We may take breaks and do other things, but we feel we’ll ultimately have Pearl Jam as a family.
Words can have the same kind of magic as riffs can.
My methodology is not knowing what I’m doing and making that work for me.
I think if you exercise, your state of mind – my state of mind – is usually more at ease, ready for more mental challenges. Once I get the physical stuff out of the way it always seems like I have more calmness and better self-esteem.
I just know that I love to write songs, and I have for a long time.
I’ve always related music to those moments when someone turns you loose on something and they haven’t told you how to do it.
It’s a perfectly human instinct to want to be near water.
Well, you go to Holland and everybody’s on a bike – nobody would think to have a car.
On some planet, I probably could have been a lawyer. On some planet, I could have been somebody in advertising.
Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.
Raising awareness, changing the marketplace, effecting spiritual change – whatever it is that you decide is your thing, go for it.
A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music’s simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It’s different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I’m mutating country and folk more than a few degrees.
I think I have my own sort of distinctive swing, for sure. I think that’s something that comes really natural to me, to push against the beat and kind of explore a triplet feel behind everything just to see what that feels like.
It’s a very complex scenario, and certainly Dave was, and is, not the only person in Pearl Jam with personality flaws. Everybody in this band exhibits some form of neurotic behavior. And we couldn’t find a balance, a mutual respect for each other.
It’s really comforting for me and Jeff, at least, that after 12 years we finally feel we’ve reached a place where we can be more honest, real and loving with each other. And we’re finally in a band that we know is good, and deserves the credit it’s getting.
You know, at 35 or at 38 or 40 you really start to see what your body could look like if you just don’t do anything all winter long. So that’s another motivating factor, our vanity.