PureVolume

1.1 Who is in Pearl Jam?
Pearl Jam is: Eddie Vedder - Lead Vocals, rhythm guitar
Stone Gossard - Rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Mike McCready - Lead Guitar, backing vocals
Jeff Ament - Bass Guitar, backing vocals
Matt Cameron- Drums, percussion


2.1 Where is the band from?
The band as a whole is from Seattle, Washington, although originally Eddie Vedder is from Evanston, Illinois and later, San Diego, California. Jeff Ament originally hails from the state of Montana. Stone Gossard is from Seattle, Washington. Matt Cameron is from San Diego, California. Mike McCready was born in Pensacola, Florida but raised in Seattle.

2.2 When did the band get together?
Pearl Jam formed in late 1990 after the death of Seattle singer Andrew Wood which broke up his band, Mother Love Bone, of which Ament and Gossard were members.

2.3 How did Pearl Jam come together?
This question has a long answer. Briefly, it begins with early Seattle bands such as Stone Gossard's March of Crimes and The Ducky Boys, Ament's Deranged Diction, and Mark Arm's Mr. Epp. These early bands boiled down into Green River with Stone Gossard and Steve Turner on guitar, Ament on Bass and Arm on vocals. After a couple personnel changes, Green River parted ways with Arm and Turner going on to form Mudhoney and Ament and Gossard going through a couple bands and finally settling down in Mother Love Bone with ex-Malfunkshun vocalist Andrew Wood. MLB started to gain some momentum commercially with a record deal in the works with a major label and some airplay on MTV, after being "discovered" by Kiss bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons. Unfortunately, Andrew Wood passed away due to a heroin overdose stopping Mother Love Bone in their tracks. Wood's roommate, vocalist/guitarist Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, hit hard by the death of Wood wrote the songs Say Hello To Heaven, and Reach Down about his deceased roommate and decided to record them as a tribute to Wood. This project developed into an entire album entitled Temple of the Dog after a line in the Mother Love Bone song Man of Golden Words. This project included Cornell on vocals and guitar, Stone Gossard on guitar, Jeff Ament on bass, Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron, and recent Gossard/Ament recruit Mike McCready also on guitar. At the same time that Temple was being designed/written Gossard, Ament, and McCready had just finished a three song instrumental demo with Matt Cameron helping them out on drums. The demo was driven by the Gossard creation Dollar Short that would eventually evolve into the AOR anthem Alive. This tape made it into the hands of a young San Diego gas station attendant named Eddie Vedder through friend and ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons. According to Vedder, after listening to the tape several times and then went surfing with the music playing in his head over and over. It was then that he put some of his lyrics to the music. Vedder dubbed his vocals onto the tape and titled the tape Mamasan ...it consisted of Part1--Alive, Part 2--Once and part 3--Footsteps. He sometimes refers to this in interviews as his little Mini-Opera. Ament, Gossard and McCready were impressed and eventually arranged a jam session to test the waters of a possible band formation. Things went well and Vedder joined in on the Temple of the Dog project with backing vocals and co-lead vocals on Hunger Strike. With Temple in the can, the band Mookie Blaylock was born with the addition of Dave Krusen on drums. The band took their name in reference the then New Jersey Nets point guard of the same name. This name was changed in favor of Pearl Jam (after briefly considering the name Reenk Roink) and the band was solidified.

2.4 What does the name Pearl Jam come from?
It's not known for sure. A few theories:

Vedder's grandmother's name was Pearl and she was married to a Native American that influenced her cooking style. She had a recipe for preserves that included a Native American hallucinogenic substance (Peyote), hence, Pearl Jam. This is widely thought of as BS that Ed told to Rolling Stone.

Another theory is that the members thought it would be funny to have frat boys wearing t-shirts that had the slang for, uh, a male bodily fluid on them.

The one we believe is this one, straight from Ed:

"I remember throwing words and meanings around for band names,..... I was writing songs daily and they seemed more important than the name of the band,.... I didn't grasp at the time how representative it may become,....not to mention we were just making a little record that few people would ever hear,......

so the words came, 2,... one of which was Pearl. The name of my great grandmother,..... married to a contortionist...... He used to fit himself into a suitcase.... One in a long line of peculiar individuals.

Pearl is also a surfing term when you go headfirst and eat it on the face of a wave....

Janis Joplins greatest record was called Pearl,..... And of course, Earl the Pearl Monroe who shared the court with Phil Jackson I believe,.... (I often tell people that it was Phils initials that led us to our name..... ) I thought that was much better than the rumor that Pearl Jam was some sort of slang for "ejaculated liquid"..... harsh,.....

No,..... I feel that the best justification for the name is in reference to the pearl itself,... and the natural process from which a pearl comes from,...... Basically, taking excrement or waste and turning it into something beautiful,...... This is how our band began,..... taking emotions that we wrestled with personally and letting them evolve into songs,..... In this way the songs became vehicles in which to deal with it all,..... Add the volume of loud instruments, amplified vocals,..... moving chord changes,.... And it wasn't just shit anymore,.... It was kind of beautiful,.... powerful,,...... UNCULTURED! As Johnny Rotten would say later,

Anger is an Energy...... And Shit can be Beautiful. the proof is in the pearl."



3.1 What albums have the band released? When was each album released?
*Ten Epic ZK 47857 Released: 08/27/91
*VS Epic ZK 53136 Released: 10/19/93
*Vitalogy Epic EK 66900 Released: 12/6/94 (on CD)
*No Code Epic EK 67500 Released: 08/27/96
*Yield Epic EK 68164 Released: 02/03/98
*Live On Two Legs EK 69752 Released: 11/24/98
*Binaural EK 63665 Released: 5/16/00
*2000 Euro Boot Series Released: 9/25/00 (retail)
*2000 NA Boot Series I Released: 2/28/01 (retail)
*2000 NA Boot Series II Released: 3/28/01 (retail)
*Riot Act EK 86825 Released: 11/12/02

***please note that as with all dates in this FAQ, the AMERICAN date notation is used. So, for example, Vitalogy was released on Dec. 6 1994 and NOT on June 12, 1994. That may or may note have been obvious, but it is worth noting. These release dates are also the American release date.

3.2 How many copies of each album have they sold?
These are the latest approximate figures we have based on platinum awards:
*Ten : 11 million copies in the US (last certification 8/06/99)
*Vs. : 6 million copies in the US (last certification 3/16/95)
*Vitalogy : 5 million copies in the US (last certification 10/13/95)
*No Code: 1 million copies (last certification 1/08/97)
*Yield: 1 million copies (last certification 3/13/98) (this is approaching 2 mil)
*Live on Two Legs: less than 1 million
*Binaural: approx 1 million**(gold certification 6/25/00)
*2000 bootleg series: approx 1.25 million combined**