The one guitarist Mike McCready “studied endlessly”
Although he may be seen as one of the pioneers of the Seattle and Pacific Northwest grunge scene that emerged in the late 1980s and ‘90s, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready has always had influences that stretch across the rock landscape.
Given how grunge was not a term even in use until bands such as Green River, Melvins and Mudhoney began to adopt it towards the end of the 1980s, what Pearl Jam and McCready’s previous project, Temple of the Dog, did was essentially work to add to a newly established sound. With his innovations coming alongside a flurry of activity from other similarly inclined acts, a movement was created that changed the course of rock music throughout the 1990s.
Taking cues from heavy metal and classic rock, there was plenty for these grunge acts to use as a basis for their sound, but the desire was always to steer things away from the more commercial end of metal that had arisen around the same time. Acts like Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe were seen as an embarrassment to metal, and a cartoonification of something that had once been edgy and raw, and what grunge sought to do was inject a bit more of this original ideology into their output.
Despite this, McCready has always possessed a fondness for one act in particular that thrust metal into the mainstream, and a lot of his guitar techniques were heavily influenced by one player in particular, who was an integral part of this movement.
Ace Frehley of Kiss was perhaps one of the most extravagant guitarists of his ilk, and the amount of showmanship, attitude and bravado that was put into his work was matched by the technical prowess that he possessed. McCready was immediately hooked on his work from a young age, and based a large amount of his own work on what he saw Frehley do with Kiss in the previous decades.
In a tribute to the guitarist following his passing in 2025, McCready suggested that if it hadn’t been for Frehley, he wouldn’t have ever had the inclination to become a musician. “All my friends have spent untold hours talking about Kiss and buying Kiss stuff,” he stated. “Ace was a hero of mine and also I would consider a friend. I studied his solos endlessly over the years. I would not have picked up a guitar without Ace and Kiss’ influence. RIP it out Ace, you changed my life. Thank you.”
Given how Frehley was influential to so many scenes and not just metal, it’s hardly surprising for him to have had at least some effect on bands like Pearl Jam. Even though grunge began in an attempt to differentiate itself from bands like Kiss, it’s hard for someone like McCready to shun one of his favourite players of all time, and he would even note that when his idol eventually joined Pearl Jam on stage during a 2008 concert at Madison Square Garden, it was a “dream come true”.
