Pearl Jam

What legendary guitarist/band do you wish you could tour with? A la Dead and Company.

Pearl Jam. Not a replacement. Just a fantasy third (fourth, with respect to EV) clarinet

your favorite song lyric?

The chorus to "Atlantic City" by Bruce Springsteen comes to mind a lot. Also Eddie Vedder wrote "are you woman enough to be my man?"

Like, I'd rather just have zero batting average on any conversation about anything, because I can't take someone who I think is that good thinking anything negative about me.

That's what happens in my brain when I find someone really, really great. I'm like, they can't not like me. So therefore I can't give them any reason whatsoever-—Eddie Vedder's the same way. Can't not like me, therefore I can have nothing to do with them. And that's great. We need scary heroes.

So I'm learning to shape a setlist that doesn't need to come out guns blazing. That tells a story. Cause that is the overall theme of the show. And I'm fighting over the next couple of years—not really fighting—but I'm working really hard to establish myself as a kind of artist—I mean to me Pearl Jam is who you want to make. Doesn't matter what kind of music you make, you want to be Pearl Jam. Every band in the world should want to be Pearl Jam as a template for being artists. And what Pearl Jam did was come off of the track of this binary of whether it's a hit or not, and just really explore the catalogue and spend the time in their shows making that case for their entire catalogue being one organism.

DD: So I was deep into that when what I called the “Strat and a hat” era. Where Stevie comes— 

JM: That’s funny, I love it.

DD: Yes, it’s great. Strat and a hat. And everybody went and bought a Strat and a hat.

JM: That’s right. The most famous and successful being Mike McCready from Pearl Jam.
 
DD: Absolutely. 

JM: Who was basically Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan off to the side of the stage wearing the hat and Strat. And it was awesome to me. I mean I'm a Pearl Jam fanatic. 

DD: Love em.

JM: And a thing that adds another layer to that band is that the solos were basically Jimi Hendrix solos.

DD: It’s funny too that he was able to do that because Eddie—you think of Eddie would maybe lay down the law right on that, but I think that Eddie definitely knew we do need some rock here. 
 
JM: That's what made it great. You got Eddie Vedder who is like, probably existentially torn for life between the melody he loves and the rock gods he admires. 

DD: Right, absolutely. 

JM: The moment he wanted to be the most melodic person in the world you know he can. You know he can open the can of whoop-ass when it comes to melodies but it's like his Fugazi brain, he just can't leave "Spin the Black Circle," and "Hail, Hail"—it has to be ugly. And I and I get into this all the time right like people feel right now—and it's a different way in pop music—but people have always felt like things couldn't be too pretty. And I never had that problem. I think it can't be pretty enough.

When I was writing and recording my record Born and Raised, one of the records I thought about a lot was No Code by Pearl Jam, because it was a departure album, and it was one I really really loved. To me it was a very successful, cool departure. And inspired me to take chances, because with the album No Code, it’s a very very big pay off for a chance that’s taken, because the album is great. So here’s a song from that album, it’s called “Who You Are.”