The one singer Eddie Vedder said was “everything you imagined” and more
Eddie Vedder didn’t ever want to be the traditional rock and roll star that everyone thinks of.
The entire Seattle scene wasn’t meant to be one of the biggest hubs for music in the world, but when everything exploded in the 1990s, Vedder was trying to do everything he could to minimise his star power. He didn’t want to become the same kind of legend that he heard about in his record collections, but he had to admit that some of his favourite artists seemed to be larger than life without having to think about it.
There was no way for him to really quantify what it was like working with a band like The Who or Tom Petty, but for him, it was all done in the service of playing music. He wanted the chance to make music that appealed to people, and a lot of that came from breaking down the kinds of songs that his idols were used to playing. Pete Townshend was writing about characters with flesh and blood, and you can hear that in the way that Vedder sings as well.
It was hard to even figure out what the hell he was getting at in a lot of those Pearl Jam songs, but you could definitely sense that he had a handle on what people were going through. The stories of ‘Daughter’ and ‘Why Go’ sound like things that could actually happen to people, and even if Vedder tried his best to bring down his own sense of celebrity, sometimes being yourself can endear fans to you even more.
And when you get more honest with your fanbase, you can’t really go wrong. Vedder was willing to make music that was a bit more true to himself whenever Pearl Jam started to wane a little bit, and when looking at his heroes, he felt that someone like Bruce Springsteen seemed to be going for the same thing that he was when he started writing about more introspective topics in his songs.
‘The Boss’ wasn’t trying to impress anyone whenever he played one of his tunes, and even if there were a few songs that didn’t sit as well with other people, that didn’t matter to him. He could only write about what he knew about, and that sense of conviction that he had was what sealed the deal for Vedder when he first started hanging out with him, when they both had some free time.
The idea of going horseback riding with Springsteen sounds like it comes out of someone’s warped fever dream, but even when taking in the moment, Vedder felt that no one could beat what Springsteen did for him as a friend, saying, “I’ve known Bruce pretty good for quite some time. All I can say about him is that everything you imagine him to be, you’re not even halfway there. Just as a person, as an artist, and as a friend.”
And a lot of that comes from the fact that Springsteen comes by everything honestly. He wasn’t out to bullshit the people that were paying money for his shows, and if he was going to be putting on those marathon shows night after night, he was going to make sure that he was singing about something that he truly believed every single time he counted the E Street Band off to play ‘Born in the USA’ or ‘The Rising’.
Vedder’s music might have been a little bit more aggressive back in the day, but underneath all of that rage was still the kid that was mesmerised by seeing ‘The Boss’ when he was still figuring out what he wanted to do with his life. And given where he took his own dream, Vedder has reached the kind of level that Springsteen has, even if he never meant to be as big as he became.
