The “comical” Pearl Jam video Stone Gossard made sure no one saw
Being in a rock band usually requires you to have enough of an ego or thick enough skin to be able to avoid feeling embarrassment, but unfortunately for Stone Gossard, there was one occasion where he feels like he overstepped the mark to the point where he felt too uncomfortable to ever share his work.
Prior to creating a reason for himself to feel ashamed, Gossard had had a reasonable amount of success in the late ‘80s as a member of two pioneering grunge acts, firstly as the guitarist in Green River, and later in the short-lived Mother Love Bone. Neither of these projects would put him in the spotlight to quite the same degree as what would come next, but at least he had some indication of what an increased level of stature might mean in terms of having people cast a discerning eye over your work.
In 1990, he would take his former bandmate in both acts, bassist Jeff Ament, and form Pearl Jam, recruiting Mike McCready, Dave Krusen and Eddie Vedder to fill out the initial lineup. The group would immediately set about recording their debut album, Ten, and it was with this that they, and Gossard, would experience a heightened sense of notoriety and fame, given how it was an immediate hit with fans and critics alike.
While Ten proved to be a landmark album in the grunge movement, with the genre making more of a splash than ever after the turn of the decade, this coincided with metal slowly making its way out of fashion. Despite the fact that Pearl Jam were personally not fans of the direction that metal was taking at the time, they knew that there was still a reasonable chance that they could tap into that scene and convince die-hard metalheads to switch their allegiance in favour of the burgeoning Seattle sound that acts like themselves were pushing.
“We thought metal was pretty much a joke at that point,” Gossard would reflect in a 2001 interview with Spin, “but we also knew that it was an area where we could get some fans. Headbangers Ball and Rip Magazine, all that stuff. You’re going to do whatever you can to get it going.” However, the way in which the band decided to go about acquiring new fans from the dying metal scene ended up being a catastrophic mess that Gossard did his absolute best to cover up.
“We made an ‘Even Flow’ video that never came out that I’m sensitive about, because it was my idea,” he revealed. “It ended up being totally rawk: lots of big lights, out on a cliff, definitely comical to look back on now. Hopefully at some point, we’ll be able to laugh at ourselves enough to show that one.”
Unfortunately for Gossard’s wishes, the video did resurface in 2021, with it finding its way onto YouTube for the world to see. While presumably he’s able to look back on it with a smile now, looking at this abomination of a video now really dates it, and it comes off as a complete laughing stock with its faux-metal posturing and angsty edits. Watch for yourself below; just don’t tell Stone Gossard about it.
