María Rún Daníelsdóttir

1.Introduction

           Pearl Jam is an American rock band that was formed in 1989 in Seattle, Washington. Some of its members were formerly in the band Mother Love Bone, but when the lead singer in that band died from heroin overdose, stone Gossard and Jeff Ament formed Pearl Jam. It is formed by Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guitar), Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar) and Matt Cameron(drums).

          They were a big part of the grunge movement in the 90's. Grunge is characterized by a sludgy guitar sound that uses a high level of distortion, fuzz and feedback effects. Pearl Jam along with Nirvana were some of the most famous and influential bands in the grunge movement, and became one of the most popular rock and roll band of the 90's.

            Pearl Jam has sold over 30 million records in the U.S. and around 60 million worldwide. Pearl Jam has lasted longer than almost all of the other bands from the time of the grunge movement and is believed to be one of the most influential bands of the decade.

 2.Members

Eddie Vedder or Edward Louis Severson III was born  on December 23. 1964, in a suburb in Chicago. Son of Karen Lee Vedder and Edward Louis Severson, Jr. When he was one years old his parents were divorced and his mother soon remarried a man named Peter Mueller. Eddie was raised believing tha Mueller was his biological father. When Eddie was 12 he was living with his family in San Diego, and his mother gave him a guitar for his birthday, that is when he started getting interested in music. He was a lonley teenager and said that when he was 14-15 years old he felt all alone exept for music. When Vedder finally learned who his real father was, he had died of multiple sclerosis so Eddie could not meet him. Eddie dropped out of highshcool in his senior year and moved to Chicago where his family had moved a few years before. He finished highshcool in Chicago and attended community collage, then he moved back to San Diego with his girlfriend. He was in a few bands  there until he joined the band Bad Radio, he stayed with them until he joined Pearl Jam.

Mike McCready or Michael David McCready born April 5, 1966 in Pensacola, Florida but moved with his family to San Diego shortly after his  birth. As a kid he liked to play the Bongo drums but got his first guitar at the age on eleven and began taking lessons. He was in several bands as a teenager and tried to become famous with a few bands. He joined a band named Love Chile and a childhood friend of his, Stone Gossard, saw one of his shows and they started to practice together after that. Mike encouraged Stone to reconnect with his former band memeber Jeff Ament and shortly after that Pearl Jam was born.

Stone Gossard or Stone Carpenter Gossard was born on July 20, 1966 and raised raised in Seattle, Washington, along with his two sisters Shelly and Star. Gossard learned guitar by playing in the hallways of Seattle's Northwest School during his junior year. He was in two semi successful bands before  joining Pearl Jam, Green River and Mother Love Bone in the 1980's. Then started Pearl Jam in 1989 along with Jeff Ament.

Jeff Ament or Jeffrey Allen Ament born March 10, 1963 in Havre, Montana and grew up in the town of Big Sandy, Montana. Jeffs father was the mayor of the town fo fifteen years as well as a barber and a school bus driver. He started playing the bass a teenager and liked to play along with Ramones, The Clash, and The Police records. He went to collage at the University of Montana and studied art and played basketball. He quit college in the middle of his sophomore year after the university told him they were not going to continue its graphic design program anymore. Like Stone Gossard, he also played with  Green River and Mother Love Bone and then formed Pearl Jam.

Matt Cameron or Matthew David Cameron was born November 28. 1962 in San Diego, California. He started in a band called Bam Bam and Skin Yard, but he didnt get famous until he started to play drumms in the grunge band Soundgarden which he joined in the year 1986 and he played with them until they broke up in 1997.
After that he began playing with Pearl Jam in 1998 after they invited him to play with them in the Yield tour in USA. After that he became a permanent band memeber.

3.History

            After the band Mother Love Bone quit because of the death of their lead singer, the bassist, Jeff Ament and the guitarist Stone Gossard, put together a new band.

They brought in Jeffs friend Mike McCready as a lead guitarist. They asked Jack Irons, former drummer from Red Hot Chili Peppers, to spread their demo tape around to find a lead singer. He sent the demo to a friend from San Diego named Eddie Vedder, who was, at the time, singing with a band called Bad Radio and was working at a gas station during the day. Eddie recorded the vocals for the songs Alive, Once and Footsteps, and sent the tape to Stone and Jeff. They liked his singing and flew him to Seattle for an audition. Eddie joined the band and they named it Mookie Baylock, in reference to an NBA player who had that name but changed it to Pearl Jam due to trademark issues. Then drummer Dave Krusen was hired as their full time drummer, and then the original lineup of the band was complete. They recorded their first album, Ten, in the beginning of 1991 and released in August that year. Dave Krusen left the band shortly after and was replaced by Dave Abruzzese.

            Ten started selling really well in 1992 and then Nirvana got alternative rock to play on the mainstream rock radio stations and became very popular, but Pearl Jam quickly outsold them. Pearl Jams audience grew significantly in 1992 thanks to a row of radio and MTV hits as well as an appearence in the Lollapalooza tour and their  soundtrack in the movie Singles.

            Despite the fact that they were rock and roll superstars they refused to follow traditional music industry practices. For example they refused to make music videos to any of the songs on their second album 'Vs', but the album was still a huge success. They also refused to play the conventional stadiums and chose to play smaller arenas because they couldn't keep the prices under 20 dollars and they didnt want their audience to have to pay a fortune to see them play. The company Ticketmaster was pressuring bands to charge a higher price so Pearl Jam decided to boycott the company and reported it to the Justice Department for unfair business.

            The band recorded another album in 1994 and after that was completed they fired the drummer Dave Abbruzzese and replaced him with the former drummer from Red Hot Chili Peppers Jack Irons. Then the bands third album, Vitalogy, came out. The CD version of the album became the second-fastest-selling in history, with more than 877,000 copys sold only in the first week.

            In 1995 the band continued their battle with ticket master and refused to play any venues in cooperation with the company. It prevented them from playing any shows in the United States for the nex three years. The Justice Department eventually ruled in the favor of ticketmaster.

            Early 1995, the band recorded an album with Neil Young and meanwhile Vedder toured with his wifes band, Hovercraft. The album, Mirror Ball, came out in the summer under Neils name, and the name Pearl Jam could not be mentioned on the album due to copyright issues, but the members were all credited.

            The bands fourth album was released in 1996 and got pretty good reviews, but its style was a bit different than the other records and that dissatisfied a lot of the fans and the album quickly plummeted from the top of the charts. Their next album, Yeild was a bit more successful to begin with and got up to number two on the charts, but after the first week it fell down on the charts.

            Pearl Jam followed the album with a big arena tour in the summer of 1998. The drummer Jack Irons could not join them, so former drummer of Soundgarden, Matt Cameron joined them instead.

            In 1999 covered an old song by J.Frank Wilson called Last Kiss. The song was a huge success and eventually became the bands highest charting pop hit till this day. In 2000 they released the album Binaural, and held concerts in America and Europe and recorded everything and put it on a groundbreaking series of double set CD's. Their next album, Riot Act, was released in 2002 where they were trying out experimental art rock.

            In 2003 and 2004 they released two albums, Lost Dogs: Rarities and B Sides and Rearviewmirror: Greatest Hits 1991-2003. In 2006 they followed with an album simply named Pearl Jam and then released a series of rereleases starting with a deluxe version of Ten, in 2009. That same year they released their ninth studio album, Backspacer, and followed with a big U.S tour. In 2011 Eddie Vedder released a solo album where he was accompanied only by a ukulele. The band  also celebrated their two-decade anniversary by launching a two-day festival in Wisconsin, and made a music documentary named PJ20, and releasing a soundtrack of rare songs from the film.

4.Musical Style and Discography

Compared to other grunge bands from the same era, Pearl Jam has a less heavy style and resembles the classic rock music of the 70's. The band has mentioned some of their influences to be, for example, The Who, Neil Young and The Ramones. Pearl Jams success is partly due to their sound, a combination of "the riff-heavy stadium rock of the '70s with the grit and anger of '80s post-punk, without ever neglecting hooks and choruses." Vedder tried to make the songs less catchy because he said "I felt that with more popularity, we were going to be crushed, our heads were going to pop like grapes." They dabbled around with musical styles so that they wouldnt become to mainstream and get too popular. They tried elements of garage rock, worldbeat, experimentalism, art rock, folk rock and new wave. Eddie Vedder lyrics are almost always very interesting, sometimes personal like in the songs Alive and Better Man, also sometimes political and political concerns like in the songs Even Flow and World Wide Suicide. They have a storytelling feel to them and often include themes of freedom and individualism.

Discography:

• Ten (1991)
• Vs. (1993)
• Vitalogy (1994)
• No Code (1996)
• Yield (1998)
• Binaural (2000)
• Riot Act (2002)
• Pearl Jam (2006)
• Backspacer (2009)

5.An Interviw with a Pearl Jam fan.

I found a friend who is a fan of Pearl Jam and asked him a few questions. I started by asking what he thought of their music. He said that he thinks their music is very unique and powerful and that their songs are very good. He likes the diversity in their songs for example they have a lot of great ballads, like the song "Black" and also powerful rock songs like "Porch" or "Even Flow". He said that Pearl Jam had some great years in the music business and made a lot of good albums. One of his favorite albums is Ten, he thinks it is their best album because it has many of their best songs "Black", "Alive", "Jeremy" and "Porch". The first song he remembers hearing by them is "Even Flow", and after he heard that song he started listening to it more and more and learned that they have many great songs. His favourite song by them in "Black" , he says it is because it has verything a great song needs, the  vocals are extremely good and he thinks the melody is just perfect, and he says the lyrcs are great to.He says he likes their music  because they have a great sound and so many good songs, and he thinks the lead singer, Eddie Vedder has a great voice.

6.Conclusion

Pearl Jam is an amazing band with very talented members, and have a fascinating history. They have had a lot of influence on the music industry and its development. They had a great effect on the grunge movement and influenced a lot of bands. Their songs are usually very meaningful and can affect people in many ways. Their lyrics can make you think about what is going on around you and what people all over the world are fealing. The lyrics are sometimes depressing and bring up fealings that are hard to explain. Their music is beautiful.

7.Vocabulary

Grunge= a style or fashion derived from a movement in rock music: in fashion characterized by unkempt clothing and in music by aggressive, nihilistic songs.

characterized=to describe the character or individual quality of

sludgy(sludge)=any of various more or less mudlike deposits or mixtures.  

distortion(distorted)=Electronics . to reproduce or amplify (a signal) inaccurately by changing the frequencies or unequally changing the delay or amplitude of the components of the output wave.

alternative rock =Alternative rock consists of various subgenres that have emerged from the independent music scene since the 1980s, such as grunge, Britpop, gothic rock, indie pop, and indie rock.

Lollapalooza =an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

Vitalogy= No explanation found :(

Binaural = (of sound) recorded through two separate microphones and transmitted through two separate channels to produce a stereophonic effect.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Jam

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/pearl-jam-p5118/biography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Vedder

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_McCready

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Gossard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Ament

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Cameron