a bluesy shuffle, only being tapped out on one string rather than flying across the fretboard.
As for McCready’s taste, he still thinks that one of the defining moments for guitar playing was hearing ‘Eruption’ for the first time. In just under two minutes, Eddie created a tapestry of sounds that would be studied for decades, especially the final few seconds of classically-inspired tapping licks.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, McCready remembered being shell-shocked hearing the song for the first time, saying, “It sounded like it came from another planet. I was just learning basic chords, stuff like AC/DC and Deep Purple; ‘Eruption’ didn’t make sense to me, but it was glorious, like hearing Mozart for the first time.”
While Pearl Jam may have taken the spotlight away from acts like Van Halen throughout the 1990s, McCready thought that what Eddie was doing was on par with Jimi Hendrix, explaining, “Underneath that, Eddie had soul. I felt that a lot of guitar players that came out after him didn’t have that. It’s like Hendrix – you can play the things he’s written, but there’s an X factor that you can’t get.”
More than anything, McCready could respect the practice that went into making Eddie into one of the best musicians to pick up a guitar. Even though he had different gear on every record, the key to his guitar sound was all in his hands whenever he strapped on his Frankenstinian guitar.
