A rock climbing death, a horrific concert catastrophe, and alcoholism have hounded the members of Pearl Jam throughout their careers.
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00:00A rock-climbing death, a horrific concert catastrophe, and alcoholism have hounded the
00:04members of Pearl Jam throughout their careers.
00:07When Pearl Jam's founding fathers got together to form the group, bassist Jeff Ament and
00:11guitarist Stone Gossard were veterans of the Seattle scene. They had played for seminal
00:15proto-grunge rockers Green River and later for Mother Love Bone, a glam-infused hard
00:19rock act fronted by Andrew Wood. Following Wood's fatal heroin overdose in 1990, Ament
00:24and Gossard dealt with their grief in different ways. Ament pursued a graphic arts career
00:28while still playing music on a smaller scale, while Gossard pushed forward with his musical
00:33ambitions, this time opting for heavier songs than the ones he helped create with Mother
00:36Love Bone.
00:37Meanwhile, Gossard's friend Mike McCready was upset over the recent disbandment of his
00:41own group, Shadow. He had started playing in another band when Gossard heard him playing
00:45and invited him to join his yet-unnamed project. The two guitarists clicked perfectly during
00:49a series of informal jams, and when Ament joined the duo, the seeds were planted for
00:53what would turn out to be one of the most influential bands of the 1990s rock scene.
00:58Soon after the band's early rehearsals, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, and Mike McCready brought
01:02in two new members to complete the lineup, drummer Dave Cruzan and singer Eddie Better,
01:06who was then establishing himself as an up-and-coming musician in San Diego.
01:09Of course, we now know that Better would essentially define Pearl Jam's sound as their lead singer
01:13and one of their primary songwriters. And one of the earliest signs his Seattle-based
01:17bandmates knew they were working with someone special was when he provided lyrics to Gossard's
01:20Dollar Short demo and transformed it into the song we now know as Alive. The lyrics
01:25stand out because they tell a fictionalized account of an unforgettable moment in Better's
01:28life. For much of his youth, he believed that his mother's husband, Peter Mueller, was his
01:32birth father, only to find out in his teens that Mueller was actually his stepfather.
01:37Better's birth father was a man named Ed Severson, whom he had mainly known as a family friend
01:41and had since died of multiple sclerosis.
01:44Speaking to Howard Stern in 2020, Better said that while this revelation surprised him,
01:48he was somewhat relieved to learn the truth, given his contentious relationship with his
01:52stepfather.
01:53You know, that was, it was a shock. But I was, I was so grateful in a way.
02:00Before they hired Soundgarden's Matt Cameron in 1998, Pearl Jam went through a series of
02:04drummers who each left after just a short time with the band. Dave Kruzan was the first
02:08of those drummers, having played on Pearl Jam's 1991 debut album 10, but he left soon
02:12after the making of the album. Speaking years later to Rolling Stone ahead of Pearl Jam's
02:172017 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, Kruzan opened up about why he really left the group.
02:21He admitted,
02:22I'm an alcoholic. I had really been just sick of my disease at that point and could just
02:26not stop drinking.
02:27Kruzan, who left right before Pearl Jam broke out as a force to be reckoned with in the
02:31Seattle grunge scene, told Rolling Stone that missing out on this success was not that hard
02:35for him.
02:36Following his stint with Pearl Jam, Kruzan spent time with a few other familiar names
02:39in rock, including Candlebox and Unified Theory.
02:43Dave Kruzan was not the only Pearl Jam member who faced substance abuse issues in the 1990s.
02:48Guitarist Mike McCready was in a similar situation following the success of 10 and Pearl Jam's
02:531993 follow-up album, Versus. Turning to drugs and alcohol as he struggled to cope with the
02:57band's increasing popularity and critical acclaim, he eventually checked into a rehabilitation
03:01center in Minnesota.
03:02I was in a rehab place called Hazleton right there. Two years of drinking and all sorts
03:07of different things.
03:09He met bassist John Baker Saunders while in rehab. Together with Saunders, Screaming Trees
03:13drummer Barrett Martin, and Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley, the now-sober McCready
03:18formed the supergroup Mad Season, which released one album, Above, in 1995.
03:22Though McCready credited Mad Season in a 2013 interview with Pop Matters for helping him
03:27recover from his substance abuse issues, he wasn't able to record a follow-up album with
03:31the band. Saunders overdosed on heroin in 1999, and Staley was found dead in 2002 after
03:36years of drug addiction. McCready told the outlet,
03:39I thought Mad Season would be the antidote to my friend's health troubles. In hindsight,
03:43I realized everyone has to figure out their own issues by themselves.
03:46Well, the Seattle Rockers are back with their first album in four years, and they have just
03:51kicked off a world tour in Europe.
03:53On June 30, 2000, one of the worst tragedies in the history of live rock concerts happened
03:57at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, as eight people died of suffocation in the audience
04:01during Pearl Jam's set, with a ninth attendee dying five days later. In a 2003 interview
04:06with Rolling Stone, Eddie Vedder admitted that the deaths at Roskilde impacted his band
04:10so much that they were strongly considering calling it a career. He said,
04:14We came together as close as we could. People handled it in different ways. The guys whose
04:18general disposition is more emotional, they became more composed, whereas some of the
04:22people who are more conservative with their emotions, they kind of cracked.
04:26Vedder also revealed that Stone Gossard was most affected by the tragedy, to the point
04:30he was ready to quit after Roskilde. He added,
04:32And I thought that if anyone ever lost their lives at one of our shows, that would be it.
04:36I would never play again.
04:37Despite how close they apparently came to disbanding, Pearl Jam was back on stage in
04:41the U.S. about a month later. Vedder credited Sonic Youth's presence as their opening act
04:45as a huge boost. In particular, he thanked Sonic Youth co-founders Thurston Moore and
04:49Kim Gordon's young daughter, Coco, for boosting his spirits on tour.
04:53The years 2016 and 2017 were rough ones, personally, for Eddie Vedder. In 2016, his half-brother
04:59Chris Mueller died in a climbing accident. Years later, he would dedicate the song Brother
05:04the Cloud from his 2022 solo album Earthling to his brother's memory. He also opened up
05:08to Howard Stern in 2020 about how the loss affected him and his family.
05:12That one took me down so hard. I seriously didn't know if I was going to get out of that
05:20one.
05:21One year after Chris Mueller's death, Vedder's longtime friend, Soundgarden frontman Chris
05:24Cornell, died by suicide, and this loss also had a tremendous impact on the Pearl Jam singer.
05:29The two had first worked together when Vedder and Cornell duetted on lead vocals on Hunger
05:32Strike, a song from Temple of the Dog's self-titled tribute album to Mother Love Bone's Andrew
05:37Wood. In the Stern interview, Vedder reflected on his friendship with Cornell, and how they
05:41only saw each other a few times in the last decade or so of Cornell's life.
05:45I still haven't quite dealt with it, or, you know, I'll get stronger as time goes.
05:54If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
05:58Prevention Lifeline at 988-833-8255 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK.