Matt Cameron’s five best drum fills for Pearl Jam
Matt Cameron might have one of the most impressive CVs in musical history. Looking through the bands he has played with is really a who’s who of rock music, as he has supplied percussive abilities with Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, and, of course, Pearl Jam. Here, we are going to focus specifically on his work with the latter.
A lot of people don’t appreciate enough just how complicated Pearl Jam’s rhythm section actually is. Grunge as a genre is a hard one to pin down when it comes to adding drums, because the drawn-out notes provide a lot of options for a percussionist. You can’t just have a regular drummer play in a grunge band; you need a musician who understands the song, can read it, and adequately assess what music should be put over the back of it.
Cameron had played with Pearl Jam a fair bit during the early incarnation of the band, but he didn’t become a fully-fledged member until the backend of the 1990s. His addition to the band could be felt almost immediately, as he gave Pearl Jam an exciting new sound, adjusting to their slowed-down and sped-up songs wonderfully.
Cameron did a heap of exceptional percussion work for Pearl Jam, so much so that it’s tricky to pin down what his finest pieces of music are for the group. We have tried our best, so here are five of his greatest drum fills that show how important he was to the band.
Matt Cameron’s greatest Pearl Jam drum fills
‘The Fixer’
As well as being an excellent drummer, Cameron was a great songwriter, who knew the direction that a song should go in as well as the rhythm section that should hang behind it. One of the Pearl Jam songs where he had the most input as to how the song should sound as well as the drumming was the track ‘The Fixer’.
The song is a great example of how good Cameron is at writing and, more importantly, how excellent a drummer he is. There really is no stopping him when it comes to putting together exciting drum fills when he gets going, and those which are scattered along this track are extremely exciting.
‘Grievance’
It surprises people when they learn how pivotal a part of Pearl Jam Cameron actually is. While he didn’t officially join the band until 1998, he played with them long before that and stepped in to help out on what would become the demos for some of the band’s first songs, such as ‘Alive’ and ‘Once’.
The first official album he worked on with the band was their 2000 offering, Binaural. Cameron’s drumming is on point throughout the record, but the way his tom toms flood through various fills on the track ‘Grievance’ really is something else. The song goes down as one of his best drumming performances ever, both within and outside of Pearl Jam.
‘Sleight Of Hand’
The first thing we hear on this track is Cameron on drums. No count-in is needed, just two hits of the snare, and that off-kilter runs riot with some plucking guitar lingering in the background. It’s a great introduction to a song that has Cameron’s drums built into the centre of every single second.
Throughout the song, even as the aggressive nature of the track changes with the inclusion of distortion and various effects, Cameron manages to keep up and continues to deliver on his stellar drums. He holds the entire song together and does it while keeping the rhythm section exciting and innovative.
‘In The Moonlight’
‘In The Moonlight’ champions a sound which isn’t instantly recognisable as Pearl Jam’s grunge-like tone; however, if you stick with it, you’ll be treated to one of the band’s most aggressive and experimental offerings. All of that comes from Cameron’s drums, which don’t follow a standard rhythm but are more stop-start than you might expect.
It all works incredibly well and is a lot of fun to listen to. The guitar manages to keep up with Cameron’s rhythm, but given that the drums are such a prominent part of this song, Cameron is given more permission to go wild with his fills. Snare runs and high fit filler run amok in this track, which stands out as one of Pearl Jam’s most exciting.
‘God’s Dice’
Here we have one of the most upbeat tracks that Pearl Jam has. This was also a piece from the first studio album that Cameron worked on, Binaural, and it’s as close you can get to a creative flex as is artistically possible. Every band member flexes just how talented they are, including Cameron, who sounds like he is playing a different drum fill every bar.
In between guitar solos and vocal riffs, he manages to squeeze drum rolls and has his sticks dance around every tom in sight in a bid to create a thick and energetic atmosphere throughout the track. If there are any wannabe drummers reading, you should listen to this song immediately.
