{"id":74422,"date":"2026-10-06T23:02:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/06\/pearl-jams-future-nineties-memories\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T23:02:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T23:02:32","slug":"pearl-jams-future-nineties-memories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/06\/pearl-jams-future-nineties-memories\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearl Jam&#8217;s Future, Nineties Memories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tUntil they returned to the stage in late September, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/pearl-jam\/\" id=\"auto-tag_pearl-jam\" data-tag=\"pearl-jam\">Pearl Jam<\/a> were off for a year and a half, and bassist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/jeff-ament\/\" id=\"auto-tag_jeff-ament\" data-tag=\"jeff-ament\">Jeff Ament<\/a> used that time productively: His new book, <em>Since Forever<\/em>, out now, collects the photographs he\u2019s been taking of his bandmates since their earliest days together. He worked on the project with his brother, designer Barry Ament, who first talked him into digitizing the photos, which bring to life dozens of unseen moments from the band\u2019s history. In an interview with our <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/rolling-stone-music-now\/\" id=\"auto-tag_rolling-stone-music-now\" data-tag=\"rolling-stone-music-now\">Rolling Stone Music Now<\/a><\/em> podcast, Jeff looked back at some of the book\u2019s highlights, and reminisced about Pearl Jam\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.megaphone.fm\/IMP1609865159\" frameborder=\"no\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"100%\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tHe also addressed Pearl Jam\u2019s drummer situation, which remains somewhat unclear. The interview took place before Pearl Jam\u2019s two sets in late September at the <a data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-live-reviews\/pearl-jam-abe-laboriel-jr-billy-strings-ohana-festival-1235632805\/\" data-type=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-live-reviews\/pearl-jam-abe-laboriel-jr-billy-strings-ohana-festival-1235632805\/\">Ohana Festival<\/a> in Dana Point, California, where longtime Paul McCartney sideman Abe Laboriel Jr. played drums. In the interview, Ament suggested whoever took the stage with them would likely be the band\u2019s permanent new drummer \u2014 but on Instagram after the performances, frontman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/eddie-vedder\/\" id=\"auto-tag_eddie-vedder\" data-tag=\"eddie-vedder\">Eddie Vedder<\/a> described Laboriel as \u201csitting in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIn the interview, Ament talked about Temple of the Dog, making Ten, shooting the Vs. album cover, touring with Neil Young, Pearl Jam\u2019s future, and much more. You can read it below; listen to an uncut version on\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/rolling-stone-music-now\/id1078431985\">Apple Podcasts<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0jCfnXfdYhwIM2I4x7SxZx\">Spotify<\/a>, or just press play above. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>One thing I realized looking at <em>Since Forever<\/em> is that you didn\u2019t have a camera for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/green-river-seattle-grunge-oral-history-pearl-jam-mudhoney-783878\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/green-river-seattle-grunge-oral-history-pearl-jam-mudhoney-783878\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Green River<\/a> years, or really for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/mother-love-bone\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/mother-love-bone\/\">Mother Love Bone<\/a>. The photos don\u2019t start till later. You must feel kinda shitty about that.<br \/><\/strong>Yeah, there were those first two, three years that I lived in Seattle, there\u2019s literally, like, five pictures, you know? But that was the sacrifice I had to make. I had to sell my camera to move to Seattle. That was the high dollar item. I think I got 100 bucks for it, which was a lot of money in 1983.<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ editors-pick-module lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo working on the <em>Singles<\/em> art department, they needed pictures of something and I said, \u201cI don\u2019t have a camera.\u201d And they were like, \u201cGo get a camera.\u201d And I\u2019m like, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cDude, just go get a camera and charge it to the movie.\u201d And I was like, \u201cI can do that?\u201d They paid for the camera body and then I bought a fisheye [lens] at the same time with my own money, and that\u2019s the first rolls of film that as we were going through this stuff, it\u2019s amazing. It\u2019s a couple rehearsal shots. And very frugal, because it was expensive. But pretty cool that you trace it to one moment. Just an opportunity that Cameron [Crowe] gave me to work on that movie and make a little bit of money.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd also, they allowed me to go to Seattle Art and buy paint and paper and all the stuff that I dreamt of having that up to that point I had been so tight with, just because I didn\u2019t have any money. All of a sudden now I could be an artist because I had some tools, you know?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Did you get that art department job on <\/strong><strong><em>Singles<\/em><\/strong><strong> because Cameron already knew you as a musician and you\u2019re also in the movie, or how did it come together?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>I think I\u2019d met Cameron a few times. He had the idea for these people in the movie that were working day jobs, and I think he was intrigued that I was working at a coffee shop. Stone [Gossard] at that time was working in a coffee shop, too. And then he came over to my apartment, and the walls were\u2026 I think he was like, \u201cOh, you need to work with us on this. You need to help us decorate these rooms and create all the ephemera for the movie.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd he knew I was designing album covers and T-shirts. So I think he knew that he\u2019d have somebody, a local in the office.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((687\/1024)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Jeff Ament<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>What was on your walls that he saw?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>This has been a back-and-forth conversation for years with Cameron. But there was a really big Joe Perry Project poster, something I got when I worked at Tower Records for a minute. When they took all the stuff down, some of my records got lost. And I could deal with, like, the skateboard and some of the records \u2019cause they were paying for it, but that Joe Perry Project poster\u2026<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tit was the centerpiece of my wall, and then I had flyers and just cool art. I had a couple friends that I worked with that were painters, so I had some of that stuff mixed in, and maybe even like some T-shirt designs that I\u2019d done. It was like 180 square feet. It was like a New York apartment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut since I was a kid, you just want stuff on the wall that makes you dream and inspires you. Every day they would just give me a project. They\u2019re \u201cHey, we need an album cover for Citizen Dick,\u201d so it was creating song titles, and then taking them to Cameron and saying\u2026 \u2018Cause his idea was, the name is Citizen Dick. And then it was just going back riffing, \u201cWhy is this song title called this?\u201d And the stuff of mine that ended up in the movie was pretty small, but at the time it seemed massive. That I got to be a part of this huge team and make this piece of art.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Using you that way was smart on his part. People in Seattle had been seeing flyers designed by you for years \u2014 I\u2019m looking at a Green River\u2013Melvins flyer you hand-drew.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. Well, and I was hand-drawing the stuff \u2019cause I couldn\u2019t afford Letraset, and the stuff that I wanted to do, I literally couldn\u2019t do. But Cameron was pretty great about that. All of his movies, there\u2019s all those details \u2014 if you look around the room of any of the movies that he\u2019s done, you\u2019re like, \u201cOh, my God, look at the detail over there,\u201d the thing that you see once for two seconds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut I coulda done that job for the rest of my life and been pretty happy. Just \u2019cause everybody in the office was so fun to work with, and we were going out every night and seeing music. I was taking him to clubs, and it was just a really super creative environment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>There\u2019s some pictures in the book from that era.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>There\u2019s a couple rehearsal shots. Maybe a couple small photos of some of the <em>Singles<\/em> stuff. I think one of the contact sheets is maybe one of the first three. Some of the photos in it aren\u2019t great, so that was the balance, that was the thing that my brother was so great at, oftentimes saying \u201cMan, this photo is so great and these three are not very good.\u201d And I\u2019d be like, \u201cYeah, but this one really tells the story. It\u2019s really important to me for that photo to be in the batch,\u201d and he would give in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd he had moved to Seattle in \u201991, and so we were hanging out a ton. There\u2019s a handful of pictures where you see, like, his feet in a photo. And there\u2019s a handful of pictures that I\u2019m pretty sure he took. I was using a timer a lot, but there\u2019s the photo of me shooting a basketball. That was on a bike trip, and he definitely took that photo.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((686\/1024)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Ament-Book-Pg101_JeffHatTrain.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"686\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Jeff Ament<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t\u2018Cause he was helping me digitize these photos, he was the one that said, \u201cMan, you should put a book out.\u201d He said, \u201cJust me personally, I was such a big fan of your band in those early days, to see these photos is so incredible. Photos from recording <em>Vs.<\/em> and <em>Vitalogy<\/em> is stuff that\u2019s never been out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd I always said, \u201cShoot me if I\u2019m the first guy in the band to write a book.\u201d I was really trying to not make it like that I was writing a book. I spent a couple years trying to figure out what the format was gonna be and how [the written segments were] gonna look, and sometimes I went too far. The stuff didn\u2019t really have anything to do with any of the photos, and so there had to be some connection, and the dreams, it had to be sort of things that had to do with the creative process and had to do with the anxiety and the good things and the stress of being in a band.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tI had a thing in my notes for, like, five years on my phone, just moving in and out of how I was gonna do this thing. I read every music artist\u2019s memoir, autobiography. But there\u2019s some part of me that was like, I don\u2019t wanna be the guy in the band who\u2019s writing the story of the band. I think the only way that those books do good is if you\u2019re telling the whole story and all the dirt, and I just don\u2019t have any. And there\u2019s not really that much dirt, so it\u2019d be boring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I enjoyed the written passages, and there\u2019s more to be said. But I get it \u2014 you don\u2019t wanna be the first one to write a book.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Right. Yeah, I think I\u2019ll let somebody else write it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>What did you take away emotionally from going back through these? It\u2019s vivid, seeing things through your own eyes from 30, 40 years ago.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. There were definitely eras that were \u2026 and some of the stuff with the band was stressful, but sometimes it was just like what was going on in my life, with my friends or my girlfriend at the time. It was hard to go through that stuff \u2019cause I feel like I moved through a lot of that through therapy and other things. So to sort of revisit some of that just to see \u2026 and not even necessarily bad memories, but just memories that were stressful times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd then you can see in the book the moment when the band is sort of over having me have a camera in the room. You can kinda see everybody\u2019s smiling and it\u2019s like, \u201cHey, I\u2019m gonna set up the camera and take a picture of us in the back of the bus. It\u2019s our first bus.\u201d And then you see like a picture of me taking a picture of somebody and they\u2019re kinda looking at me: \u201cFuck, got that fucking camera on again. What are you doing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>There\u2019s one of the great New York shots where Ed [Vedder] is looking right at the camera like you\u2019re a paparazzo. Like, \u201cWhat the fuck are you doing?\u201d<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Right, right, right. And that\u2019s probably the reason that I could never be a great photographer, is I think I\u2019m so sensitive to that stuff. A great photographer is just gonna get the fucking shot. You see the photographers that we\u2019ve been around, they will just barge [into] a situation even though they might actually get a heel to the camera. And I don\u2019t have that in me. As soon as somebody looks at me, I won\u2019t pick up a camera for two weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>There\u2019s another where you can\u2019t tell if Ed is really glaring or mock-glaring. I imagine that\u2019s the kind of thing that makes you put the camera away for a while.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. The funny thing is, a lot of that early stuff I wasn\u2019t trying to document. I was trying to come up with content for albums we were making, or at some point pretty early on we were putting out newsletters, and we needed content for those newsletters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tEven with the album covers \u2014 it became apparent early on, the label would hire a photographer, and then you\u2019d find out that we were paying for it or we were paying for half of it, and the photographer charged, like, $8,000 for an hour. And there was like that frugal DIY part of me that was like, \u201cThat\u2019s ridiculous, man. That\u2019s four times more than my camera equipment\u2019s worth. I can do this shit.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You were taking bootleg pictures during the <\/strong><strong><em>Ten<\/em><\/strong><strong> shoot.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Well, I would\u2019ve shot that if I could\u2019ve, you know? The concept was all mine, so, good or bad. But yeah, I was working pretty close with [photographer] Lance [Mercer] at that time. Like the \u201cJeremy\u201d single \u2014 I have a sketch of that in the book that I sent to my brother, and then my brother created the crayons that have the different names of the colors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((685\/1024)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Ament-Book-CW052303.1.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"685\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Jeff Ament<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tLance was our guy. He was our friend and he had become a really good photographer at that point. So anybody who\u2019s been in that situation where you\u2019re getting pictures taken by a bunch of people, you immediately gravitate towards the good hang. And Danny Clinch is one of those guys, he\u2019s just a great hang. So he\u2019s the guy, he\u2019s always our first call, \u2019cause we know it\u2019s not gonna get weird. And Lance was that way in the early days, for sure. He was easy to work with, and if I had some ridiculous concept, like dragging the band all the way out to the Olympic Peninsula, he was in for that, too, so it\u2019s cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>What do you remember about the moments in those New York street photos?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Oh, man, we were so excited. Stone and I had been to New York once with Green River, but it was brief. And I think Mother Love Bone had been there a couple times, and those were really brief. But having a second chance with the band, and everybody was so fun to hang out with. At that point everybody had the same enthusiasm and excitement and drive. We just wanted to play shows and get better and make good records.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut every single guy in the band had some musical history with a band they loved when they were a kid that came up in New York City. Whether it was Ramones or Kiss or Blondie or the Heartbreakers. We all had bands, so to be walking down the street and to be in the East Village, and I think one of our first shows was at Wetlands, so that\u2019s just down the street from CBGB\u2019s, and it\u2019s like you\u2019re truly living an insane dream. A dream that I don\u2019t think any of us thought we were gonna be playing shows in New York or walking in the footsteps of our heroes. Same street as Paul Stanley. Who would\u2019ve thought, who would\u2019ve thought?<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You have these great pictures from London Bridge studio, during the <\/strong><strong><em>Ten<\/em><\/strong><strong> sessions.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. Either the <em>Ten<\/em> sessions or maybe an earlier demo, a couple demo sessions, yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>But there\u2019s Ed swinging from the ceiling.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Oh, man. That was a huge part of every session, that big rope swing that you could run and you could grab it and flip yourself upside down, and then you could just swing the whole length of this giant room upside down, and it was like taking a little 30-second acid trip. It was like the best.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSome of those photos I didn\u2019t know existed, and it was like, \u201cOh, my God, there\u2019s a picture.\u201d Looking back at those memories and even the pictures of Ed singing in the booth, which hopefully he\u2019s cool with me, \u2019cause I didn\u2019t run any of this [by him]. I was trying to put in photos that they would be psyched about. But looking at the contact sheets, I didn\u2019t know what those photos were. You\u2019re going \u201cMan, that\u2019s weird. There\u2019s three photos in a row of just the dark side of the studio.\u201d And then when we digitize them and you put them on the screen, all of a sudden it\u2019s like, oh, he\u2019s singing in the booth there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Shirtless.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. Well, \u2019cause it was fucking hot, man. Like, those isolation rooms didn\u2019t have any air in them, so I\u2019m surprised he didn\u2019t have his Speedo on. Not that he has a Speedo, but\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Those are evocative because he\u2019s performing without knowing anyone\u2019s looking \u2014 you can see him moving his hands. Demos or album, it\u2019s an intense moment to capture.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. And we did crazy amounts of takes. And every take, he\u2019s acting like this is the take. Which I think that sort of repetition was good for us at the time, but it\u2019s also like, that\u2019s a young man\u2019s gig.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Infamously, you did \u201cEven Flow\u201d something like a million times.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Oh, my God. I really understood what Stone was going for, so I was with him lockstep when we were trying to get the feeling of the choruses to really sit back. And as hard as it was for Ed, it was probably even harder for Dave Krusen. He\u2019s trying to make that thing swing two different ways every 30 seconds. So that\u2019s a tough gig.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>He had a real baby face at that time.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Oh, man. Yeah. All of us to some degree, but he in particular looks like he\u2019s 15.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>We\u2019ve talked about this before \u2014 his performance on that album is really great.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. He has such a unique swing. The reason that that record is so groovy is because of the way that he \u2026 plays so relaxed, and yet we\u2019re playing up-tempo songs. That\u2019s almost like my favorite kind of music, when you can play something that\u2019s up-tempo but still feels like it has a big pocket.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>It\u2019s wild to see the outtakes from the <\/strong><strong><em>Vs.<\/em><\/strong><strong> animal shoot. Were you trying to shoot an album cover that day?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>No, not at all. That\u2019s just south of Missoula. I was with my friend Mike Mora, who\u2019s an architect.I I was gonna build a house out here, and so we looked at a couple pieces of property. And then my friend Eric had a friend who worked at \u2026 a farm down the Bitterroot called Lifeline, who raised cattle and sheep and made cheese.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd so we were hanging out, and I grew up with \u2026 my dad had cows and pigs and chickens, and I loved pigs when I was a kid. I got to be friends with them, and they would recognize me. And I could tell that this one sheep was following me along the fence, so I started taking pictures of it, and it kept trying to get through the fence. And it was only when I got the contact sheet back, I was like, \u201cWow, that\u2019d be a great cover,\u201d \u2019cause we were already talking about \u2026 we\u2019d already written \u201cAnimal,\u201d and there was a little bit of feeling of us against the world at that time and us against the record company, us against the machine. And so it sort of felt like a natural, so much more natural than the first album cover that was very literal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd it\u2019s cool to put most of the contact sheet in there just to show people that I wasted a whole roll of film on that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Is it a sheep or an Angora goat? Because the historical record differs on that one.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>I think it\u2019s a sheep.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Good to know \u2014 the most famous sheep in rock history. Early in the book you mention the \u201cmushrooms Ministry incident.\u201d What was that?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Well, when we were on Lollapalooza, we were ready to take a break when we got offered that. We\u2019d been touring for almost a year, and I don\u2019t even know if Perry [Farrell] wanted us on the bill initially. Even though we had a rich history with him. Green River played with Jane\u2019s and Mother Love Bone played with Jane\u2019s. But there were people fighting for us, Don Muller and Ted Gardner were a huge part of Lollapalooza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd it was only when it came back that Soundgarden was on the bill that we got excited about it. At that time it was still just at the beginning of things happening for us, and we were low on the bill. We were like, \u201cGreat, we can go play for 30 minutes, and hang out.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:1024px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((647\/1024)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Ament-Book-JA071927.4_FRAME_14.jpg?w=1024\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"647\" width=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Jeff Ament<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo when we saw the bands that were on it, Stone was a massive Ice Cube fan. We were obviously really good friends with Chili Peppers \u2019cause we\u2019d toured a couple months with them year before. And our idea was that it was gonna be like a vacation, that we were just gonna go play for a half an hour, and then we\u2019d get to hang out and watch all of our friends play music.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAs we got to know some of the crew people, found out that there was a guy selling psychedelics and mushrooms. And so one day I made a little tea and watched Ministry from the side of the stage. I was like, \u201cWow, that was cool.\u201d So then it started ramping it up. There\u2019s actually a couple pictures of him in the book. There\u2019s a guy, Turner, who \u2026 I\u2019m not even sure if he did anything other than he was the bone man. He would sit in the front of the bus when they were traveling at night, and if they saw roadkill, they\u2019d pull over and throw the roadkill in the bottom of the bus. He would like boil the bones off these animals backstage. And then he was making sculptures on all the mic stands. Beautiful, but also so perfectly Ministry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut that coincided with me taking mushrooms. So I would usually take them by myself, and I would just sit down in the pit and watch, and it was like the greatest, the doors of perception, you know? Everything opened up wide for me, and it was one of the only times I\u2019ve ever done that where there was no hangover. I felt fine the next day. It would only last for a couple hours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tChili Peppers were doing crazy stuff at that time, too. They had the big wheel. It was me playing basketball with Flea and Ice Cube\u2019s crew, and I love Jesus and Mary Chain. I love Lush. It was just like the best tour of all times. Not even close.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You have a bit about the year after Andy Wood died, and it\u2019s easy to forget there was a moment when nothing was clear. You\u2019ve told me you were thinking about art school. Stone was writing music, but without you, because you two weren\u2019t sure you wanted to be in another band together. And then it started to come together, with Chris Cornell, with Ed coming up.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah, I wasn\u2019t putting anything out there that I wanted to play music. I literally thought, \u201cOK, I gotta figure this out. I don\u2019t have a job right now. I don\u2019t have any kind of a plan.\u201d I knew I loved music. But in probably two months, I would go on bike rides with Stone in the morning, and he was pretty secretive about what he was doing. He goes, \u201cYeah, I\u2019m playing with Mike [McCready]\u00a0 a little bit.\u201d And then I would see Mike \u2014 he worked at a pizza joint right across the street, and I would see him. He\u2019d go, like, \u201cYou gotta come play with us, man.\u201d It\u2019s different when you and Stone are doing it together than if it\u2019s just Stone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd he was a really big part of understanding what we had together. He had sort of seen it from a distance. And then Stone had the six or seven ideas together, and we had a couple rehearsals with Matt Cameron, and it was pretty cool. I knew right away \u2026 we\u2019d played \u201cAlive\u201d a little bit, but I knew that \u201cBlack\u201d and \u201cAlive\u201d were special.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Even pre-vocals?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah, yeah. You could just \u2026 such a cool groove and the way that [Stone] plays, like real busy repetition. The \u201cBlack\u201d demo, it was so sad. It had such a sadness to it. And after Andy died, I was pretty extroverted in my sadness, and [Stone] was pretty introverted with his sadness. And so I felt like we weren\u2019t really connecting with the loss of Andy, and that song to me sort of connected me to him. And you could argue it\u2019s some of the best music he\u2019s ever made, so, amazing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Then there\u2019s the picture of Ed with Chris Cornell. Ed was a total unknown at that point and Chris was already, in his way, pretty famous \u2014 and yet they\u2019re holding the camera equally.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Well, they\u2019re two peas in a pod. I spent a fair amount of time after Andy died with Chris, and he was a daredevil. Riding our bikes through Discovery Park, these crazy trails, with headlamps on, where you could only see, like, 10 feet in front of you. And Chris and Eric Garcia and me \u2014 somebody was wrecking every five or 10 minutes, and it was just lots of laughter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd Ed has that same thing in him, so the fact that they not only became friends through the music and the creative artistic process, and being a frontman, but also just how they wanted to live. They really wanted to live, and so they were really good together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd Chris was such a \u2026 every once in a while I see photos come up, there\u2019s a great photo of him stage diving, and he\u2019s perfectly at a 45-degree angle about to go into the crowd, and he\u2019s wearing the whole Pearl Jam getup. He\u2019s wearing the red, white, and blue tank top and the white shorts. And then the next day he\u2019d be wearing the full Nirvana getup. And he was such a champion for \u2026 he was so proud of what was going on in Seattle because it had been a long time coming, and he was at the forefront of championing everything that was going on in Seattle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd just always pulling us in \u2026 he was such a giving artist in that way. Having him make that Temple record was one of the great gifts of our lives, because I remember he gave me the demo up in [manager Susan Silver\u2019s] office, and I remember thinking \u201cMan, these are complete.\u201d I was like, \u201cYou could put these out as-is.\u201d<strong> <\/strong>And you could have somebody mix it, and it\u2019d be insane. I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t know what we can add to this.\u201d But he was really adamant about us playing on it, and other than having the idea that he wanted to pull us in and help him sort of process how he was dealing with the loss of Andy \u2014 it wasn\u2019t really that planned out. It\u2019s like, \u201cWell, Matt\u2019s a really good drummer. Matt should play on it.\u201d It\u2019s like, \u201cOh, yeah, Mike, your guitar player, he\u2019s a ripper. He should play on a few songs.\u201d And then over four or five days, the record was kinda done. It was a couple two, three-day sessions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd sometimes we would come in and he\u2019d be like, \u201cHey, I got this song. I think I just want you and Matt to play on it,\u201d and that was an all-night thing. And so he played me the song, and I wish I still had \u2026 this piece of paper of the arrangement. I couldn\u2019t really figure out what the arrangement was \u2019cause he was inverting chords. Stuff would sort of turn inside out. And so I played along with it a couple times. By the second time, I finally made it all the way through, and I think I was playing fretless, and he\u2019s like, \u201cThat\u2019s great. That\u2019s great.\u201d And it was over before it began. I didn\u2019t even really know the song.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd it\u2019s very similar to how we made that record with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/neil-young\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/t\/neil-young\/\">Neil Young<\/a>, where he doesn\u2019t want you to figure it out. He wants you to play from your heart a little bit and don\u2019t overplay. Don\u2019t get too clever or try to show off. Really play it to the song and the melody and the chords.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Speaking of Neil \u2014 that tour with Pearl Jam, Neil, and Brendan O\u2019Brien on keyboards. I\u2019ve watched an unofficial video of one of those shows. It was killer.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah, the best. Almost every show he\u2019d come back, like, 20 minutes before, and he\u2019d be like, \u201cHey, I think we\u2019re gonna do \u2018Mr. Soul\u2019 tonight.\u201d And we\u2019d be scrambling around, pulling out a cassette of <em>Decade<\/em>. And luckily Brendan had played a lot of those songs in bands when he was a kid, so he knew what was going on. But we would literally be back there with our instruments learning the song, and then we\u2019d go out in Berlin and play the song for the first time ever. Just hanging on by the seat of our pants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut most of those shows, there was at some point in the show where it would just go off. The end of \u201cCortez.\u201d It would be a different song every night. He would just decide we\u2019re doing a 15-minute version of this song tonight, and hit a couple of his pedals and his amps to get really loud, and you just have to come along, you just have to bring that energy along with him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd I mean, I know I just said that Lollapalooza was the funnest tour, but that <em>Mirror Ball<\/em> tour was really special\u2026. We got done and we were like, \u201cMan, we wanna do more of this,\u201d and that was it. Never happened again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>A lot of Neil\u2019s collaborators probably have the same story.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>It\u2019s the best. Yeah.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>He moves on.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. Awesome.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>You have these great pictures of Matt Cameron, including the one where he\u2019s sleeping.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>I love that shot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>His involvement began at the very beginning \u2014 he played on those demos, and on the Temple of the Dog record. Did you see his departure from Pearl Jam coming?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>No. There\u2019s been talk for six or seven years, and it started once when Soundgarden started up again. And there was a year or two in there where he was burning the candle at both ends. He\u2019s probably away from home for three quarters of the year, which, that stuff\u2019s hard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd he and I even joke sometimes, we would say, \u201cSo what we got, three more years left, right, Jeff?\u201d And he\u2019d be like, \u201cYeah, yeah. That sounds about right. Three more years.\u201d \u201cSo we\u2019ll both be 60.\u201d \u201cYeah, that\u2019ll be perfect.\u201d And I think it would maybe make the other guys a little bit nervous, but I was joking, and then it turns out that he wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd I get it, man. You get to be 60 and we\u2019re lucky to be here at 60 still. But you also have maybe some unrealized dreams and other things you wanna do, and maybe the unrealized dream is you just wanna sit at home with your wife. And I 100 percent understand all of those reasons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tl I look at a band like R.E.M., they were like, I think, late forties or early fifties. It seems like they were older, but they weren\u2019t. They were older to us, but they quit when they were still pretty young. And I remember when they quit, I was like, \u201cMan, that\u2019s the coolest way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd at the same time \u2014 every once in a while we have a show where I\u2019m like, \u201cAh, fuck, man.\u201d I\u2019ll put that up against any 25-year-old band, any 25-year-olds out there playing rock music right now. We can still bring it. So for me, as long as we can still bring that top energy to a show, and as long as we get in the studio and everybody\u2019s real excited, and there\u2019s that collaboration, I can\u2019t imagine not doing it, \u2019cause I just fucking love hanging out with these guys so much. I miss them when we\u2019re apart. We haven\u2019t played a show in a year and a half, so I can\u2019t wait to play the show in September.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Is the plan to\u00a0 just gonna walk out with a drummer at Ohana and that\u2019s how we find out?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah, kinda. Unless something gets leaked, which is always possible. But I hope this is our guy, but I don\u2019t know if it is. We haven\u2019t played a show yet, so it\u2019s pretty hard to be fully committed to\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd if we\u2019re gonna go out and play at the level that we wanna play at, I feel like maybe I only have a few more years of being able to run around like a dipshit and pretend that I\u2019m 28 years old. But for the first time in a long time I\u2019m sort of ready to go play some shows and work a little bit. It\u2019s all a mystery, and that\u2019s good, too, to be in a band for 35 years and have mystery. Nobody really knows what\u2019s gonna happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>When I spoke to Ed a few months back for his documentary, he said you were woodshedding, between eras, figuring out what\u2019s next. Is that still right?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. I think everybody\u2019s writing, but we haven\u2019t really written a whole bunch of stuff together. But a couple of things that we have done are really good. And that\u2019s a powerful thing, the time apart you sort of sit with, \u201cOh, shit, I can\u2019t wait to do this. I\u2019m chomping at the bit.\u201d And it\u2019s gonna take at least a few months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>When did you settle on the drummer coming out with you at the next gig?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Well, it was the first name that came up that we all went, \u201cWell, in our minds, let\u2019s start at the top.\u201d And all of us have really good friends who are drummers, so when Matt decided he wanted to tell everybody that he wasn\u2019t in the band, that was a little bit of a tough thing. But it was probably tough for him, too. The hardest part was telling Richard and John Wicks and my friends who are killer drummers, that we had a guy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut yeah, it works out, it\u2019s gonna be amazing. That\u2019s all I can say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>There are great early pictures of Mike McCready \u2014 you can see your admiration for him. You were photographing him like a star.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>And he loved to have his photograph taken. He\u2019s like a comedian, so he\u2019s a really fun guy to hang out with. We both went to Mexico for the first time, both went to Hawaii for the first time together. And some of it was just Seattle was nuts for everybody at that time, and it was just \u201cHey, we got 10 days off. Let\u2019s go to Mexico.\u201d And so we hung out a lot and we\u2019d play each other music.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tIt\u2019s the same story. You hear Mick and Keith talk about their relationship, and it was all playing records for each other and making tapes. So Mike was big in that. And Mike was so excited to be there \u2014 he still is, but those first couple years, man, he was\u2026 I think he felt like maybe his music days were over, and maybe they\u2019re similar for a longer period of time than me. But the fact that he had this outlet for his gift \u2014 his gift is so tremendous, and I think he\u2019s one of the most underrated guitar players on the planet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>With Ed, you write about those early phone calls and letters, before he moved out. You were bonding over doing posters and that kind of thing.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. A lot of my conversation when Stone and I decided to play together was that I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t wanna fuck around.\u201d I think there were people that took that as me being careerist. So I guess I was being careerist in that I wanted to be a musician and I wanted to play music for the rest of my life. I didn\u2019t have any aspirations to be a big rock star and buy fancy cars. In fact, I\u2019ve never done any of that shit.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-content-image \/\/  \">\n<figure class=\"o-figure   size-large alignnone lrv-u-max-width-100p\" style=\"width:763px\">\n<div class=\"c-lazy-image  lrv-u-border-a-2\">\n<div class=\"lrv-a-crop-16x9\" style=\"padding-bottom:calc((1024\/763)*100%);\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-rollingstone-2022\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/Ament-Book-JA090893_FRAME_3.jpg?w=763\" alt=\"\" data-lazy-srcset=\"\" data-lazy-sizes=\"\" height=\"1024\" width=\"763\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><figcaption class=\"c-figcaption  lrv-u-flex lrv-u-flex-direction-column lrv-u-align-items-center\">\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<cite class=\"lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase lrv-a-font-body-xs lrv-u-margin-t-050 lrv-u-text-align-center\">Jeff Ament<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut I did know that I loved music more than anything on the planet. That\u2019s what I wanted to do, and that was my conversation with Stone, and my conversations with Ed. We were just talking about wanting to be in a band with four other guys that cared as much as we each did. And so it was really just taking serious being an artist and all the aspects of being an artist. And the great thing about being in a band is that you can be a painter, and you can be a graphic designer, and you can be a filmmaker, and you can be a photographer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd so he\u2019s been of great support, and hopefully I\u2019ve been a support to him too. And just fulfilling the artist in you, taking that part of it as far as you can with your abilities and doing it with collaboration. He and I did it a lot on the last tour with the whole staging thing. That was hours and hours. So other than a couple album covers maybe where one guy had a lot going on, for the most part that stayed true all the way back to those first conversations. Sort of us telling each other \u201cWe\u2019re ready to work. We wanna work at this so we can play.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>It\u2019s nice seeing photos of Ed smiling in the Nineties. People have this idea it was all misery, but obviously it couldn\u2019t have been.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah, and even at the peak of whatever the public perception of our misery \u2014 there\u2019s a picture of us underneath Red Rocks where I set the timer up. There\u2019s a rock and I think my bike is in the background, and I ran over and I think I\u2019m trying to act natural, but I look like I\u2019m posing for the shot. But even in that picture, it almost looks like Mike said something. He\u2019s got maybe a cigarette in his mouth, and everybody\u2019s kinda laughing. And that was like <em>Vitalogy<\/em>, probably the peak of the insanity. We never lost our ability to have fun and joke around and make it light, and Mike and Stone were kings of that, realizing a tense moment and making a joke.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>The pictures from Bill Clinton\u2019s Oval Office are wild \u2014 a reminder of what crazy lives you guys have had.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>You know the amazing thing is, a year ago, my friend Pat Williams, who was a congressman here in Montana, passed away and there was a funeral, and this lady came up to me. I can\u2019t remember her name now, but she\u2019s like, \u201cOh, I was the White House staff photographer.\u201d And she goes, \u201cI have a great photo of you guys.\u201d And I said, \u201cOh yeah, I have a bunch of photos too.\u201d She goes, \u201cYeah, I was like, \u2018We were telling you you can\u2019t take photos in here.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd I don\u2019t really remember that, but I do remember at that time being \u201cYou invited us here. We didn\u2019t ask to come here, so I\u2019m gonna do whatever the fuck I want.\u201d And so I have two rolls of film from that trip and a bunch of great pictures of us with Mudhoney before we got split up. And Bill didn\u2019t care, man. Bill was like, \u201cWhere do you wanna go? I\u2019ll take you wherever you wanna go.\u201d \u201cCan we go to the War Room?\u201d \u201cYeah, sure. Let\u2019s go to the War Room.\u201d Pretty cool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>It\u2019s a series of time capsules. I think the fans will really enjoy it.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Yeah. My brother thinks so. I knew there were some photos in there, especially the studio stuff from <em>Vs.<\/em> and <em>Vitalogy<\/em>, and even <em>No Code<\/em>, and I just knew I wanted that saved so at some point down the line somebody would have an archive of that stuff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAs anybody knows who digitizes old film, it was like a team of three, four people, hundreds and hundreds of hours. Probably 20 to 45 minutes per photo, just trying to get the stuff cleaned up. So it was a lot of work, but it\u2019s so great to have it done. It\u2019s so great to know that I don\u2019t have to worry about that stuff anymore, \u2019cause it was just in two boxes in my basement. And I would look at it and go like, \u201cOh my God, I should get those things off the ground. If there\u2019s a flood, those are screwed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>Congrats on it again. From talking to you and to Ed, it sounds like the hope is an album next year, then a tour. Is that the thinking?<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>I mean, I would love that. We\u2019re due. We have some new energy and we have a opportunity to use that energy to the fullest and turn it into something different and something great.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tAnd yeah, Stone and I, it\u2019s the same as it\u2019s always been with Stone. We have these conversations every week or two where it\u2019s like, \u201cAh, we could do this and we can do this,\u201d and it\u2019s like, \u201cLet\u2019s not get ahead of ourselves.\u201d But the not knowing is super exciting, and we can\u2019t wait to play. We just had a bunch of rehearsals. It was fucking killer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tBut there\u2019s a feeling still doing it, and if you can still do it at a high level, there\u2019s so much gratitude that everybody\u2019s working so hard to play great. It\u2019s how I felt putting the book together. The more that I looked at these photos, all of a sudden I was just so grateful for everybody in the band, and the people that were around us, and [manager] Kelly [Curtis] and Cameron Crowe and Lance and all the people that we made records with. Brendan, [bass tech and equipment manager] George Webb, [original tour manager] Eric Johnson. Just people that were such a huge part of the ride and made the ride so much fun, and it\u2019s just like fucking lucky me, lucky us, man. That not only did we get to be musicians and artists, but we were surrounded by such fucking cool people. Really rad humans that inspired us. It\u2019s just been the greatest.<\/p>\n<section class=\"brands-most-popular \/\/ recirculation-modules trending-in-article lrv-u-margin-tb-2 lrv-u-border-a-2 u-box-shadow-5-5 lrv-u-padding-lr-1 a-span1 u-padding-b-1@tablet u-overflow-hidden\">\n<h2 id=\"section-heading\" class=\"c-heading larva  lrv-u-text-align-center u-border-color-black a-font-theme-primary-xxs lrv-u-color-black lrv-u-text-transform-uppercase u-letter-spacing-0063 lrv-u-padding-t-050 u-padding-b-0375@tablet lrv-u-padding-b-050@mobile-max lrv-u-border-b-2\">\n<p>\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\tSo hopefully that comes off in the writing of the book. Just how grateful I am to have the best collaborators and friends that a person could ever hope for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ lrv-u-line-height-copy  lrv-a-font-body-l   \">\n\t<strong>I\u2019m excited to see what you guys do next.<\/strong><strong><br \/><\/strong>Me too!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/jeff-ament-interview-pearl-jam-book-1235637944\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Until they returned to the stage in late September, Pearl Jam were off for a year and a half, and bassist Jeff Ament used&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":74423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","article","has-excerpt","has-avatar","has-author","has-date","has-comment-count","has-category-meta","has-read-more","thumbnail-"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musicianvoice.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}