How ‘Act of Love’ brought Neil Young and Pearl Jam together
When the abrasive, flannel-covered sounds of grunge first emerged from the unlikely origins of Seattle, it carried the same anti-establishment ethos as punk rock had done before it. Even still, there were one or two established icons of American rock who were not only given a pass but fully embraced by the likes of grunge heroes Pearl Jam.
Despite being one of the most successful groups to emerge from the realm of grunge, Pearl Jam were always a little different from their contemporaries. While the likes of Nirvana, Mudhoney, or any number of other outfits emerging from Seattle during the late 1980s took the bulk of their sonic inspiration from the realm of punk and hardcore, Eddie Vedder’s outfit were a little more expansive in their tastes, and unashamedly so.
Vedder, for instance, has always been an outspoken disciple of the classic rock sounds of the 1960s and 1970s, with The Who being a particular favourite during his adolescence in California. Truthfully, there is not a rock band out there – grunge or otherwise – that does not owe something to the sounds of Pete Townshend and the gang, but unlike some others, Pearl Jam were never afraid to espouse the joys of their expansive influences.
Perhaps one of the most unlikely influences, both on Pearl Jam and the grunge scene generally, was Neil Young. For a songwriter who emerged with the folk rock sounds of Buffalo Springfield back in the counterculture age of the 1960s, Young boasted a prolific discography by the late 1980s, stretching in sound from old-school rockabilly to synthpop. Among his greatest works, however, were his experiments with guitar distortion and dissonance alongside Crazy Horse.
Unbeknownst to the songwriter, those fantastically distorted guitars essentially laid the foundations for the grunge sound, adopted by everybody from Melvins through to Pearl Jam. He might not have been the hip, happening young musician he was back in the 1960s, but Young was among the few established figures in mainstream rock to be openly adored by grunge, and Pearl Jam were always particularly outspoken about their appreciation of his efforts.
Eventually, Vedder’s group even got the chance to cross paths with the Canadian songwriter. As Young recalled to Guitar World back in 1995, “Pearl Jam and I were playing at the pro-choice benefit up there in Washington, DC. Eddie had just inducted me into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in New York, where I played ‘Act of Love’ with the guys from Crazy Horse.”
That Mirror Ball track ended up being the root of one of rock’s most unlikely collaborations. “The Pearl Jam guys recorded the performance on a cassette player they had on their table, and they knew it by the next night,” Young shared.
“I said, ‘Why don’t we try it?’ So we did it in Washington, and it was great,” he continued. “I said, ‘Maybe we ought to record it. It sounds good.’ They were thinking the same thing. So we set a date to go in and record. I wanted to have more than one song, so I came in with three other songs in hand.”
Not only did that incredible meeting of musical minds reflect Young’s infallible influence on the grunge scene, but it also showed Pearl Jam’s willingness to embrace some of their more mainstream influences, while many of their Seattle comrades were too concerned with optics to openly endorse a figure as established and mainstream as Neil Young.
