The one alt-rock band Eddie Vedder thought sold out: “Fuck them”
The number one thing that no one can buy in this industry is integrity.
As much as people like the idea of making millions of dollars off their records, it only takes a few seconds for someone to realise that their favourite band has sold out and is only thinking about the royalty checks rather than whether the music is actually good or not. Every band has those moments where even they are questioning what they are in the business for, but Eddie Vedder could usually sniff out when someone wasn’t being true to themselves.
But before Pearl Jam even hit it big, Vedder was already getting pushback from the rest of Seattle for being the “sellout” version of what grunge should be. This was intended to be music with a darker tone to it, and while Vedder’s thick baritone made him fit right in, the fact that he came up from California and the band had screaming guitar solos made people like Kurt Cobain a little bit sceptical, almost like they were the jock-approved version of what the Seattle scene was supposed to sound like.
For anyone willing to look under the hood for more than a few seconds, though, Vedder was prepared to do anything to hold onto his integrity. Vs. and Vitalogy kicked off an era of them going completely dark on MTV, and even when they started to gain more traction with albums like Yield, they were always about making their music sound like something they would want to hear rather than what some boardroom had in mind.
Around the same time the Seattle scene was blowing up, though, Counting Crows were paving the way for what adult alternative could be. REM had kicked off this brand of soft rock a few years prior, but when August and Everything After dropped, there wasn’t a soul on this Earth that wasn’t blaring ‘Mr Jones’ or crying their way through ‘Round Here’. But Vedder could feel something start shifting after songs like ‘A Long December’ started gaining traction.
Every band is entitled to follow their muse, but when the frontman saw Counting Crows’ music appear in commercials, he practically washed his hands of them, saying, “I saw something with Counting Crows for Coca-Cola or something. Fuck them. What the fuck is that? Why? They have a set of morals they can run with, and that’s fine, but I’m just gonna say, ‘Fuck you.’” If you know anything about Vedder, though, it’s understandable why this would be a deal-breaker.
There had been plenty of Pearl Jam songs that had been licensed to be used in movies and TV shows, but Vedder wasn’t looking to be a salesman with his music. He wanted to create art, and considering he tried to get as far away from pop music as possible on albums like No Code, he would be dead in the ground before he even thought about putting on a plastic smile and playing ‘Better Man’ over a deodorant commercial.
And it’s not like Vedder was that off the mark about where Counting Crows would be heading in the next few years. There would still be some fine songs across most of their albums, but when listening to their version of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ with Vanessa Carlton, it was clear that they were focusing on the magical chorus rather than the environmental message that Mitchell was going for.
But let this serve as a lesson to anyone thinking about getting into the music industry. There are bound to be more than a few people who want to use your likeness for anything and everything that they want, but an artist’s greatest strength after getting a record deal is knowing when to say ‘NO’ to certain projects.
