Pearl Jam member Stone Gossard recently recalled his early days in the grunge scene. He talked about how much fun was being had even though “people were sloppy.”
The early grunge scene, born in the gritty underground of Seattle in the late ’80s, was a fusion of punk’s raw energy and heavy metal’s intensity. Amidst this burgeoning movement, Pearl Jam emerged as a defining force and formed in 1990. The band soon became synonymous with grunge and captivated the audiences with their powerful sound and poignant lyrics.
Stone Gossard opens up on the matter
Stone Gossard is widely known as the guitarist of Pearl Jam and his roots in the Seattle underground scene go even deeper. Ahead of Pearl Jam, and even before Temple of the Dog, Gossard was also a part of both Green River and Mother Love Bone, alongside its legendary and prematurely departed frontman Andy Wood, who is often hailed as the missing link between glam and grunge.
Now 57 and while promoting two new albums – the third LP by his side project Painted Shield that is due on July 26, and Pearl Jam’s twelfth studio release “Dark Matter” – Gossard recalled his days in the late ’80s and the early ’90s with great fondness.
He told NME in a new interview:
“Playing music with Andy Wood, working on Temple Of The Dog with Chris Cornell. Making our first record ‘Versus’ with Brendan O’Brien, and how much he impacted us, and how appreciative I was of his musicality and his generosity with us. At Lollapalooza, there really was a sense of community in that group of people.”
“Watching Ice Cube play every night and just thinking this is the best, that Ice Cube and the band I’m in are playing on the same day. There was a really fun time at the beginning where we were just all drunk all the time and that was part of the unhinged joy of being onstage. We’re crappy and we’re just fucking drunk and this is great and everybody’s having a good time and isn’t that great? That Mudhoney era was a lot of fun. People were sloppy.”
While Stone’s recollection makes it sound like he was a gregarious person when surrounded by people the closest to him, he didn’t mingle all that much with other grunge A-listers, nor does he do so now:
“As far as personal relationships and hanging out, not for me personally. But you can’t have come through the same thing – Smashing Pumpkins or Foo Fighters – and not think that it would be interesting to have a conversation or reflect about what are the things that we appreciate about each other or not. That’s interesting to me, but it’s not currently happening.”
Pearl Jam recently called off a concert at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this weekend. The concert that was slated to take place on Saturday, June 29th was canceled due to illness in the band. On June 30, Eddie Vedder and co. took to social media and announced that their two upcoming concerts in Berlin on July 2 and July 3 also have been called off and refunds would be available at the point of purchase.
