The song that got Eddie Vedder the job in Pearl Jam: “I loved it immediately”
The entire basis behind Pearl Jam’s sound usually comes from Eddie Vedder. Some fans might not even know a lick of the group’s music, but when they hear the name Pearl Jam, they can probably do a passable impression of that distinct baritone that has been driven into the ground by countless post-grunge bands since 1996. Eddie Vedder wasn’t a Seattle native initially, and it took the demo for the song ‘Alive’ to get the rest of the group to start paying attention.
After Mother Love Bone’s dissolution, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament had no idea what they were going to do. They had already been in two phenomenal acts in the Seattle area, but if you’re just on the cusp of success and your frontman passes away, you’d be inclined to believe that you were cursed in some way.
Gossard just turned to what he knew best: playing his guitar. Compared to the rest of the band, he never wanted to slow down, and in the few weeks following Andy Wood’s passing, he would be shopping his tapes around to anyone who would hear them and failing to get much back.
Vedder was none the wiser until Jack Irons got involved. Irons had been playing in Red Hot Chili Peppers at the time and was a friend of Gossard’s when he gifted the tape to Vedder during a camping trip. Once Vedder started playing the music, it seemed to open Pandora’s box.
Having been thinking about his relationship and troubled childhood, Vedder put together the basis of the songs ‘Alive’, ‘Once’, and ‘Footsteps’ based around the riffs on the tape and sent it back. The first person to get their hands on it was Ament, with Gossard recalling in Twenty, “I remember going to this apartment and hearing Jeff, ‘I got this demo back from Ed, and you should come check it out. It’s good’”.
When Gossard first heard it, Vedder’s vocal tone was the first thing he noticed off the bat. Whereas most people compare to someone who doesn’t know how to enunciate properly, there’s a certain mystique surrounding those early Pearl Jam songs, almost like he had a Jim Morrison-style affectation to his voice.
Gossard said that sound was what they needed for their new band, telling Rolling Stone, “I loved his low register immediately. I thought, ‘Oh My God, No one’s going down there’”, which is funny, considering that Vedder admitted that what he made was almost too cringy for words.
After re-listening to it, Vedder said that it sounded closer to an audio play, stating, “There was one part in there that’s as hysterical as anything I’ve ever heard…I’m fortunate that they were able to see beyond that and give me the job”. They had more than just a singer, though: they had an artist that would take them to new heights.
Gossard may have written the riffs, but Vedder brought the enhanced drama to every piece of their debut, Ten, including the amazing vocal riffs on ‘Black’ and the rapid-fire singing on ‘Even Flow’. It may have become a trope to sing as Vedder does, but that low register never had more soul than when he was singing.
