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WHAT'S LIES AHEAD FOR PEARL JAM?
By Janet Stevenson--Toronto Sun
Oct.1, 2000
Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready says it would be nice if his
Seattle rock band was still racking up multi-platinum sales with
each album they release.
The group's most recent studio recording, Binaural, has sold a
respectable 100,000 copies in Canada and two million worldwide
since it came out in May.
But those figures are nothing compared to Pearl jam's early-90s
heyday.
"I'd love the records to go crazy and sell six million or whatever, like
they used to, but maybe we've just got to a point where that doesn't
happen anymore," says McCready, down the line recently from the
band's hometown, Their current tour brings them to the Air Canada
Centre for a sold-out show Thursday night.
"But we don't really promote ourselves so much. We don't do videos,
we don't do a lot of interviews, so that probably has something to do
with it. Or maybe the changing times. We're not as hip as Britney
Spears. We're working on it. We've got a whole new stage show.
It's going to be cool. We got a Burger King thing lined up"
McCready is joking. But he and the rest of the group--rounded out
by singer Eddie Vedder, fellow guitarist Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff
Ament and drummer Matt Cameron--do consider themselves
survivors from another musical era.
"Yeah, I guess," says McCready, "I feel like we're still around and
we're making good music, but I think we've progressed along with
the time. We're not stuck back in the f---ing '90s anymore. We
keep moving on."
RAW GOODNESS
Pearl Jam made the unprecedented move last Tuesday of releasing
25 live bootlegs from shows on the European leg of their tour from
May 23( Lisbon, Portugal) to June 29 (Oslo, Norway). Each
double-CD set sells for $10.98 on Pearl Jam's web site. Retail
prices vary.
"We were into it," McCready says of unusual concept. "We've been
recording show forever, pretty much since we began. So we had the
stuff already and we a good sound man who mixes in the night after
the show. We were just excited about it because it was a new thing."
McCready says the recordings are virtually untouched.
"We don't fix anything, so you get everything. You get all the raw
goodness--and mistakes along with it."
The dilemma now is what Pearl Jam do next?
"I don't know how we top it. That's a good question. We're going
to have to start working on a plan."
First is another wave of bootleg recordings, this time from the
North American leg of their tour.
"We'll release the U.S. ones, too; I'm not sure shat the date is,"
says McCready, adding it will likely be before Christmas.
Also still to come is another studio recording.
McCready says that the band has been in a prolific writing mood
as they have toured.
"We're all writing a lot of songs on the road so we'll have a bunch
ready to go whenever we go back into the studio. I don't know
when that will be, but everybody's bringing their little four tracks
on the road, working on stuff--Ed has, and Jeff and Matt. I've
got a couple ideas and I know Stone does."
Cameron, formerly of Soundgarden, took over for drummer Jack
Irons just three weeks before Pearl Jam's tour for their 1998 album,
Yield, was to begin.
But he's now considered a fullfledged member.
"I would say Matt is yeah, definitely," says McCready. "He hasn't
signed on officially or anything, but he's around and playing with
us. He's enjoying it and we love having him, so I hope he's
gonna stay as long as he wants. He's a very level-headed, very
cool guy. He's a funny guy, definitely, and he's a hell of a drummer.
He's brought us to another level of playing. He's made us a way
better band."
Despite their diminishing returns-- album sales-wise--Pearl Jam
has always been a solid live act.
Their Toronto show, with Brit power-pop trio Supergrass opening,
sold out in an hour. (3000 tickets released later took about another
month to sell.)
"It's been really great," says McCready of the North American leg
of the tour, which kicked off Aug.3 in Virginia Beach. "The crowds
have been super receptive. The shows have been really fun. We've
been mixing the set up every night. It's been really good to get back
on the road."
Pearl Jam has seemingly recorvered, as much as any band can,
from the June 30 tragedy in which nine fans were trampled to death
during their performance at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. They
were recently cleared of all blame in the incident.
Their incredibly devoted fans have helped ease them back onto the
stage.
"They've been very empathetic," says McCready, who already
spoke at length about the tragedy in an interview with The Sun
published Sep. 19 'It's was an awful thing. We certainly feel bad
about it and to have people empathetic to that is nice."
In their current show, McCready says Pearl Jam is playing about a
half-dozen new songs from Binaural, the serious and folk-leaning
collection that featured them working with producer Tchad Blake
(Sheryl Crow, Crowded House, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt,
Suzanne Vega) for the first time.
'It was a little harder to make, 'cause we were using a different
producer. We had a different personality to deal with, so we had
to adjust to that and play a little differently," says McCready.
"We'd do songs over and over again instead of just cutting them
like we usually do."
COOL SONG
Still, it was Vedder's decision to record Soon Forget, accompanied
only by himself on a ukulele.
"It was a cool song," says McCready. "He does it live. He'll end the
show with it sometimes, It's pretty funny, especially if he can get the
damn thing in tune."
The live show also includes covers like Neil Young's Rockin' in the
Free World and the Who's Baba O'Riley.
"We just cover songs that we like," says McCready. "Eddie can sing
the Who very well. He loves them."
But perhaps Pearl Jam's best-known cover--certainly their most
successful --is Last Kiss, which inexplicably became the group's
biggest single and on the Kosovo benefit compilation, No Boundaries.
"It was huge--a big single," says McCready. "I have no idea why.
People just loved it. We recorded it at a sound check at Constitution
Hall in D.C. and then it blew up. People started calling and wanting
it. I was just surprised. I was like, 'Oh, my God.'"
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