Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament

Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

Pushkin Industries

Society & Culture, Music

4.5 • 4.2K Ratings

🗓️ 23 April 2024

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament are two of the Seattle scene’s most foundational musicians from the 80’s and 90’s. Stone and Jeff started playing together in 1984 as members of Green River, which eventually dissolved, leading singer Mark Arm to form Mudhoney.

Later, Jeff played bass and Stone played guitar in Mother Love Bone until their lead singer Andrew Wood died of an overdose just days before their major label debut in March of 1990. Reeling from Andy’s death, Jeff and Stone started recording with Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell on a side project called Temple Of The Dog that featured vocals from a then unknown singer from San Diego named Eddie Vedder.

Later that year, Jeff and Stone asked Eddie to join their new band with guitarist Mike McCready. As Pearl Jam, they released their debut album Ten in August of ‘91—the album went 13 times platinum and charted on Billboard for nearly five years.

Since then, Pearl Jam have released 11 more albums and built a die-hard fan base thanks in part to their outstanding live shows. Last week they released their latest album, Dark Matter, which was produced by Andrew Watt, who's recently worked with Miley Cyrus, Iggy Pop, Post Malone and Ozzy Osborne.

On today’s episode Leah Rose talks to Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament about how Andrew Watt’s encyclopedic knowledge of Pearl Jam helped inspire some of their best performances to date. Stone and Jeff also open up about the inner-workings of their professional relationship, and Stone remembers the first time he met Eddie Vedder, who marked the occasion by passing him a hand-written poem.

You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Pearl Jam songs HERE.

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0:00.0	Pushkin
0:09.0	I'm Ben Nadefaffrey, host of the history show The Last Archive and I want to tell you about a new series we're running in our feed.
0:15.0	It's called The Dead Line. Six essays written and read by Jill Lepore, the New Yorker writer, American historian, and founding host of our show.
0:25.0	These are incredible essays on everything from the history of cryogenics to the Silicon
0:29.2	Valley Gospel of Disruption.
0:31.4	And at the end of each essay, I interview Jill about her craft as a writer. You can listen on the I Heart
0:36.4	radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Pearl Jam, Stone Gossard and Jeff Aiment are two of the Seattle scenes most foundational musicians from the 80s and 90s.
0:51.0	Stone and Jeff started playing together in 1984 as members of Green River,
0:55.0	which eventually dissolved leading singer Mark Arm
0:58.0	to form Mud Honey.
1:00.0	Later Jeff played bass and Stone played guitar in Mother Lovebone, until their lead singer Andrew Wood died of an overdose just days before their major label debut in March of 90.
1:10.0	Reeling from Andy's death, Jeff and Stone started recording with Sound Gardens
1:14.6	Chris Cornell on a side project called Temple of the Dog. That featured vocals from
1:19.8	a then unknown singer from San Diego named Eddie Vetter.
1:24.0	Later that year, Jeff and Stone asked Eddie to join their new band
1:27.1	with guitarist Mike McCready.
1:28.9	As Pearl Jam, they released their debut album 10 in August of 91.
1:33.4	The album went 13 times platinum and charted on Billboard for nearly five years.
1:38.8	Since then, Pearl Jam have released 11 more albums and built a die-hard fan base thanks in part to their
1:44.6	outstanding live shows.
1:47.4	Last week they released their latest album, Dark Matter, which was produced by Andrew
1:50.9	Watt, who's recently worked with Myli Cyrus, Iggy Pop,
	...

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