The metal band Stone Gossard called “perfect” for Seattle
Although their most recognisable work had more in common with classic stadium rock, Seattle outfit Pearl Jam was a cornerstone of early 1990s grunge revolution. Officially formed in 1990, the individual members of the band had been stalwarts of Seattle’s blossoming punk and proto-grunge scene the years prior. However, guitarist Stone Gossard always seemed to have a broader taste than his contemporaries, more concerned with classic rock and even heavy metal than the DIY punk rock that gripped his native city.
Today, ideas of grunge are invariably linked to the release of Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind. However, that record only marked the moment when grunge hit the mainstream. In actuality, the scene that would later develop into grunge had been quietly bubbling away in the American northwest for a number of years before groups like Mudhoney, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam established its abrasive tones on a global scale.
For the most part, this vibrant local scene in Seattle was spurred along by the advent of hardcore and DIY punk. Many prominent punk groups, however, found it difficult to travel all the way to the secluded state to tour, and so local bands had to create their own rebellious visions. As such, grunge was born from a strange mismatch of influences and imitations, with punk being at the heart of the scene. This can certainly be heard in the earliest grunge outfits, like Green River.
Although Green River only ever released one studio album via Sub Pop in 1988, the band’s importance within the grunge genre cannot be overstated. Composed of Mark Arm and Steve Turner, later of Mudhoney, as well as Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, later of Pearl Jam, alongside local musicians Alex Vincent and Brian Fairweather, Green River laid the foundations for the grunge explosion, which would come to dominate the American rock scene of the early 1990s.
Green River got together in 1984, at a time when Gossard’s listening habits seemed to be at odds with the punk leanings of the proto-grunge years. Speaking to Daily Record back in 2009, Gossard recalled back to that time, saying, “My influences were a lot of FM rock and pop on the radio, Simon and Garfunkel, and disco. You couldn’t help but be affected by disco. Even if you weren’t, at the time, in love with disco, it was everywhere.” Few self-respecting punks would admit to a love of disco, but this admission does go to explain the diverse range of styles adopted by Pearl Jam over the years.
“I missed British punk,” Gossard continued, explaining, “I never really understood it until I started listening to the Sex Pistols in ‘84 and I went, ‘Whoa, this is a rock band.’” For much of his adolescence, therefore, the future Pearl Jam guitarist got his angry music fix from the world of metal. “Heavy Metal was huge too,” he said, highlighting one band, in particular, as a favourite, “Motörhead was the ultimate Seattle band; the lynchpin memories of how much you loved Black Sabbath when you were eight years old.”
Although describing a band formed in 1970s London as a “Seattle band” seems fairly contentious, the pioneering metal stylings of Lemmy Kilmister seemed to lend themselves to the blossoming local scene in the Washington city quite well. After all, metal bands like Motörhead were successful in introducing mainstream audiences to loud, distorted rock music, while punk remained a fairly obscure genre for the most part.
The influence of Motörhead can certainly be felt, both in the music of Green River and, more predominantly, in the repertoire of Pearl Jam. Gossard’s guitar playing always had more in common with more established metal and classic rock bands like Kilmister’s than the grassroots and DIY punk that Pearl Jam’s fellow grunge pioneers held so dear. Nevertheless, Pearl Jam and Gossard always remained true to their roots in Seattle.
