Pearl Jam | Members, Songs, Albums, Grunge, & Facts (2024)

Pearl Jam, American band that helped popularize grunge music in the early 1990s and continues to be a respected alternative rock group in the 21st century. The original members were lead vocalist Eddie Vedder (original name Edward Louis Severson III; b. December 23, 1964, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.), rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard (b. July 20, 1966, Seattle, Washington), bassist Jeff Ament (b. March 10, 1963, Havre, Montana), lead guitarist Mike McCready (b. April 5, 1966, Pensacola, Florida), and drummer Dave Krusen (b. March 10, 1966, Tacoma, Washington). Later members have included Jack Irons (b. July 18, 1962, Los Angeles, California), Dave Abbruzzese (b. May 17, 1968, Stamford, Connecticut), and Matt Cameron (b. November 28, 1962, San Diego, California).

Formation of the band and Ten

Pearl Jam came into being in Seattle in 1990 when Gossard and Ament of the glam-influenced rock combo Mother Love Bone decided to form a new band following the death of their group’s lead singer, Andrew Wood. The band was originally named Mookie Blaylock, after a professional basketball player, but the group settled on the words pearl and jam separately—the latter reportedly after seeing musician Neil Young in concert and admiring his “jam session” style. The band released its first album, Ten, in 1991. Alternative rock had already begun to receive mainstream acceptance, thanks largely to the popularity of Nirvana, which, like Pearl Jam, was part of Seattle’s vibrant music scene. Ten (featuring the major hits “Jeremy,” “Evenflow,” and “Alive”) became a multimillion-seller. “Jeremy” earned the band its first Grammy Award nomination, for best hard rock vocal performance.

Vs.

With angry stadium-style rock highlighted by Vedder’s impassioned baritone vocals, Pearl Jam joined Nirvana as the musical voice of Generation X. The group also earned a reputation for resisting the mainstream music industry, notably refusing to produce music videos for any of the songs on the band’s second album, Vs. (1993), and canceling a tour in 1994 as a result of a heated battle over ticket prices. Instead, the band scheduled concerts at venues that were much smaller than the stadiums the group usually played and experimented with unorthodox ticket distribution techniques. Within three months after its release, Vs. had sold five million copies. The album spent five weeks at the top of the Billboard 200 chart, and the single “Daughter” went to number one on the mainstream rock chart, where it stayed for eight weeks.

Vitalogy through Pearl Jam

Vitalogy (1994), the group’s third multimillion-selling album, explores longing and loss, and it includes the Grammy-winning single “Spin the Black Circle.” Pearl Jam backed Neil Young on the album Mirror Ball (1995) and then released No Code (1996). The latter album’s stylistic departure disappointed some fans. Despite good reviews, Yield (1998) and Binaural (2000) were not commercial successes. Pearl Jam, however, remained a popular concert draw, and the band’s 2000 European tour was chronicled on 25 live and unedited CDs. The politically charged Riot Act (2002) was a solid rock album, but its intensity does not approach the eponymous Pearl Jam (2006). Critics and fans embraced the latter album’s return to the arena-rock sound of Vs. Singles such as “World Wide Suicide,” in particular, recall the anger and urgency of “Jeremy.”

Later releases

The band debuted its 2009 album, Backspacer, on the social networking site MySpace, and it was one of the first releases to take advantage of Apple’s iTunes LP format—a software enhancement meant to more closely replicate the experience of a physical album by offering liner notes, lyric sheets, and photographs of the band. In 2013 Pearl Jam released its 10th studio album, Lightning Bolt, which claimed the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart. On Gigaton (2020) the band inveighed against the dangers of climate change.

In March 2024 “Dark Matter,” the first single from its album of the same name, went to number one on Billboard’s rock and alternative airplay and mainstream rock airplay charts. (The band had last topped the latter chart in 1998 with “Given to Fly.”) The album was released in April 2024, and a world tour was scheduled to kick off the next month.

Solo projects

In 2007 Vedder made his solo debut with Into the Wild, the score for the Sean Penn film of the same name. The movie recounts the true story of a young man who turned his back on society to live in the Alaska wilderness, and Vedder’s soundtrack perfectly captures the film’s mood with stripped-down instrumentation and lyrics that recall traditional American roots ballads. The single “Guaranteed” won a Golden Globe Award for best original song for a motion picture, and two songs from the soundtrack garnered Grammy nominations. His second solo effort, Ukulele Songs, appeared in 2011 and netted him a Grammy nomination for best folk album. In 2021 Vedder collaborated with Glen Hansard and Cat Power on the soundtrack for the film Flag Day, and he released his third solo album, Earthling, in 2022.

Concert albums and honors

Pearl Jam is also known for its concert albums, which include Live on Ten Legs (2011), a collection of concert highlights from 2003 to 2010, and Let’s Play Two (2017), a CD/DVD commemorating the band’s pair of 2016 concerts in Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.