A Short History of Pearl Jam and Mother Love Bone

Informative speech for my Fundamentals of Speech course I worked on. I in no way know any of the members of the band. I only know about these stories due to reading about them in magazines or online articles. If I have messed up any dates, please feel free to let me know and I will update it. Enjoy

Pearl Jam has sold 85 million records worldwide since the 1991 debut of their album TEN (Wikipedia). They are about to put out their 11^th studio album, Gigaton, and they have loads of bootlegs, promotional albums and singles.

1.     Pearl Jam was arguably one of the biggest bands of the 90s, and along with a handful of other Seattle bands, were part of the “grunge” scene.

2.     And while many of you may know about Pearl Jam and may even be fans, you may not know that some members were about to make it big with a prior band

a.     30 years ago, there was no Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder was just a guy surfing in San Diego, CA.

In 1990, 30 years ago this month, another band was tearing up the Seattle music scene and about to hit the big time.

3.     With Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Greg Gilmore, Bruce Fairweather and the enigmatic Andrew Wood on vocals, Seattle was getting its first alternative rock locals signed to a major label and were putting out their debut LP, Apple.

4.     This was Mother Love Bone.

1988 and post-punk band Green River broke up, with members going on to form two completely different types of bands, with two different outlooks of direction (Prato)

5.     Gossard and Ament went on to form Mother Love Bone

a.     They were joined by Bruce Fairweather, Greg Gilmore, and also Andy Wood of Malfunkshun, another Seattle area band (O’Brien)

b.     They had a much more glam-rock sound, due to Andy’s influence and showmanship (Prato)

                                                                                      i.      Andy was highly influenced by Freddie Mercury of Queen and Paul Stanley of Kiss for stage presence

                                                                                    ii.      But Andy wasn’t afraid to get rough on lyrics and the band definitely got rough on their sound, distorting their guitars

                                                                                  iii.      They took a classic rock approach to music-making and managing the band

Seattle locals received them well and they were quickly signed to Polygram and allowed to create their own private label, Stardog Records. (Wikipedia)

6.     Shine was released in 1989, as a six-track EP

7.     The full-length album, Apple, was set for release in March 1990 after a tour supporting the EP (O’Brien)

But in the late 80s, early 90s, Seattle was no different than other large cities and had a problem with heroin.

8.     Andy Wood, the up and coming singer of Mother Love Bone was no stranger to this problem (Prato)

a.     After touring for the Shine EP, he checked himself into rehab so he could be good to go for the full-length album tour.

b.     Unfortunately, on March 16^th, 1990, 30 years ago this month, just days before the album was due to be released, he was found by his fiancée after relapsing and overdosing on heroin.

c.      Three days later on the 19^th, he passed away.

d.     After this, the rest of the band quit, and the album wasn’t released till the fall of 1990.

Letkemann says in Northwest Passage that Gossard and Ament were discouraged, but eventually decided to write again and invited Mike McCready to play guitar in a new band they were forming (Letkemann). Stone, Jeff, and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden put together a tribute album for their fallen friend, Temple of the Dog. They also flew Eddie Vedder up to Seattle from San Diego to try out for their new band.

9.     While recording for Temple of the Dog, Eddie stepped in to back up Chris on a few songs, which became hit singles.

10.Afterward, they decided Eddie was a great fit, and fully formed Pearl Jam with him

11.Pearl Jam released TEN the following year, which went on to become one of the best-selling debut albums and one of the top rock albums of all time according to Rolling Stone (Rolling Stone).

Anyone familiar with Pearl Jam will know the song “Alive”

12.They have played it around 800 times on stage (Tavani)

a.     This is the same as listening to it every day for close to 3 years

13.But the music actually was written in the 1980s by Stone Gossard

a.     And was called “Dollar Short”

b.     Andy Wood had put lyrics to it and they even played it live

c.      No recording of Andy singing it exists that the band knows of, but they think a popular bootlegger may have a copy of it in Portland, OR

d.     (Letkemann)

14.Eddie wrote the current lyrics to it while surfing after listening to the demo Stone and Jeff sent him before even joining the band and sent it back to them. (Tavani)

a.     This take on it is much darker Stone says than the version that Andy sang.

b.     Eddie says he took events of his own life, embellished them a bit and came up with what is now considered an anthem for a generation.

c.      Eddie says it was hard for him to perform the song originally because of how dark it was

                                                                                      i.      But the crowds have made the song take on a life of its own

Without a doubt, once you listen to Mother Love Bone’s music, you’ll know they would have been a hit with the upcoming Alternative Rock scene that exploded in the early 1990s and they would have been at the forefront of the movement just as Pearl Jam was.

15.The difference is Eddie’s vs. Andy’s lyrics and the style of music.

a.     A band that just experienced a loss vs. Andy’s larger than life and wild front-man persona

16.With Pearl Jam releasing their 11^th studio album, one has to wonder:

a.     What would have become of a rock scene with a different front band, one that never made it?

b.     What would have become of bands like Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Nirvana?

c.      Would we have noticed the loss of Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, and Chris Cornell?

e.     Should we wrap Eddie Vedder in a bubble.

For many people today, 90s alternative rock may not be on the top of their Spotify playlists, and alternative certainly means something else entirely today.

For me though, the years of 1990 through 1994 live on in my daily tunes.

f.       Pearl Jam’s TEN album was the first album I bought on cassette with my own money in 1991 when it first came out.

a.     I got Temple of the Dog soon after when they started playing the video on MTV, I’m that old that I remember when they played videos on MTV and released music on cassettes.

b.     Sometime later, as I got old enough to become aware of past-music, I found Mother Love Bone, and it is still in high rotation on my playlists today.

30 years ago, this weekend, March 9^th, 1990, Andy played his last show at Central Tavern in Seattle, and he sang to that music that Eddie carries on today.

Andrew Wood was not the first musician that a generation lost, but for most of that generation, they didn’t even know they had lost him in the first place. Though the lyrics have nothing to do with him, I think that Andy Wood lives on through Pearl Jam to this day with one of their most popular songs and he would have probably would have used Eddie’s lyrics to annouce, “I’m Still Alive….Yeah! ”

Works Cited

Letkemann, Jessica. "Revolution Come and Gone." Momma-Son and the Making of Pearl Jam,          Northwest Passage, www.revolutioncomeandgone.com

"Mother Love Bone." Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.com

O'Brien,Andrew. "Remembering The Tragic Death That Gave Life To Temple Of The Dog & Pearl Jam, www.liveforlivemusic.com

Prato, Greg. "Mother Love Bone: Biography & History." AllMusic, www.allmusic.com

Rolling Stone. "100 Best Debut Albums of All Time." Rolling Stone,  www.rollingstone.com

Tavani, Andrew. "The Not-so-Secret but Very Remarkable Life of Pearl Jam's Alive.", Medium, www.medium.com