Jeremy is one of Pearl Jam’s signature tracks as well as one of their most controversial thanks to its provocative combination of soaring vocals, heavy guitars and dark lyrics.

The song was released as the third single from the Seattle band’s 1991 debut Ten debut, and its main source of inspiration came from a newspaper article about a 15 year-old Texan boy named Jeremy Wade Delle, who shot himself in front of his teacher and classmates on 8 January 1991.

Remembered by his fellow students as one of the quieter and more solemn pupils at Richardson High School, Delle arrived into class late that morning and was told to report to the principal’s office.

He returned with a .357 Magnum revolver and announced “Miss, I got what I really went for” before putting the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.

The lyrics for Pearl Jam’s song were conceived by singer Eddie Vedder while the music had been composed by bassist Jeff Ament before the band went on tour with Alice In Chains early in 1991.

Vedder revealed to Seattle Sound magazine that he felt “the need to take that small article and make something of it – to give that action, to give it reaction, to give it more importance.”

The song begins with the sound of Ament’s Hamer 12-string bass, which can also be heard during the song’s outro. In a 1992 interview with Hamer Tone magazine, Ament explained how early songs like Jeremy and Why Go had been written on a 12-string guitar while his 12-string bass was on order from Hamer.

“I had been thinking the whole time that these songs were going to be 12-string bass songs,” he admitted. “It was definitely something that was thought out when I was sitting around jamming on a 12-string acoustic guitar.”

While the structure of the song had been largely completed, Ament carried on tinkering with producer Rick Parashar at Seattle’s London Bridge Studios, looking for new ways to elevate the music.

“I had an idea for the outro when we were recording it the second time,” Ament told Blender magazine in 2002. “I overdubbed a 12-string bass, and we added a cello. That was big-time production for us.”

For guitar players Mike McCready and Stone Gossard it was a case of mixing the sound of single-coils and humbuckers to create a wider sonic dimension, a trick they’d picked up from bands like Aerosmith.

“Out of our advance, Stone and Jeff bought me a black 1962 Japanese reissue Stratocaster,” McCready told Guitar World in 2021. “It was just so cool. I was like, ‘Oh my god…’ Because I had always wanted one. I had a Telecaster prior to that, and before that I had an Ibanez Iceman and a Kramer. But that was my first Strat.”

He continued: “So I used that, thinking, you know, Stone plays mostly Les Paul, and I love Les Pauls too, but I always loved how in Aerosmith Joe Perry might be playing a Strat and then Brad Whitford would have a Les Paul. And then they’d switch or whatever.

“That’s what I grew up with, and Stone did too. So I felt I wanted a Strat to complement what Stone was doing. If we both played Les Pauls, the record might’ve sounded different.”

The main guitar amps for the recording were a Marshall JCM800 half stack as well as a Fender Bassman for clean tones.

A high-budget music video was made with Vedder singing in a room by himself alongside clips of a student being bullied in class, eventually more and more frustrated until he puts the barrel of a gun in his mouth, closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.

The closing shot depicts his classmates covered in blood and frozen in horror. Given the sensitivity around the subject of violent imagery, the gun was taken out of the final scenes, which led to confusion over what actually happened.

Director Mark Pellington admitted: “Probably the greatest frustration I’ve ever had is that the ending is sometimes misinterpreted as that he shot his classmates.” He clarified: “That’s his blood on them, and they’re frozen at the moment of looking.”

To mark National Gun Violence Awareness Day in 2020, the uncensored version was remastered in high definition and posted on the band’s official YouTube channel.

In a 1993 live interview with radio station Rockline, a caller phoned in to ask Vedder how he felt about parents blaming art for tragic events like the one that inspired Jeremy.

“I guess they can’t sue us for this one because I’m writing about it after it happened, you know?” he answered. “Some kid did this. I didn’t make that up and that’s a fact.

“It came from a small paragraph in a paper which means you kill yourself and you make a big old sacrifice and try to get your revenge. That all you’re gonna end up with is a paragraph in a newspaper.”

He added: “Nothing changes. The world goes on and you’re gone. The best revenge is to live on and prove yourself. Be stronger than those people. And then you can come back.”

Picture the scene. You are playing a sold-out show at Seattle’s legendary Paramount Theatre, playing in Jason Isbell’s backing band, the 400 Unit, and to close out the set Isbell has an idea. Why not invite Mike McCready onstage to jam on a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing?

Sadler Vaden has been there, four years ago now, but the 400 Unit guitarist can still picture it in his mind’s eye – it’s an experience he is not likely to forget any time soon. For a start, covering Little Wing is no gimme. You’ve got to do the song justice. But then you’ve got the guitarist from Pearl Jam up there with his Fender Stratocaster, too.

“It’s like the question of, it’s not my decision, but do you even do something like this!? It’s Jimi Hendrix, right?” laughs Vaden, joining MusicRadar over Zoom. “I think it was Jason’s idea. But we were in Seattle, it’s Mike McCready, why not? You know what I mean! And I think that we have license to do that because we’re careful with it.

“I remember just being really excited, thinking like, ‘We’re doing Little Wing’ with Mike McCready in Seattle, it’s sold out. I just felt like I’m where I’m supposed to be. I never thought I would be here but clearly I’m where I’m supposed to be!’”

Vaden and Isbell had already played a cover earlier in the set, performing R.E.M.’s mid ‘80s classic Driver 8, which had just been recorded and released on Isbell’s 2021 studio album, Georgia blue. But this is a Hendrix in Hendrix's hometown Seattle, playing a track with so much history. Stevie Ray Vaughan's version is also a lodestar for generations of blues guitar players. No pressure. “Yeah, absolutely, and that’s untouchable,” says Vaden. “Everything he did!”

Both Isbell and McCready were on Strats. Vaden, who is here to ostensibly talk about his new signature Gibson SG Standard, was playing a Les Paul. Vaden says he only met McCready earlier in the day.

“I was a kid [when they broke through] but Pearl Jam is of those bands that they’ve sort of transcended all eras, and, I mean, they’re Pearl Jam!” he says. “But that was my first time meeting McCready that night. [He’s] just the nicest guy, musician, just wanted to know about your gear and all that kind of stuff, and those are the things I remember.”

The list of classic electric guitar classics that have been informally banned in guitar stores worldwide probably began with Stairway To Heaven but has most definitely expanded over the years to include Enter Sandman, Wonderwall, Seven Nation Army and you could probably through John Mayer’s Slow Dancing In A Burning Room in there too. Little Wing is surely in there, too. Everyone plays it.

So how did Vaden and Isbell approach it as not to receive a blanket ban from the Guitar Center network across the continental US? Sadler admits that covering the standards is not easy. There is an art to it.

“Yeah, for me, any time I’ve ever done something like that, it’s hard,” he says. “I’m not Jimi Hendrix, but I also want to honour it a little bit, so I try to find that happy medium of just expressing myself, and putting my own soul into it, but also having little – I call them checkpoints. Any time I do a solo, there’s a lot of improvisation, but I have little checkpoints that I like to hit.”

There don’t need to be that many checkpoints. The key was trusting the audience to fill in the blanks, and throwing in some note-for-note Hendrix licks when the time was right. So long as Vader remembers where they go, he’s all right.

“After I make that checkpoint, I can take some off-roads, I can go off the GPS or take some different routes,” he explains. “But then find my way back! With something like Little Wing, for me it was important to express myself, to put myself into it, but then hit a melody line or something, just to bring people into it, and have their ear grab a hold of it.”

McCready was no slouch either. He’s been around the block. He knows just what to do.

“Oh, he was great,” says Vaden. “Yeah, he’s amazing! Right when he started soloing, he went back and turned every knob up on the amp that he was playing through, just all the way up. [Laughs] It was great.”

In a three-guitar jam, the most important thing to do is to listen to what everyone else is doing. And to be ready.

“When we got onstage and started going, it’s kind of like I’m thinking, ‘I don’t have the ball. Mike McCready has the ball.’ So I’m gonna find my way in wherever I can get in,” says Vaden. “If and when someone looks over and says, ‘Go!’ I’ll be ready. And also hearing, ‘Who’s gonna do the rotary tone?’ Kind of waiting [to hear] who’s gonna do certain licks. I don’t want to step on those when they come around.’”

Vaden is lucky enough to have a few of these all-star jams under his belt. The McCready jam has to be up there with the best but is it the best jam he’s had with someone who is in the pantheon, someone who is—

“—A rock star!?”

Vaden’s not sure. A few special nights are coming back to him here.

“Umm, let me think. We did play with Chuck Leavell in Memphis,” he says. “We did In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed – we’ve had Warren Haynes play In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed with us as well, so having Chuck Leavell up there was amazing, and Warren too.

“One of the best best jams I’ve had was I was doing my own thing on a music cruise, and Jason got up and, once again, we did In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed by the Allman Brothers, and Jerry Douglas got up, he brought his Dobro, and that was one of the most spectacular things I’ve ever been a part of! Me and Jason just stopped soloing when Jerry Douglas was here. But we’ve had a lot of great moments like that.”

Vaden laughs. This is to hard to call. But then one performance in 2018 with David Crosby springs to mind, playing the song Neil Young wrote about the Kent State Shootings in 1970.

“David Crosby! Probably playing with David Crosby, doing Ohio with David Crosby, multiple times,” he says “But at Newport Folk Fest one year, I would say that probably is the high. That probably was the best.”

The Sadler Vaden SG Standard is available now, priced $1,999. See Gibson for more details.

The seventh and final Soundgarden album is coming. But it looks unlikely that you’ll hear it this year, and certainly not before the band’s induction into the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame in November.

That’s according to Matt Cameron, anyway. In an interview with Billboard the drummer gave an update on the record fans have been waiting on for over a decade. “There’s not a set release date or anything as of yet. There were a couple schools of thought, like, ‘Hey, let’s put out a single.’ I think eventually we decided we want to make sure the whole thing is completed before we start releasing singles. I’m excited for people to hear it.”

The delays are believed to be largely as a result of the legal wrangling that took place between the three surviving members of the band – Cameron, guitarist Kim Thayil and bassist Ben Shepherd - and Chris Cornell’s widow, Vicky Cornell. The band had been working on new material – seven new tracks, reputedly - prior to Cornell’s suicide in 2017, but were only able to return to the tapes once the legal issues were resolved in 2023.

The drummer said that recording the album had been emotionally draining for the remaining trio. “It’s been extreme highs and extreme lows,” he summarised. “Hearing [Cornell’s] voice on these powerful hard rock songs is the most empowering thing in the world for me. Then I listen to his voice solo-ed up when I’m working on stuff, or if Kim or Ben is working on something, and it all comes back to the fact that he’s not with us and he left us in a way that has so many questions. It’s been gut-wrenching but at the same time very empowering.”

Cameron quit his other band, fellow grunge legends Pearl Jam, in July, and told Billboard that it was an amicable parting of the ways. “I definitely gave them a lot of notice,” he said. “I’ve spoken with Jeff [Ament] and Stone [Gossard] a little bit… It’s been fine. Hopefully we’ll get back together at some point and have a beer or something.”

“I’m at a point in my life where I want to redirect my time and energy in a way that is a little bit based on what I want to pursue as an artist at this point,” he said. That, in the short term, includes a new band, Is This Real?, in which he’s stepped forward from behind the kit to provide vocals and guitar.

“I was having some issues with [Pearl Jam’s] three-hour shows and constant touring and stuff,” Cameron added. “That’s definitely an art form unto itself, to be able to do those types of shows… I’m at a point now where I want to do a face-melting 70-minute set, and that’s kind of what I’m focusing on right now.”

Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron has, out of the blue, announced his decision to leave the grunge veterans 'after 27 fantastic years'.

Cameron is a godfather of grunge drumming, having joined Pearl Jam in 1998, and also done percussive honours for fellow Seattle superstars Soundgarden in two stints, once from 1986 to 1997 when they initially split, and then from 2010 when the band reformed until 2017, when Chris Cornell died.

In a statement on socials he wrote, "After 27 fantastic years, I have taken my final steps down the drum riser for the mighty Pearl Jam. Much love and respect to Ed, Mike and Stone for inviting me into the band in 1998 and for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime, one filled with friendships, artistry, challenges and laughter.

"I am forever grateful to the crew, staff and fans the world over,” Cameron's statement continues. “It’s been an incredible journey. More to follow. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.”

In contrast to other recent drummer breakups, featuring combustible Who stalwart Zak Starkey and previously unflappable, Taylor Hawkins-replacing Foo Fighter Josh Freese, the split seems entirely amicable.

In response to Cameron's announcement, Pearl Jam issued a glowing tribute which reads, "From being one of our first musical heroes in the bands Skinyard and the mighty Soundgarden, to playing on our first demos in 1990, Matt Cameron has been a singular and true powerhouse of a musician and drummer.

"He has propelled the last 27 years of Pearl Jam live shows and studio recordings. It was a deeply important chapter for our group and we wish him well always. He will be deeply missed and is forever our friend in art and music.

"We love you Matt."

Back in 2020 Taylor created two acoustic guitars inspired by The Last Of Us Part II, the sequel to Naughty Dog's blockbuster post-apocalyptic video game. Its tobacco sunburst 314ce Grand Auditorium even appeared in the game, played by protagonist Ellie. Now, the replica is set to appear for the television adaptation of Part II.

It would be an understatement to suggest HBO's Last Of Us adaption of the first game was a success – it redefined the television adaption of video games, helped by the engrossing story, and a commitment to faithfully retelling it. Now a new trailer for the forthcoming second season of The Last Of Us, underlines that authenticity.

It's soundtracked by Pearl Jam's moving, low-key Future Days from the seattle band's 2013 album Lighting Bolt, a song that looms large in the game. The 314ce is owned by fellow lead character Joel and he sings the song to Ellie, and in the trailer above we can see the HBO Joel, played by Pedro Pascal, holding it and examining its distinctive moth inlay before we then see Ellie sat learning to play with it. 

The 314ce Taylor released in 2020 is a one-to-one recreation of Ellie’s guitar from the game. This Grand Auditorium model featured back and sides of solid sapele topped with Sitka spruce.

It also features Taylor's acclaimed V-Class bracing, tobacco sunburst gloss finish, plus a two-ring rosette, faux tortoiseshell pickguard, and the custom moth inlay design you'll see in the new trailer. 

Another clip [Spoiler ahead] shows Ellie – played by Bella Ramsey – sat with a non-cutaway natural finish acoustic she has found, in what looks to be the same setting used in the game – where players could play a mini chord game interacting with the guitar to play famous songs, including A-ha's Take on Me, while the character Dina looks on. 

[Spoiler ahead] There's scope for a third acoustic guitar to be featured in the television series too – another part of The Last Of Us 2 sees Ellie discover another (unbranded) dreadnought in an old abandoned theatre and begin playing and singing Future Days herself. 

There's no doubt acoustic guitars play a key roll in some of the Last Of Us's most poignant scenes, so will we see more Taylor guitar tie-in releases as a result? It has to be likely.  

• The Last Of Us Season 2 will be released by HBO in 2025

Guitarist Josh Klinghoffer will be arraigned in a California courthouse later today, charged with Manslaughter for his role in a vehicle collision that left a pedestrian dead.

It’s alleged that on March 18th this year Klinghoffer was behind the wheel of a black GMC Yukon SUV when the vehicle struck pedestrian Israel Sanchez while on a crosswalk in Alhambra, California.

47-year-old Sanchez was struck from behind and taken to Huntington Hospital where he died later that day.

Attorneys for Ashley Sanchez, the only child of the victim, have filed a wrongful death and negligence suit against Klinghoffer, claiming that Klinghoffer was distracted and could have been able to stop in time to avoid the collision. A lawyer for the family said in a statement, “Mr. Klinghoffer should be arrested and prosecuted for homicide.”

The charge against Klinghoffer reads as a misdemeanor charge of vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence.

Klinghoffer’s attorney, Andrew Brettler, issued a statement, reading: “This was a tragic accident. After Josh struck the pedestrian in the intersection, he immediately pulled over, called 911, and remained at the scene until police and paramedics arrived. He has fully cooperated with authorities throughout the investigation.”

Klinghoffer was instructed to appear in court in August and was released on his own recognizance on the 9th of September.

Josh Klinghoffer is a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame having been a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers between 2009 to 2019, being part of Pearl Jam’s touring line-up, and playing with Iggy Pop and Morrissey.

Klinghoffer will be appearing at the Alhambra, California, Courthouse at 8:30am PT today.

St Vincent says that Mike McCready has helped change her mind on the Fender Stratocaster, admitting that she was “scared to touch them” before the Pearl Jam guitarist gave her one of his new Custom Shop signature models.

Speaking to Guitar, St Vincent, aka Annie Clark, said she had never even played one before McCready presented her with one. “I never ever would have picked up the Strat if Mike hadn’t given me the guitar,” she said.

Clark explained that she had always avoided Leo Fender’s most successful electric guitar design of all, arguing that those who picked one up were immediately saddled by the “cultural baggage” that comes with playing an instrument associated with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Those two are the first players you think when you think Strat, she said, and that can be an intimidating prospect for anyone.

“They’re some of the greatest guitar players of all time, of course, but there’s history to Strats,” she said. “And there’s also a history of people trying to play like Jimi Hendrix and sucking.”

This is why Clark’s Ernie Ball Music Man signature guitar is not like a Strat, and not like any other guitar. The whole design ethos behind it was that it would be ergonomic – particularly for the female form – and that it wouldn’t look or sound like anything that came before it. Though upon its release, Clark did admit that her Harmony Bobkat was an inspiration – at least as far as the lightweight okoume body design and vibrato went.

“What I love about that guitar is that it was super-light, and the whammy bar on it was really unique,” she said. “So that was another guitar inspiration for the signature model.”

Clark got turned onto EBMM after it sent her Albert Lee’s signature model. With its less-than-mainstream look, and more importantly, its versatility, she was sold on the brand.  

The EBMM St Vincent might eschew traditional guitar designs but Clark did reference retro designs from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s for an idea for how it could look.

“My design aesthetic for it is based around what was happening in the 1960s and the 1980s, and what was happening in Japan in the 1970s, as far as the look of guitars goes,” she said. “If you look further back in history, the work of artists like [Kazimir] Malevich were also an inspiration.”  

Between her gold-foil equipped Goldie edition and regular HHH signature model with its trio of DiMarzio humbuckers and five-way switching, Clark has all the tones she needs, so don’t expect her to be retiring it any time soon or ever. 

But she did admit to Guitar that she used McCready’s Strat as a pinch-hitter on her latest studio album, All Born Screaming, and it was a bona-fide epiphany. 

“This guitar is great,” said Clark. “It’s so playable. Now, I understand. I didn’t get it before because I was too scared to touch them.”

Meanwhile, Clark’s Ernie Ball signature model is getting around, with Olivia Rodrigo taking one out on tour with her, and Emily Roberts of the Last Dinner Party playing the St Vincent Goldie. 

“It’s iconic-looking and quite trebly and really sticks out,” said Roberts, speaking to Guitarist magazine. “I’m only 5ft 2in as well, and some guitars give me backache, but this one fits really well. There aren’t many guitars designed by women, so it was kind of a no-brainer.”

• "Plugins get tricky because you start to hear with your eyes": St. Vincent on self-producing All Born Screaming

I loved the Mike McCready Strat – the playability and sounds were the best I've encountered on a Mexican Fender Stratocaster and I said so in my review. But there was one area I was less sold on, and it highlighted the possible limits of factory relic'ing. Though impressive – especially the artificial neck wear – there were areas of the body aging that weren't as successful for me.

It was somewhat understandable – Fender was recreating McCready's specific 1960 Strat and its areas of wear on the body from decades of use. But could it actually be improved by a buyer? Zach Broyles of Nashville's Mythos Pedals wanted to find out.

As Zach makes clear in his videos on modding (which are excellent BTW), he just enjoys doing this stuff – he's not advising we all do it. So when he takes a leaf out of the Tom Murphy Lab toolkit on how to add dinks and knocks to a body, and it's on his own personal instrument. We just get to watch vicariously. But any fears he might overdo when relic'ing the McCready Strat prove unfounded. 

Zach's M.O. to "see what kind of realism we can add to this guitar" relies on knowing when to stop. It's important to note that the McCready Strat has a nitrocellulose finish and the polythene finishes found on more affordable Fenders will not respond to the techniques Zach tries anywhere near as well, or should I say, authentically. Poly finishes tend to be thicker and don't wear down in a way that looks anything but fake when it comes to scuffing the finish with Scotch Brite, as Zach does in this two-part video series. 

The most interesting part of the video for me is when Montypresso is used – this is a guitar relic wax made by Monty's Guitars in the UK, who also make fabulous pickups. I've used it myself to darken a pau ferro fingerboard on my own guitar, but here Zach actually applies it on the McCready's Strat's body. And it effectively improves some of the hue of the less convincing relic'ing areas where the alder underneath looks a little too 'new'. 

As Zach admits, adding ding and dents to the body with items like bunches of keys is the most fun part but the Montypresso staining offers a subtle but definite grimy improvement to the patches of exposed wood. I even think it could have done with some longer marination on the Strat myself. 

What's especially appealing about these videos is that Zach is so willing to experiment and learn in real-time here, and in that respect he's chosen a good subject in this already heavy relic Strat. "I'm not being too precious or worried because Mike's guitar is just destroyed – it's annihilated." So what's a few more dings and scratches, eh?

There are definitely some good tips to be learned from him here on how and where to add artificial wear that looks convincing. The results speak for themselves. 

Zach's next video will find him upgrading the electronics on the Strat to make it as "vintage accurate as possible". As I said, this is something he likes doing, but I'll add that the stock pickups in the Mexican McCready Strat are some of my favourite Strat examples I've encountered so either way you're getting a great-sounding Strat.  

Stay updated over on the Mythos Pedals YouTube channel and check out Monty's Montepresso over at montysguitars.com

We love the 1991 overdrive pedal – our review made that clear – but Funny Little Boxes' debut release has been un unmistakably pink shade… until now. It's time to go for gold.

Following on from the equally impressed Queens Of The Stone Age Skeleton Key drive from Andy Llgunas's UK brand, this new hue has actually been the result of circumstances beyond FLB's control. But we certainly like the result regardless.

"Without warning, the particular shade of pink that is used for the enclosure of the 1991 was discontinued due to my supplier running out and being unable to source any more of it, which sadly remains the case with no sign of a restock any time soon," explains Andy.

"I have taken the decision to use this situation as an opportunity to produce the 1991 in limited edition colourways," he adds. "The first of which being the rather fetching sparkly gold outfit you can see above. I can assure you it is a cosmetic difference only. The circuit is still exactly the same in every way and completely uncompromised."

The 1991 pedal is still in high demand but waiting times have dropped to 3-4 weeks. And it's worth waiting for – inspired by Pearl Jam's Ten and specifically, Stone Gossard's Marshall tube amp / Tube Screamer tone on the song Alive, I've found it a versatile drive that stacks great with my Wampler Tumnus too. A real workhorse pairing on the pedalboard!

For more information visit the Funny Little Boxes website and check out some great demos from Matt Webster of YouTube channel Let's Play All above and below – Matt has played an active role in developing the 1991 and Skeleton Key pedals, and also the forthcoming third pedal release from the company that's hopefully not too far away. 

"There's no other guest list bigger than the one we have when we're in Seattle… to be honest I wish it were longer," Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder told the crowd at the band's second night at the city's Climate Pledge Arena on 30 May. But it's the names who will always be missing that were playing on his mind during the show – the peers no longer with us.

"There are certain names I deeply wish were on the guest list tonight, but we lost them too early to ways we could have never imagined," he continued. "And damn it if I can't stop thinking about them. But that's a good thing too, right?"

Those Pacific North West absentees paying on Eddie Vedder's mind as he picked out the intro to Nine Inch Nails' Hurt must surely include Chris Cornell, Layne Staley, Kurt Cobain and Brad's Shawn Smith. 

Hurt originally featured on Nine Inch Nails' 1994 opus The Downward Spiral, but was immortalised in the mainstream by Johnny Cash when he gave it an acoustic treatment for 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around.

"I listened to it and it was very strange," reflected Nine Inch Nails songwriter Trent Reznor on hearing Cash's take on his track. "It was this other person inhabiting my most personal song.

"I'd known where I was when I wrote it. I know what I was thinking about. I know how I felt. Hearing it was like someone kissing your girlfriend. It felt invasive."

It was later seeing Cash in the video for the song that was the missing piece of the puzzle for Reznor. "It really, really made sense and I thought what a powerful piece of art.

"Having Johnny Cash, one of the greatest singer-songwriters of all time, want to cover your song, that's something that matters to me. It's not so much what other people think but the fact that this guy felt that it was worthy of interpreting." 

• "The only thing I could hear coming through the window was the bass": Eddie Vedder recalls the Ten single he co-wrote while being locked out of a Pearl Jam rehearsal

Rick Beato's three-hour interview with Brendan O'Brien isn't just required viewing for budding producers, but all musicians and songwriters. His work with artists including Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Crowes, Rage Against The Machine, Soundgarden has included hands-on experience with the songwriting side of helping to produce timeless music, as well as mixing and recording.  But we were honestly surprised when he owned up to something he overlooked early in his career when he transitioned from engineer to producer. 

"I've got to tell you something, also," he admits to Beato around 80 minutes in during the video interview below. "A very important part of making records, whether you're writing songs, producing, is you've got to have the song in the right key for the singer. Super important.

"I did not learn that right away – I didn't even know that right away," reveals O'Brien. "I read that after we finished this record [the record being Stone Temple Pilots' multi-platinum 1992 rebut Core]. I read an interview with [producer] Arif Madin – who's one of the greats, he helped Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, everybody to sing. They asked him, 'What do you do to get started on a song with an artist?'  

"'Well first I get the tempo right [he answered]. Then he goes, 'I make sure the key is right for the singer'. Huh? What? Don't the people just right the songs and the singer sings to that? Is that how it's done? It never occurred to me that was what you're supposed to be doing. Because up to that point the records I'd been doing, I'd engineered most of them, I wasn't the producer, so the songs sort of came in… and when I was producing I think I just got really lucky that all the songs were in the right key."

Eventually that luck was bound to run out and before it did, O'Brien knew he had to take this new revelation on board.

"I've got to really step my game up here," he reflected to Beato. "So from that point forward I really paid attention to the key, and sometimes when you're working with an artist – especially with a band – you have people in a band that write the songs, and the singer, it's up to them to sing and write a lyric and a melody to it often. 

"At that point I would make sure we were in the right key and I would get pushback [from the musicians saying], 'Well it sounds best in this key'. Yes but no one's going to care if [the singer] can't communicate it. They're still going to care about your song if it's an F# instead of G, or A instead of F#, or whatever."

The payoff for the artist in the longer term is being able to perform – and specifically sing – the song live in the key it was recorded in. 

"Some people, you'd get more pushback than others about that, but in general we were always pretty good about that," the producer reflects. 

After producing Stone Temple Pilot's Core, O'Brien would go on to helm Pearl Jam's second album Vs in 1993, an album that sold 950,378 copies in the US alone in the first five days of its release. Clearly, both bands liked his methods too; O'Brien would produce the next three albums from Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots, respectively. 

• Brendan O'Brien on producing rock drummers

What a journey Andrew Watt has been on. He's gone from covering Pearl Jam's Alive in a small venue as a solo artist to producing the band's latest album, and now performing the song with them onstage in Las Vegas – with Mike McCready letting him duel on the iconic solo.

It all kicked off on the fifth date of Pearl Jam's Dark Matter US tour, which has seen them stick to their habit of unique setlists for each show. Alive usually features in every one though and in Las Vegas on 16 May fans got to see a different take with Watt and McCready on twin Les Paul Burst attack.

In case you didn't know, Watt isn't just a talented guitarist; by Pearl Jam's own reckoning, he knows how to play every one of their songs. He certainly looked at ease on this one.

Elsewhere in the setlist, the band aired new album Dark Matter highlight Waiting For Stevie – another cut with a huge McCready outro solo and a song vocalist Eddie Vedder introduced as being about "the power of music". 

The band played two nights in total at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, with the second following on 18 May. Both contained more surprises and rarities including Eddie Vedder's solo take on the Jason Isbell song Maybe It's Time, performed by the actor Bradley Cooper in the film A Star Is Born. 

During the second show, Pearl Jam aired infrequently performed Vitalogy album era b-side Out Of My Mind. The song was originally recorded as a live jam session at the band's Atlanta’s Fox Theater in April 1994 and included on the Not For You single. 

• "A guy named Alexander Dumble made the amps": Andrew Watt reveals the gear behind Pearl Jam's new album

Pearl Jam's new album Dark Matter sees the band members going back to their early days of writing and creating together in a room – and much of that has to do with producer and fan Andew Watt encouraging it. But there's another way this album is different from Pearl Jam's recent albums, or indeed any of them; Stone Gossard and Mike McCready didn't bring any guitar gear to the studio with them. 

But they really didn't need to when it came to tube amps.

"A guy named Alexander Dumble made the amps," Watt told Spin of what was waiting for them during the two album sessions that took part in two locations after Watt's own LA studio flooded after their first get-together. "He was a very strange guy who unfortunately passed away in 2022. He made Stevie Ray Vaughan’s amps and countless others."

That name will not be new to many guitar players, Dumble's amps and mods are the stuff of legend and fetch high resale prices in our world – with Jason Isbell joining the Dumble club last year. But Watt didn't just acquire his Dumble-modded Fender amps on the used market – he was one of the select group of players Dumble acceded to complete multiple commissions for. 

"He would refuse to build them for a lot of people but for whatever reason, he agreed to make four for me," Watt reveals. "They’re all ‘50s Fender mods: a Vibrolux, a Champ, a Deluxe and a High Powered Tweed Twin. 

It's the latter amp that's Watt's own favourite and in the Guitar Center interview above, Watt details how Kirk Hammett turned him on to Fender High Powered Tweed Twins. 

"He told me how in the '50s those amps were the amps that Jim Marshall got and built the Marshall circuit off of. So I always wanted to get one and after we made a few albums I was finally able to afford one and I got a 1958 High Powered Tweed Twin."

It was then that Metallica producer Bob Rock introduced him to Alexander Dumble.

"I got to go over to him and it was right after I bought this amp, do I brought it over there, because he famously does these Fender mods. And he made me four amps but he took this '58 High Powered Tweed Twin and he did this thing to I, and he will never tell you want he does to it, but you sit there and play through it. He listens to the amp, you play low, you play loud and he watches your hands and he kind of gets you and tweaks the amp to you. 

"I have Marshalls, Fenders, Voxes, Oranges, Supros – all different kinds of amps. But since the day we got this amp I've not plugged into anything else. It's literally the only amp we use now. " 

If the timelines are correct, Watt may have been one of Dumble's last customers before he passed away in early 2022. 

The producer –  who is also credited as a writer and performer on Dark Matter alongside touring member Josh Klinghoffer – has some jaw-dropping gear, as the video above showcases. He extended his collection to Pearl Jam's bassist Jeff Ament. 

"Jeff played through a Fender Bassman," he confirms to Spin. "We plugged Stone into a Les Paul and a Strat again. Mike played all old Strats and a 1959 Les Paul. Jeff was laughing because he said, 'No producer ever wants me to play my 12-string. And I was like, play the 12-string! Can you play Jeremy on that for me? He wrote the main riff for ‘Dark Matter’ on a 12-string."

The two album's sessions were a whole 18 months apart due to Pearl Jam's touring and Watt's intense schedule (he went from working on The Rolling Stones' Hackney Diamonds to Dark Matter two days later) with the second half completed at Rick Rubin's Shangri-La studios. And when Watt digs into his working methods as a producer, we begin to see why he's in such high demand – essentially he's a musician who produces, and musicians appreciate that.

"On every record I ever make, whether I’m playing on it or not, I know how to play the song, because I need to be inside it in order to know what’s right for it," Watt tells Spin. "I started out playing in bands, so you don’t really know what you’re doing or how something should be arranged unless you can sit down and play it as a song."

But Watt also played an active role in inspiring Dark Matter's standout track Waiting For Stevie. A song that echoes Pearl Jam's younger days sonically and in Vedder's emotional reach, while also recalling Soundgarden's hypnotic mid-tempo songs like Mind Riot but also the day Watt and singer Vedder were waiting for Stevie Wonder to turn up to play harmonica on a song called Try from the Pearl Jam singer's 2022 solo album, Earthling, that Watt also produced. 

"We were sitting around with guitars and waiting, and I said, I have this idea, check it out," remembers Watt of the riff. [Eddie] says, 'That is so fucking weird, because I’ve had this riff for literally years — since albums and albums and albums and albums ago'. He showed it to me, and it was almost exactly the same. So, they both kind of melded into each other. 

"We presented that to everyone in the first week, and they all wrote their parts and how the sections would move. It really only became a thing because the thing I showed Ed reminded him of something he’d written that was very similar. The drums on that song are fucking biblical to me. The Matt Cameron dirge! Matt is a pretty stoic guy [and was also Soundgarden's drummer]. He’s like Charlie Watts or something. I was screaming, go harder! Come on! It was like I was at one of their shows or something. At some point, he just had to laugh."

• Read the whole interview at Spin

If parts of Pearl Jam's new album Dark Matter feel familiar, but not just in terms of the band's own back catalogue, there's a good reason for that. While the gloriously old-school Waiting For Stevie seems to nod to The Cult's Billy Duffy as well as Soundgarden, the euphoric guitar hooks in songs including the Jeff Ament-driven Won't Tell and Eddie Vedder-penned Wreckage reflect another inspiration – one Stone Gossard will happily cop to. 

"We referenced The Cure a lot while making it," the guitarist admits in a new interview with Kyle Meredith below. "Because of them and their style; they teach you the power of the simplest little melody that has a unique lyrical quality. If it feels like it has a voice, if it feels like it has a lyric almost. And certain melodies, the way they lay over the riff, they sing, and finding those things is like magic.

Recognising and capturing these kinds of moments and working them into songs is where Gossard's talent as a self-confessed "arranger" comes to the fore. But he thinks it's a kind of magic we can all access with an instrument. 

"You don't have to be a 'musician' to find those things. And that's the magic that we discover. You could be the greatest guitar player in the world but a ten-year-old could learn to play that in an hour, in terms of just the physical [ability] – there's this note, this note and then this note. And everyone will play it differently but that sums up the discovery that while playing music, you can do it falling down.

Another song where Robert Smith's band surfaces in spirit is the majestic Wreckage, a song that builds to become a modern classic Pearl Jam recording. 

The track began with writer and vocalist Eddie Vedder working it up with producer Andrew Watt but became more nuanced when the rest of the band contributed. "It came pretty late, I think it was the second session at [Rick Rubin's studio) Shangri-La," reflects Gossard. 

"That song keeps revealing itself to me, it was a slow burn in terms of my understanding of that song," admits the Pearl Jam founder. "It's turned into one of my favourites now, and it's also one where [I had} some little trinkly kind of parts on it that Andrew said, 'That's like a Cure thing.' I was playing a little picking pattern that bells in. You almost can't even hear it, but it's just kind of bubbling in there. He really fell in love with that. It was a definite Cure reference. I just love that everyone one bringing a box of their favourite artists to the studio, it just makes for this mix that has references but it doesn't feel like it's too close."

Gossard's guitar 'trinkets' and rhythmic style are a foundation of Pearl Jam's musical identity – he was the lead songwriter when they formed. And following on from bandmate Mike McCready explaining to MusicRadar how he played more solos on this album than he has on a Pearl Jam record in years, Gossard tells Meredith in the video interview above that he also feels more heard in the mix this time. 

"I felt more appreciated and more heard by Andrew for the subtle things I do, not just, 'Ok here's a riff and I hope you like it', but 'I keep hearing a note here and here and I'm not sure what notes they should be but I keep wanting to this or this, or maybe it's a wah thing, [Andrew is] someone who helped me navigate that and I think he did that with everyone [and was] able to make everyone sound great.

"Mike's playing more leads than ever before – out-there, aggressive, very off-the-cuff… none of that stuff was worked over. All of it was done very quickly, in two or three takes, but Andrew is a master of how to take those two or three takes and really bring out the essence. It's an imperfect process, and Andrew's imperfect, but he did a great job of pushing us along a path that we hadn't been pushed [down] in a while so it sounds fresh."

Gossard has already indicated he'd like Pearl Jam to work with Watt again, but he's also aired his ambition to play more improvised lead parts going forward. 

"As a player, I felt that the parts that I cared about were forward as [if] they were solos," he says of Dark Matter. "If I can hear me and this sort of melody that I created with this one note that might be in the key but might not be in the key and you get used to it, and it turns out there's something about that… those are the kind of things I get excited about.

"Mike is an excellent songwriter and soloist, and I can play a solo and it would be good for me to sort of expand my range into that, and be more comfortable improvising in the same way Mike is. So maybe that's the next record."

• Classic interview: Soundgarden's Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil talk guitar

Even putting aside the fact Andrew Watt went from producing the Rolling Stones' Hackney Diamonds to helming an album by his favourite band Pearl Jam two days later, his journey has been remarkable. 

From solo artist to California Breed guitarist alongside Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham, then pop session player and super producer for Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa, Post Malone and Ozzy Osbourne with Rick Rubin as a mentor.

At his heart Andrew Watt is a fan; and he brings that enthusiasm, passion and deep knowledge of artists to Pearl Jam's Dark Matter.  

When I was growing up, I didn’t have a lot of kids that wanted to be in rock bands around me," he told Rolling Stone in a new interview. "So I just kind of learned to play a lot of different instruments, and would record myself. I learned to play the bass, the guitar, and as much of the drums as I could by listening to Pearl Jam. And each one of those band members were so influential to me. 

"I really understand what I love as a fan about their playing. And so when it was time to work with them in a creative way, I just wanted them to be them. I didn’t want to change them."

Watt has been going to see the band live since 2003 (something that has now jumped up in price for fans wanting to attend their Summer dates), but working on Eddie Vedder's Earthling album (and touring it as part of his band) before seeing the Pearl Jam machine's workings up close has given him a new perspective.

"Eddie Vedder is showing up to the venue at 2pm on the day of a show, sometimes earlier, and going through every single song they’ve ever played at the same hall or in the same city," marvelled Watt in the Rolling stone interview. "Nobody works harder on a set list to make sure that his fans feel as though they’re getting something special. No one works harder than him, and the band is ready for anything. They’ll play songs they haven’t played in ten years or even listened to in ten years. They get in the jam room, and they suss it out. They’re fearless, man. They get on that fuckin’ stage and they deliver."

Vedder's chemistry with Watt while working on Earthlings felt so strong, he invited his Pearl Jam bandmates in to keep the creative ball rolling.

"The first time we jammed together, we wrote a song," Watt reflects on his first musical sitdown with the singer. "From there, it just has been the most beautiful friendship and creative relationship of my life. It means more than I could ever put into words. It’s the exact example of dreams coming true. You’ve got to understand, I stood in line at Madison Square Garden with a sign that read, 'Let me play the guitar solo to Alive'.'' And then I did get to play the guitar solo."

But he was playing Alive before he ever had access to Pearl Jam in person, as the clip below from 2011 proves. Watt was performing as part of a multi-act bill at the NYC venue of September 23.  

Two years later he'd join California Breed for a two-year run that yielded their self-titled debut album. Their 2015 split probably hit him hardest but his parting statement would prove prophetic: "I put everything I had into this band," Watt said. "All I can say is I was in it for the long haul. This is not the end – it is truly the beginning."

That may also apply to Watt's working relationship with Pearl Jam with guitarist Stone Gossard recently expressing his desire to track with the producer again. 

• Read the full interview at Rolling Stone 

Interviews with Pearl Jam's members about forthcoming album Dark Matter (out on 19 April) are now surfacing and you can officially colour us excited. Stone Gossard especially sounds enthused in a way we can't ignore when speaking to Spin – and it seems producer and massive Pearl Jam fan Andrew Watt deserves a chunk of the credit.

We were comfortable because of Ed having already said, I think this is a good choice. Let’s experiment together," the guitarist says of Eddie Vedder's unexpected call to the band to come to Rick Rubin's Malibu Shangri-La studio in the summer of 2021 and see what happened. He and Watt had been working on the solo album Earthling  and felt inspired. 

"Gigaton was made over a long period of time," Gossard says of the contrast with the band's previous album. "It was done from individual demos, using the parts that were raw and rough from them that we loved, but also adding onto them. It was a cool process, but this was the anti-that."  

"This was, you barely bring in a riff, but in 30 minutes, here’s two or three chords you might not have even known how to play but they sound cool in the bridge," adds Gossard. "We encouraged Matt Cameron to be more and more aggressive. Let’s make these feel like they’re being enacted right in the moment. That was what was exciting about the process with Andrew."

The bulk of the album was completed in two sessions in 2021 and March 2023 – 20 months apart. Partly due to Watt being so in demand as a producer for the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and The Rolling Stones. Two songs were written on the first day the band worked with Watt and they became Dark Matter's Scared Of Fear and React, Respond – the former a Gossard idea. As a skilled producer and fan with a deep knowledge of the band's music and shows (he'd wear a different Pearl Jam tour t-shirt to sessions each day), Watt brought a different energy and encouraged the band to work together, and quickly. He'd also draw on his experience as a guitarist. 

"In the past, [Pearl Jam producer of albums including Vs and Vitalogy] Brendan O’Brien would help us with a chord or two every once in a while and be the outside ear," explains Gossard. "It’s hard because even if you hear that something’s not quite working, it’s better that it comes from somebody who’s not in the band. Andrew had a guitar on the whole time. We would all play together, and some of his playing is on the album. For the most part, he was feeling the song with us and experiencing it as it goes down. He loves our oddball, idiosyncratic things, but he also pushed us to get to the point, to be aggressive, to be ourselves and not shy away from who we are."

It sounds like one of the greatest examples of that will be the song Waiting For Stevie (inspired by Watt and Eddie waiting for Stevie Wonder to arrive to guest on Earthling). Gossard's description of this song is really going to get fans excited.  

"It has a riff that gives Matt Cameron the opportunity to be as great as we know him to be," reveals Gossard on the track that Spin thinks sounds like a callback to the band's early 90s Singles contributions State Of Love And Trust and Breath. "I think that drum fill coming out of the bridge is probably one of the greatest drum fills of all time. There’s just no way you can’t make the Mötley Crüe sign. I love that song."

The Mötley Crüe reference is somewhat eyebrow-raising in light of Eddie Vedder's 2022 comments about the LA band, but Gossard has gone on record to say he bought their debut album when it came out. Anyway, we digress…  

"It’s the way the bass line and the guitar line play against each other melodically," Gossard adds of the track he thinks sounds more like "almost a tribute to Soundgarden. "To me, it feels kind of like a hit, you know what I mean? I’ll be curious if it where it ends up sitting in the pantheon of favorites among Pearl Jam fans."

Now that's what we call hyping a song! Gossard clearly enjoyed the more intense style of working that the band had with Watt – "We were scrambling and burning the candle on both ends, but it was also fucking great," he tells Spin. He also didn't need to bring anything for the first session of recording.

"Andrew is a guitar collector, so everything you could ever want to try to play is there," enthuses Gossard. "You’re diving in headfirst to a new situation that you’re excited about because one, Ed’s excited about it. And two, you don’t know Andrew or anything about him, but it’s different. What’s the worst that can happen? It doesn’t work out, or it shakes something different loose."

Things went so well, the guitarist he's not ruling out another record helmed by Watt. "I personally think that the experience of working with Andrew was fantastic and I would love another shot at making a record with him," reveals Gossard. "The chemistry we had and continue to have with him is something worth exploring. He’s an astronaut. He likes to go out and try different ideas, but he also has a great sensitivity to the things he loves about this band, and will let us know if we’re not moving in a direction that feels authentic."

Read the full interview at Spin. 

• Classic interview: Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard on Brad, Bigsbys, Chris Cornell and being "the luckiest man in rock"

Pearl Jam's 1991 debut album Ten captures a magical time for a new band with a previously unknown vocalist. Eddie Vedder wrote the lyrics and melodies to guitarist Stone Gossard's Alive and Once back in San Diego before he ever met the rest of the band. He came up with the haunting closer Release on the spot as Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament, guitarist Mike McCready and then-drummer Dave Krusen jammed the music in a Seattle rehearsal room. But the way the song Oceans came about is perhaps the most unusual of all.

The band that would become Pearl Jam – they played shows and an 11-date 1991 US tour as Mookie Blaylock before a name change – played their first rehearsals together after Vedder arrived in Seattle to meet them for the first time on 8 October 1990. The singer was picked up by Stone Gossard from the airport and had already requested to be taken straight to rehearsal: "I don't want to fuck around," said the singer, eager to prove himself to the others. Even so, their first week together in the basement of Galleria Potatohead before Vedder returned to his job as a gas station attendant in San Diego yielded staggering results.  

Pearl Jam's book Pearl Jam 20 tells us the Ten and future b-side and outtake songs Black, Breath, Alone, Just A Girl, Oceans and Release were all worked on in those first few days – in addition to Alive, Once and Footsteps from the first tape of Gossard songs Vedder had been sent to provide vocals for as an audition. The recordings above claiming to be from their first week of rehearsals attest to this. 

On October 13 the band recorded demos for Even Flow, Once, Breath, Alive, Goat, Just A Girl, Alone, Black and future Ten cut Oceans. And the ideas for what would become fan-favourite Yellow Ledbetter and second album rocker Animal. The chemistry was off the charts but even by Pearl Jam standards, Oceans being written with Vedder while the singer was locked outside in the rain is almost supernatural.

Things are a little strange on the timeline side of this song too. While the Pearl Jam 20 book clearly states Oceans was in the mix as a song early on in October, in Mojo magazine's new cover feature on the band, acclaimed writer David Fricke suggests it was written after Vedder had moved up to Seattle permanently, which the book dates as December 1990. Whatever the specifics, Eddie Vedder's memory of writing it is clear in the Mojo piece.

The singer says had gone out to put quarters in the parking meter outside the band's rehearsal space and in true Seattle style, it was raining. The rehearsal building door had slammed behind him and he was locked out, but the band carried on playing without him and couldn't hear Vedder pounding on the door and shouting to be let in. They were playing music former Mother Love Bone and Green River bandmates Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament had brought in to work up.

"The only thing I could hear coming through the window was the bass," Vedder tells Fricke. "I just sat there and wrote."

Ament's distinctive fretless bass melody on the song is a vital vein running through the ethereal track, and Vedder followed its wave because it was all he had to go on in the freezing Seattle rain, giving it a sense of space and a meditative atmosphere after the dark anthem Jeremy in the Ten tracklisting. It also became one of the 1991 debut album's four singles alongside Alive, Even Flow and Jeremy. 

After the music finally stopped and Vedder's banging was at last heard he came in and got to work with the others. "I said, 'Roll that thing again. And that was the song," he recalls with Fricke. 

While the scenario tells of self-confidence and an early faith in each other, it's not quite the full picture. In the same interview, the singer talks about his uncertainty in his first live audition with the band. 

"I remember after I did my best to sing the shit out of a song, Jeff and Stone would talk to Dave Krusen behind the kit about a tempo thing or a mike thing," remembers Vedder. "I'd go, What about me? What about me? 'Yeah just keep doing what you're doing' [they responded]. 

"I felt like I was hanging by a thread, needing some confidence – 'Oh my god, that's incredible'. None of that, " reveals the singer. "I hung in there. And weird magic started to happen."

But Vedder had soon won over Seattle's greatest rock voice. Not only did Chris Cornell invite the then-unknown to feature on Temple Of The Dog's duet Hunger Strike with him, three months before Ten was released, he was completely convinced of Vedder's abilities when he saw Mookie Blaylock's first-ever live show at Seattle's Off Ramp on 22 October 1990.

"It definitely to this day was absolutely the best inaugural show I've ever seen in my life, Hands down, no comparison" Cornell remembered in Pearl Jam 20. "And it has nothing to do with my perception of how great they are as a live band now. 

"I remember exactly what I was thinking then, and it was that they were absurdly great," Cornell added. 

Footage of that first show above confirms Oceans was absent from the eight-song setlist that saw a notably slower version of Even Flow performed than what would become a high-energy live staple, so maybe the book was mistaken about how early Oceans was written. Either way, it's a lightning-in-a-bottle moment from a magical time when Pearl Jam's musicians seemed to be able to summon them at will. 

• Find out more about the new issue of Mojo here. Pearl Jam's new album Dark Matter is released 19 April 2024.

If the title track is a sign of things to come, Pearl Jam are firing on all cylinders on forthcoming album Dark Matter – out on 19 April. Whether it's working with uber fan/producer Andrew Watt or a general sense that they need to reclaim some of their old calling cards, Eddie Vedder and the band sound urgent and hungry on the new single.

Guitarist Mike McCready follows through on his preview of the album he gave us last year with his spotlight guitar solo that raises the intensity through the outro like a firebrand, and Matt Cameron moves into the Soundgarden intensity and meters that will delight fans. There are even touches of Pearl Jam's second album Vs about Vedder's chorus and the rhythmic syncopation on a song coming on like a furious indictment of injustice. Quite a universal theme, eh.

“I’m getting chills, because I have good memories. We’re still looking for ways to communicate," Vedder told an invited audience at LA's Troubadour venue earlier this month. We’re at this time in our lives when you could do it or you could not do it, but we still care about putting something out there that is meaningful and we hopefully think is our best work. No hyperbole, I think this is our best work.”

Bandmate, bassist Jeff Ament, was equally effusive about Dark Matter: “What Ed said about getting us in a room at this point, we felt like we were about to make a really important record," he said to the Troubadour audience. "A lot of that had to do with the atmosphere Andrew set up. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of our history, not only as a band and how we wrote songs, but as players. He could pinpoint things we did on old songs to the point where I was like, ‘What the fuck is he talking about?’ 

"His excitement was contagious," added Ament. "He’s a force. I just want to say thanks for keeping us on track. I couldn’t be prouder of us as a band. I feel so grateful for the fans, but mostly for my brothers and these people I’ve made music with.”

It all bodes very well for the forthcoming  US and UK tour dates the band have plotted for 2024, but the rub is significant. The prices for tickets to see them have soared since their last European run. And I don't say that lightly – as a PJ fan who always endeavoured to see them at least once on their UK dates, I don't think I can afford to see Pearl Jam live anymore.

We've already written about how and why the costs of touring have soared, especially for bands playing venues like Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London and the – not even opened yet – Manchester AO Arena. Freight, tour bus hire, insurance – it's all gone up post-COVID significantly. Even so, the increase being reported for Pearl Jam's tickets is surprisingly high to me as a fan, and reflective of the kind of worrying trend we're seeing with some other acts. But not all – as a comparison, tickets for Foo Fighters 2024 stadium tour in June 2024 were priced between £84.40 for standing and between £56.25-£106.80 for seated. 

That's a lot less than the prices we're now seeing for Pearl Jam's 2024 UK tour dates in July. 

A circa £90 ticket a fan would have paid for Pearl Jam's  2022 Hyde Park gigs – that also featured an afternoon of acts on two stages including the Pixies and Johnny Marr – now falls in stark contrast to the £157.75 (+£2.75 handling fee per transaction) per ticket for reserving a standing or seating ticket via the band's Ten Club when the band played the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that Guns N' Roses visited in July 2022.

Manchester is even higher: £160.50 (+£2.50 handling fee per transaction)

Ten Club provides the only way to secure the earliest access to tickets, with a few thousand of the fans applying for standing ticket reservations even getting access to the 'Reserved' area. I'm assuming this refers to the 'golden circle' Ten Club-only area nearest to the front. 

For that kind of access at the front of the stage, the premium price starts to look less steep. Except a standing ticket isn't even guaranteed – let alone one in a reserved area. You could pay £160 and be allocated a ticket sat far back on the left or right side of the venue – not so good. A Ten Club members' likelihood to getting that better access is then dependent on how long they've been a paid-up fan club member. But what about the general sale? 

Ten Club prices are usually reflective of the general onsale prices that come later. Ticketmaster is handling these sales through a kind of lottery system where registered users indicate the show they'd like to attend and wait to see if they're selected to be offered tickets to buy when the time comes. 

Demand is very high for Pearl Jam – they play less dates now, but in bigger venues on tour and their unique setlists every night have earned them a justified reputation as a very special band to see – they really are one of the great live rock bands of our time. 

I don't know what number I had in my head for a ticket price, but it certainly wasn't this high. When I saw Tool at the Resorts Arena in Birmingham (seated and not very close to the stage) in 2022 it was £87.50 (inc fees), and I remember feeling after transport costs I was nearing to an uncomfortable place for me in terms of costs. Contrary to what some people may assume, music writers (especially those outside London like me) are not showered in guestlist invitations to big shows. Or maybe I'm just not very well-liked… 

In Pearl Jam's defence, their own 2022 dates had already been postponed a couple of times due to the pandemic. So fans in the UK were essentially paying 2020 prices when the Hyde Park make-up dates were announced. The band has also set out the ways in which it's trying to making pricing clearer and scalping very difficult (in the US at least) for their 2024 tour.

Detailing the arrangements I mentioned above, the band's press release for the album and tour stated that tickets would only be available via two methods:

"1. A Ten Club members-only presale will be held through Ticketmaster Request for eligible members. Only paid Ten Club members active as of Monday, February 12 are eligible to participate in this presale. More info at pearljam.com

"2. Fans can register for a chance to participate in the Dark Matter World Tour 2024 registration sale at shops.ticketmasterpartners.com/pearl-jam by Sunday, February 18 at 11:59 PM local time for Europe, UK, Australia and New Zealand shows and by Sunday, February 18 at 11:59 pm PT for North America shows. This will be the only way for fans to participate in the onsale. Registration does not guarantee access to the sale. 

"The tour will use all-in pricing across all North America, Europe and UK shows to ensure the ticket price listed is the full out-of-pocket price inclusive of fees."

For those looking to sell tickets for a profit once the shows sell out – and they will sell out – Pearl Jam has news for North American resellers:

"For fans in North America who can’t use their tickets, Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster will offer a Fan-to-Fan Face Value Ticket Exchange beginning at a later date to give fans the best chance to buy tickets at face value," it states. "To help protect the Exchange, Pearl Jam has also chosen to make tickets for this tour mobile only and restricted from transfer. This applies to all shows except those in Illinois and New York where non-transferability is prohibited by law. You must have a valid bank account or debit card within the country of the event(s) in order to sell through the Fan-to-Fan Face Value Ticket Exchange."

This is a positive step – keeping tickets in fans' hands, but with no European steps set out things could be bleaker this side of the Atlantic. But the key issue here is more the face value cost - something the Cure's Robert Smith publically took Ticketmaster to task on last year ahead of the band's US tour, successfully lowering the costs of some tickets, in addition to getting some refunds on fees he called "unduly high". Some Cure tickets were sold as low as $20 face value. 

With fans on the Pearl Jam official forum posting confirmations of over €660 for two tickets to see the band on some Europan dates, I'm left wondering just how we got to such a costly place so fast. 

I'm conscious of sounding like an old man shouting at an icloud here but back in 2000, I paid £17.50 to see Pearl Jam at the Cardiff International Arena on their Binaural tour… it seems almost a fantasy era now. Prices go up over time – we all know this, but the rises have really leaped in recent years, making the concept of inflation just an absurd idea. The £47 I just paid for a Jason Isbell ticket in Bristol – with his rig of high-end gear shipped over from the US – seems like an absolute bargain now. 

So I'll probably be sitting out this one - though honestly I'm writing that with gritted teeth because I thought it would be a no-brainer to at least try for tickets. I will enjoy the new album and my memories of seeing the band in places like the Astoria and Shepherds Bush Empire in London. I know I've been fortunate – and I never take it for granted that I've even got to interview members of the band – but how many people who haven't seen Pearl Jam live are now completely priced out? Add in a train ticket, a budget hotel and your food and drink… UK fans' costs to see Pearl Jam in their own country are heading towards the cost of a weekend city break in mainland Europe! Seeing some established, successful bands is becoming something for the financially privileged. 

How many young musicians are missing out on the inspiration of seeing such iconic bands because they simply can't afford it? Gigs can plant a seed in the musicians of tomorrow - we know because so many of today's greats talk about life-changing performances they saw when they were young. There doesn't even seem to be such a thing as cheap seats for these gigs for more people to have access to that kind of moment. 

Those who can afford it will get to see one of the best live rock bands out there right now – one of the last Seattle greats still out there. And who knows, with the band's UK dates sitting very close to the 2024 Glastonbury festival I may even be able to vicariously enjoy a set via the BBC's live coverage with a beer in a paper cup in my hand, but it will be with a tinge of sadness.

• 5 key songs guitarists need to hear by… Pearl Jam

Mike McCready has issued an update on Pearl Jam’s new studio album and shared some details that suggest it is going to be worth the wait, promising a sound that has the “melody and energy” of the Seattle rock institution’s seminal first two albums – and a lot of lead guitar coming out of that Fender Stratocaster of his.

In a recent interview with Louder, McCready said the album, which is as yet untitled, might take some people by surprise – “It’s a lot heavier than you’d expect,” he said. He also suggested it is all but done, saying that a number of tracks had been recorded and in comparison to Gigaton, it took no time at all to record, thanks in no small part to producer Andrew Watt’s motivational talents. 

Watt, who recently produced the Rolling Stones' new studio album, Hackney Diamonds, asked them to play harder and more melodic. But by the sounds of it the biggest thing was him getting the band to get in the room, get down to business and actually record this stuff.

“He really kicked our asses, got us focused and playing, song after song,” said McCready. “It took a long time to make Gigaton, but this new one didn’t take long. Andrew was like: ‘You guys take forever to make records. Let’s do this, right now.’” 

That is exactly what they did, and with all this carpe diem energy quickening pulses in the studio, that jarred some things loose, namely McCready’s lead chops, which he says are unbound on the record, and are reminiscent of the sort of thing he was coming out with in the early days.

“For better or worse, you’re gonna hear a lot more lead guitar from me, stuff I haven’t done in a long time,” he said. “I went crazy, like with Chris Cornell and Temple Of The Dog on Reach Down, all those years ago. I got to do it again. Usually the first or second takes are best. After that I start thinking about it and it doesn’t have the feel. But Andrew caught the lightning in a bottle, as they say.”

Watt came to prominence working with pop heavyweights such as Justin Bieber, Post Malone and Rita Ora, but he is quickly establishing a reputation as rock’s go-to producer whenever a blue-chip band needs someone to realign their chakras and get something special cooking. 

It was Watt whom Blink-182 looked to in 2019 for Nine. Watt has collaborated with Ozzy Osborne on two studio albums, worked with Iggy Pop, and previously with Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder on his 2022 solo album, Earthling.

Speaking to MusicRadar in September 2023, McCready said Watt was a great player in his own right, and pushed him accordingly in the studio. 

“Andrew Watt is known as a giant pop producer guy but he’s a great guitar player,” said McCready. “He comes from rock, that's where he cut his teeth. He loves our band, I think we're his favourite band – I know we are. He’s told us.

He pushed me in a direction for this latest album that we've done with him, that we're still doing, to do more leads – I'm doing leads on almost every song. And that hasn’t been the case with Pearl Jam for a long time. If anything there’s been songs [where’s it’s been], ‘Don't put a lead on it’ and sometimes I go, ‘Well f*** I want to do a lead’, it’s sad. And sometimes it makes sense to not have one but it’s kind of what I’m the best at. So I missed it for a few years, and a lot of records.

"So Andrew went completely crazy and said, ‘You’re putting a lead of every single song’ and some of them have two. And that’s what’s happened and it’s been really fun to do that again because it’s given me the freedom to express myself where I haven’t been for the last couple of records.”

It’s not just McCready who has been on the receiving end of Watt’s studio coaching. He told Matt Cameron that he wanted to hear some of the harder hitting style of his Soundgarden work.

“He kicked us to record quickly, got Matt Cameron to play more like he did in Soundgarden, in my mind,” said McCready. “Matt Cameron’s pushing this thing and it makes it sound more powerful than anything we’ve done in a long time.”

Who can say when we will hear it. But McCready will be keeping himself busy until the Pearl Jam machine gears up for an album release, tour info and all that jazz. He is also working on the score for a Beach Boys documentary and is writing a rock opera about the Seattle scene. 

“It’s going to be fictional – historical fiction, a lot of music, and I’ve written a script for it,” he said. “So I'm working very hard on that right now.”

• Interview: Mike McCready on road testing his new signature Mexican Strat at Pearl Jam shows, their next album and why he's still learning Eddie Van Halen's Eruption

Fender Mike McCready Stratocaster: What is it?

The most expensive Mexican Fender electric guitar currently available, and also the most heavily-relic'd Road Worn guitar: the Mike McCready Strat is nitroglycerin for internet forum debate. It's also an attempt to recreate the 1960 Strat that saw a $15,000 Custom Shop model greeted with a sigh of resignation from Pearl Jam fans. Fender can't win, can they? But I, for one, welcome this, and it has nothing to do with my Pearl Jam fan credentials. This is ambitious stuff – and it could herald a whole new era of signature model guitars. If it's a success.

Mike McCready spent 30 years believing he owned a 1959 Fender Stratocaster. The perfect pairing with his 'King Of Kings' Les Paul from the same year, he has used in on every Pearl Jam record after 1992's Ten and around 1,000 live shows and counting. The band's techs discovered the truth before he knew, eventually being forced to break the news to him that it was in fact a 1960 model when the signature model process ramped up and things got forensic.

"I should have known better because I'd played '59s besides mine and the necks were always bigger, more kind of baseball bat-like," he told MusicRadar earlier this year. But I never put that together with mine. I was like, 'Oh, mine just has a thinner neck'. 

The neck is another matter I'll get to in due course, but McCready's involvement in this version of his Strat went to the point of prototype and even recent final model testing at Pearl Jam shows. 

"I wanted to make sure I was playing this thing live so I could have the confidence to go, 'Oh yeah it's something that's worth buying'. I played it on Indifference, I played it on [Yellow] Ledbetter, Daughter… I've played it on six other songs. Strat-type songs, just to see if it can hold up to what my real 1960 does. And it does."

McCready is far too long into a successful and uncompromising career to reel out stock platitudes for a guitar he's only kind-of backing. "The original sounds the best, I'm not gonna lie, because that's the original, but this one is right next to that," he told me. Expectations are understandably high, and now I have the Ensenada-made Mike McCready Strat in my hands so let's get started…  

Fender Mike McCready Stratocaster: Performance and verdict

The leaps from anything we've previously seen on a Road  Worn guitar previously can't be overstated here. By this I mean the sheer scale of the artificial wear here to attempt to recreate the look of McCready's original. It's significant, and it will be too much for even those who are even onboard with the whole artificial aging thing. 

That's understandable – there is a lot of finish 'worn' away here. It's a very heavy relic. The first thing I should say if you've never seen a Road Worn Fender up close is to temper your expectations; don't go looking for Murphy Lab patina as you'll come away disappointed. From a distance it has all the markings of a guitar with decades of play under what's left of its nitrocellulose, but a closer looks reveals areas where the Road Worn ambition may be reaching its feasible limits. 

There are chips, dinks and yellow stains in the bare alder aplenty… and it looks like something had a chew on the lower bout. Every inch of this guitar's body has been aged in some way – and it looks like a time-consuming process to echo McCready's original. It's a strange feeling to pick it up; I know I'm holding a 'new' guitar and yet, I start to forget. As long as I don't look too closely. The lighter aging of the hardware is subtle but there are areas of this guitar's finish that just don't look close enough to being aged in a way that doesn't look fake.

Fender has an unenviable task with the relicing challenge; it needs to replicate the same areas and shaping of wear on McCready's guitar. That's a lot for a production line guitar and the larger and more pronounced these areas of the finish (or lack of it) are, the more the limitations of the factory process are exposed for me. Rather than a softer contrast between the finish and thinly stained alder of the upper bout above the pickguard and the back's lower bout, it looks more akin to the hard jagged edges of a map's coastline. 

Clearly, relic'ing is a fine art and you have to pay a high Custom Shop price for a nuanced aesthetic. Whereas the more lightly-aged approach of the Vintera Road Worn models is much more successful because sometimes less is more… convincing. 

Playing it over time will hopefully blur the edges more and add to the character. To critique the scale of relic'ing here feels unfair considering the guitar it's based on but obviously, don't expect this to look like the real thing. Approximation is the keyword. Either way, you won't have that horrible 'first knock' experience here as you'll struggle to find evidence of it. 

But moreover, there's much more to say about this guitar that's hugely positive. 

The look of relic'ing is often the only thing its detractors will focus on, but that played-in feel I mentioned is a huge draw for many players. The neck is where that can be felt most. It's impressed before in Fender Road Worn line and here it looks as good as it feels.

The aged white dot fret markers have a clay look to immediately conjure the vintage era vibe, but the look of ingrained wear and staining is complemented by a smooth feel that's far more than a steel wool treatment. It feels like a neck that's had decades of play, and really gives you a ticket into a realm of guitars few of us can usually afford or even try. 

"The 1960 Strats have a thinner-type neck, and I have small hands so that's easier to play for me," McCready told me. Fender calls it a Slim C, and it really is, especially coming from modern spec'd Strats. Thinner than what you may think a '60 Strat would have. And it combines, or helps to create, the feeling of a flatter 9.5" radius than I would have expected. I don't have long fingers or particularly large hands – I gravitate to Mustangs – but it feels like the slightest Strat neck I have encountered. It's based on McCready's neck after all, but fans of more contemporary Fender C-shape necks really need to try before they buy. But make you give it time if you do…

Because it's well worth spending time with. "I like guitars that play like they're old," McCready said. "That's what I gravitate towards. And they have to play good the first time I play him or they never get better for me. And this one does that for me."

Well full marks on the first, but the second one may take more time for other players – we're all different, after all. But you don't grapple with this guitar, the neck profile rewards a light touch, especially with the low action here (1.30mm from the low E, 1.20mm from the high E]. It reveals itself as a distinct and rewarding playing experience. 

In terms of build, our test model is good. My fret rocker reveals no troublesome high spots of note, though the rosewood looks like it really needs a drink – that would likely darken it nicely. There are no sharp fret edges and the 'board edges feel rolled. Weight is about the norm these days at 7.8lbs – pretty standard for an alder Strat but I prefer them lighter myself. And it has a good balance so it doesn't quite even feel that weight anyway to me. 

Plugging in for a ticket to a golden era of Fender turns out to be exactly as I'd hoped. McCready insisted the pickups had to be as close to his originals as the company could get, and we'll take his word for it because what is clear is this is a really great-sounding vintage-voiced Strat. 

Fender needs to start selling these pickups for the rest of us. They're wonderfully balanced and it really benefits the combination positions two and four that McCready often goes to (hear Mad Season's River Of Deceit) with a bridge that sears without ever sounding thin and is my favorite contemporary Strat example I can recall. 

The muscular, but slightly chambered feel of the middle position reminds me it's such an unheralded secret weapon on the Strat and a neck pickup that's a lovely equilibrium between warm girth and woody definition. I found myself moving around the voices much more than I unusually do with a Strat because that bridge pickup feels so well-voiced and the treble bleed cap included here pays dividends when controlling the gain through a Marshall Plexi and Fender Deluxe Reverb.   

The only change I'd make is the simple mod to add the tone control to the bridge pickup, just for extra scope because… why not have more at your disposal? But needless to say, I can see why Mr McCready was so happy to test this signature model with the band. And by this point I was really bonding with the neck and the easy chord voicings it afforded my hand… just as I have to send the guitar back. Such is the life of a reviewer. 

It's very easy to let the relic'ing become the headline story here, but this is the best sounding Mexican-made Strat I have played from Fender. It's a real heart-stealer and reflects a process of input from a player and his tech who intimately know the blueprint it's based on. My experience with the neck surprised me; my initial fears that it was too thin for my tastes faded from just playing it and letting it inform my approaches. 

And that's the thing about preconceptions; they can be washed away by experiences.  For fans this is the closest they'll get to McCready's trusted stead for realistic money. And for what it's worth, the guitarist had hoped to offer it to them even cheaper, but the balance of the standards required to deliver the guitar worthy have resulted in the most expensive Mexican Strat available at time of writing. But it's a recreation of a 1960 model most of us will never get to play of an example of. And it really does sound and play incredibly well. It also feels great. 

The sticking point for some will be the body relic'ing. Not the amount – that's a given for this specific signature guitar. But some of it is somewhat jarring on closer look, and that could give pause to potential investors. Which is a shame. But I'm excited about the future; what other signature models can be brought within reach of more players with Road Worn treatment? Because the quality of tones and playing experience here suggests great things ahead for Ensenada-made guitars. 

MusicRadar verdict: A wonderful playing and sounding '60 Strat – all parties should be proud. The caveat though is some of the relicing, that suggests there are limits to what the Road Worn series can deliver. 

Fender Mike McCready Stratocaster: Hands-on demos

Fender (featuring Mike McCready)

The Music Zoo

Mooloolaba Music

Fender Mike McCready Stratocaster: Specifications

• TYPE: Solid-body electric, made in Mexico
• BODY: Alder, Road Worn nitrocellulose lacquer 
• NECK: Maple, Slim C
• SCALE: 25.5”
• FINGERBOARD: Slab rosewood, 9.5" radius 
• FRETS: 21, Jescar Medium Vintage 
• NUT Bone, 42mm
• STRING SPACING: 54mm
• ELECTRICS: 3x Custom Mike McCready '60s Single-Coil Strat, Treble Bleed Circuit
• CONTROLS:  Master volume, Tone 1 (neck pickup), Tone 2 (middle pickup)
• HARDWARE: Six-saddle Vintage-Style Synchronized Tremolo with Bent Steel Saddles, Fender Vintage-Style tuners, 
• WEIGHT: 7.8lbs / 3.5kg
• CASE: Deluxe Brown hardshell
• FINISH: Road Worn 3-Colour Sunburst, 3-ply Mint Green pickguard 
• CONTACT: Fender

Chris Shiftlett's Shred With Shifty podcast has already featured its fair share of guitar heroes – Alex Lifeson, Richie Sambora and even a gear revelation from Weezer's Rivers Cuomo. But now it's time for one of the all-time greatest guitar solos with Pearl Jam's Alive. Fortunately, Mike McCready is on hand with his '60 Strat (or is it his new signature model?) to talk Shiflett through it, but before he does the Foo Fighters guitarist wants him to demonstrate the famous riff that starts Alive first. There's just one problem…

McCready doesn't know how to play it. 

"Stone [Gossard] does that so I don't know how to do it," he responds. He then attempts to play it on the spot to prove it, before finding something close. "That's the first time I've ever played it," he reveals. 

Before we get judgemental, McCready has never had to learn it because that's not his part – he comes in with Hendrixy A to Asus4 chords with the rhythm section. Even Shiflett admits that he "feels like he's played it wrong it wrong every time he's tried to play it." To be fair, I have a similar feeling with it too. 

Nevertheless, Shiflett ends up demonstrating the riff to Alive for Pearl Jam's guitarist. A surreal moment. "I can't wait to tell Stone I've almost figured his riff out on your podcast," laughs McCready. But when it comes to the solo there's no messing around.

"I don't do the solo the same live all the time," McCready notes. But he does a grand job of teaching Shiflett and the rest of us the ket phrases from an iconic guitar break, that nods to McCready's own childhood guitar hero, Ace Frehley. 

Check out the full video above. 

• Interview: Mike McCready on road testing his new signature Mexican Strat at Pearl Jam shows, their next album and why he's still learning Eddie Van Halen's Eruption

While we'd certainly expect Mike McCready to have taken an example of his 2021 Custom Shop signature Strat on tour alongside his longtime favourite 1960 model, we're pleased to hear from him that he took the testing stage of his new Mexican-made Roadworn version very seriously. He didn't just try the prototypes at Pearl Jam shows last year, but he's been using the finished article at the band's US shows in the last few weeks.

"I wanted to make sure I was playing this thing live so I could have the confidence to go, 'Oh yeah it's something that's worth buying'," McCready told us in a new interview. "I played it on Indifference, I played it on [Yellow] Ledbetter, Daughter… I've played it on six other songs. Strat-type songs, just to see if it can hold up to what my real 1960 does. And it does."

We've scoured fan-filmed footage of those songs at recent gigs to get the ultimate demo of this Road Worn Strat in action – and if he's using it on the specific songs he mentioned, it certainly delivers the goods. Yes, it obviously helps McCready is playing it, and in the context of the band too.

Above we have McCready and the band on 31 August in Minnesota engrossed in full Hendrix Strat mode with the new signature model on fan-favourite b-side (and frequent show closer) Yellow Ledbetter. And below we have McCready seated with the Strat to play Vs album fave Daughter from the first of two gigs in Fort Worth Texas on 13 September.

The band still have two more Texas shows to play in Austin on 18 and 19 where the Strat might have another outing. And while McCready looked to be using his '59 Burst to play the song Indifference on 13 September, it looks like he used the Road Worn '60 signature to play a sit-down version with the band in St Paul Minnesota on 31August.

Changing things up with guitar choices in the set or studio isn't uncommon for McCready. "As a band, I don't want everybody playing the same type of guitar because it's gonna sound too samey, and that's not good," he said. "So Stone [Gossard] will play a Les Paul, I'll play a Strat. Stone will play a Strat, I'll play a Les Paul – I'll mix it up."

McCready also mixed things up when his latest signature model entered the prototype testing stage last year and he took different versions to Europe for shows with Pearl Jam.

"Last year when I was touring in Europe we had about three prototypes of this Fender going and I was playing them there to [judge]," he confirmed to MusicRadar. "[I'd say] 'The pickups aren't right on this one but on this one they're a little bit better, and that's not as good a neck but it's good on this one', so we ended up working with Fender very quickly, they're very easy to work with. We ended up [combining] those three together and that's what we have now. It's the one out of those three."

The guitarist isn't hyperbolic enough to claim the $1,900 version of his heavily worn 1960 Strat is better, but he's clearly very, very happy with how close Fender's Enseñada factory has been able to get.

"The relic'ing of it is kind of fascinating to me," McCready told us. "I don't know how they do it. They don't tell me. I'm assuming there are a lot of secret methods. So it's kind of like alchemy in this interesting way to me that they make it look that way. I love that they do that. But I like guitars that play like they're old. That's what I gravitate towards. And they have to play good the first time I play him or they never get better for me. And this one does that for me. That was huge for me."

And it's obviously not just about look and played-in feel, it has to sound like the original too.

"The pickups had to sound as close as they possibly could to the ones on my 1960 original," added McCready. "The original sounds the best, I'm not gonna lie, because that's the original, but this one is right next to that."

Read our full interview with Mike McCready. 

If Mike McCready's Strat looks like it's seen some action then consider it was already 30 years old before he used it for over 1,000 Pearl Jam gigs and every studio album after 1991's Ten. For years he thought it was a 1959 model (McCready owns a few choice guitars from that year including a Les Paul 'Burst and even has a tattoo of the number 59) until his crew had to break the news it was actually a 1960 model. 

In 2021 the Fender Custom Shop painstakingly recreateda limited number of $15,000 versions of the guitar McCready has played fan favourites on since the early '90s, but now we have a model many more of those fans might actually be able to save for. Made in Fender's Mexican factor Ensenada, this Road Worn model is ambitious; recreating the wear to the Pearl Jam guitarist's exacting specifications in look and feel. Because nobody knows the original better. 

In the midst of a US tour with the band, we talked to Mike about the challenge and appeal of the new model, why the Strat is such an important instrument for him, and what's next for Pearl Jam and beyond. 

Ten years ago I spoke to you about the reissue of Mad Season's above and you mentioned that you'd spoken to Fender the year before, in 2012, about the possibility of a signature Strat. Even then you said it was really important to have a model more fans could afford, so this has been a long time coming. 

"A long time. I didn't realise it was that much of a long time coming but [Fender] put out the more expensive model a couple years ago, and that was very exciting and fun. But initially, along with that deal, I always wanted to do a model that was not as expensive so people could afford it. Because I remember what it was like to not be able to afford a guitar when I was a kid.

"I flipped burgers and saved up $600 to buy a Kramer Pacer over a year and a half. So I remember those days and initially, I wanted it to be cheaper than it is now. But then COVID happened, as we all know, and prices went up, and all these things that happened. But we've kept it as affordable as Fender can achieve. And it plays magnificently. I've been playing on the road and it sounds great."

You've been road-testing it at shows?

"I have been and since I was going to talk to you, Rob, I wanted to make sure I was playing this thing live so I could have the confidence to go, 'Oh yeah it's something that's worth buying'. I played it on Indifference, I played it on [Yellow] Ledbetter, Daughter… I've played it on six other songs. Strat-type songs, just to see if it can hold up to what my real 1960 does. And it does."

That's great to hear. This seems like the most ambitious electric guitar the Mexican factory has produced to date, and the appeal of a model based on an early '60s Strat obviously goes beyond your fans. What were the key features this version of the guitar had to get right for you?  

"The neck had to be perfect on it, and the finish on the back of it had to be kind of sanded down. I don't like tonnes of finish on the neck – my hands get stuck on it. So this one had to feel like playing a guitar of 30 years was like. So they accomplished that by sanding it and doing whatever magic they do to that. 

"The pickups had to sound as close as they possibly could to the ones on my 1960 original. The original sounds the best, I'm not gonna lie, because that's the original, but this one is right next to that.

"Last year when I was touring in Europe we had about three prototypes of this Fender going and I was playing them there to [judge], [I'd say] 'The pickups aren't right on this one but on this one they're a little bit better, and that's not as good a neck but it's good on this one', so we ended up working with Fender very quickly, they're very easy to work with. We ended up [combining] those three together and that's what we have now. It's the one out of those three."

I saw you play at Hyde Park in London over two nights last year so you were probably playing one then?

"You probably saw me play it on one of those nights or both. I'm sure I used it."

How does the fretboard radius on your Strat compare to other vintage examples of the same era that you've played?

"Initially, and this goes back to when I thought it was a 1959 for 30 years, and my crew and my tech didn't tell me this until we did this Fendor deal. So I always thought it was 1959 but I should have known better because I'd played '59s  besides mine and the necks were always bigger, more kind of baseball bat-like. But I never put that together with mine. I was like, 'Oh, mine just has a thinner neck'. 

"But the 1960 Strats have a thinner-type neck, and I have small hands so that's easier to play for me. I've played my 1960 model on probably 1000 shows. I've played it on every record, except for our first one, and it's just my go-to guitar. So this is an example of that go-to guitar, I hope – it feels like it to me."

Some guitar players disagree about relic'd guitars and the idea of artificially ageing but what often seems to get missed in the debate is not just about the way the guitar looks, but the way it feels. So this is a way of people getting close to how your Strat feels, not just looks. It feels played in.

"I wanted it to feel that way because that's those are my favourite guitars; the ones that have already been played and that people have used. So I was excited to go back and forth with Fender on it and go, 'No, the neck has to be a little bit this way or the finish has to be a little more looking this way'. And they were very receptive and quick to get back to me on that. George Webb who works for us as Jeff's [Ament] bass tech, but is also our warehouse guy, helped me go through the guitar minutely and look at it and say, 'Maybe this isn't right'… He's one of those guys that can see all that. I can't, I can see the overview [but] he saw the specifics.

"The relic'ing of it is kind of fascinating to me. I don't know how they do it. They don't tell me. I'm assuming there are a lot of secret methods. So it's kind of like alchemy in this interesting way to me that they make it look that way. I love that they do that. But I like guitars that play like they're old. That's what I gravitate towards. And they have to play good the first time I play him or they never get better for me. And this one does that for me. That was huge for me."

The new Strat has got the same chip in the headstock as yours too and there's some debate about how that occurred – could it have happened during the 1995 performance of November Hotel with Mad Season at the Moore Theatre in Seattle? 

"I don't think so. What happened at that one is I think that one was my 1962 black reissue that Stone and Jeff bought me right after we first started playing [in Pearl Jam] and I destroyed it that night, which I'm sad about because I don't have it anymore. It was one of the first in a long line of guitars that I was breaking back then. So that that was the 1962, that wasn't the '59, sorry, the '59/'60 at that time [the footage below suggests Mike might be mistaken on using the '62 reissue for November Hotel at the Moore and it looks to be his sunburst Strat he's playing during the performance]. 

"I had it [then], I probably played it at that at that show. I'm sure I played it on River Of Deceit. I did play that Strat on that song on the record, specifically for that out-of-phase pickup [position 2]. Along with every other Pearl Jam record, besides our first one, I'd played that one on. But the chip happened, I think, in a show in Los Angeles at the Forum. I forget… but 20 years ago I was trying to take out a speaker and I went right in, not to the speaker but right on the wood of the edge of it and it just chipped right off. And I went, 'Uh, why did I do that?' I immediately regretted it. But I never got it fixed because it was just part of the charm of it, I guess."

How do you tend to utilise the five pickup positions of the Strat live – like the bridge pickup, for example? 

"It's really important because when I'm playing and if I'm in the middle position and doing the rhythm part of a song, and then a lead happens, I kick it right into the treble [bridge pickup]. "I'm constantly moving back and forth, like very ADHD on my pickup selector. So a lot of times when a lead is about to happen, Even Flow is a good example, I'll flick it right to the most trebly [position], so it will come out screaming. I'm always looking for that high, screaming note. And that's generally on the treble pickup.

"When I got my first 1962 Strat, it only had three positions on it so I had Mike Lull, whose company we do our guitars with [Mike passed away in 2020], put a five-position [selector in] so I could get the two out-of-phase ones – I think they're still called out-of-phase. So I could get that sound for Ledbetter – the more creamy sound for Ledbetter and Alive. 

"I'm going back and forth on the five positions through all the songs and they're different every time. It's just kind of what I'm feeling. If I don't hear something, I go, 'Okay, I'm going to the next thing. Oh, there it is.' I'm chasing another sound."

When you're working with the band in the studio, and you're not sure where you're going to go with a track in terms of tones, is the Strat the guitar that you go for, because of those multiple options it gives you? 

"I think it's the one that I'm most comfortable with, that I've used the most. It's kind of the go-to. There are certain songs, if Stone [Gossard] is playing a Strat or Ed's [Vedder] playing a Strat, I'm probably not going to play a Strat on it, because I want to play something that's the opposite of what they're doing. 

"As a band, I don't want everybody playing the same type of guitar because it's gonna sound too samey, and that's not good. So Stone will play a Les Paul, I'll play a Strat. Stone will play a Strat, I'll play a Les Paul – I'll mix it up. Then Ed throws in something… ok, now what do we do? I always want it to be complimentary, and different sounding than the other guitars that are happening in my band. But to answer your question; yes, I will grab that one first."

I wanted to ask you about Andrew Watt, who you've been working with on a new album. He's a producer, but he's also a guitar player, and a massive fan of Pearl Jam, which must be an interesting combination.

"Andrew Watt is known as a giant pop producer guy but he's a great guitar player. He comes from rock, that's where he cut his teeth. He loves our band, I think we're his favourite band – I know we are. He's told us.

"He pushed me in a direction for this latest album that we've done with him, that we're still doing, to do more leads – I'm doing leads on almost every song. And that hasn't been the case with Pearl Jam for a long time. If anything there's been songs [where's it's been], 'Don't put a lead on it' and sometimes I go, 'Well f*** I want to do a lead', it's sad. And sometimes it makes sense to not have one but it's kind of what I'm the best at. So I missed it for a few years, and a lot of records.

"So Andrew went completely crazy and said, 'You're putting a lead of every single song' and some of them have two. And that's what's happened and it's been really fun to do that again because it's given me the freedom to express myself where I haven't been for the last couple of records.

"He kind of kicked our asses. He kicked us to record quickly, got Matt Cameron to play more like he did in Soundgarden, in my mind. Matt Cameron's pushing this thing and it makes it sound more powerful than anything we've done in a long time."

That's really good news to hear. Like Soundgarden were, you're a band where every member writes songs. Has that process of pleasing everyone and making everyone feel like they've brought something to the table on a record got easier over time or is it an ongoing challenge?

"I think it's always kind of a challenge. Because we all come in with a myriad of ideas – basically five to 10 demo ideas [each]. And one will get picked maybe from each one. And that's… you have to be kind of willing to let go and go, 'Well, maybe the next record I'll have a couple of songs on it. 

"I don't know if it's gotten easier. I just get excited when one of my songs gets picked, and so I have to look at it that way. I'm grateful that we all get to write in this band, because it could definitely not be that situation. There are a lot of bands where that doesn't happen. So I'm totally happy where I'm at in this band right now, and have been for the majority of my career. So I feel very lucky I can write songs."

Stone did an interview a few months back where he suggested the band were in the latter stages of recording this next album, but are you still in that process, as it were?

"I think we're still kind of in it right now. We're touring right now so we're kind of in tour mode playing our other songs and more of the Gigaton stuff. I feel like… it's not done yet, the Andrew Watt session stuff. And it will be, and we'll put it out next year for sure. I think it's getting close. But that I don't know for sure… it's not done per se. We don't have a name for it, we don't have artwork or anything."

Musically, what else have you personally got in the works?

"I'm always writing, I'm kind of slowly working on a project right now. Kind of a rock opera about the Seattle scene and what it was like when I was coming up in it and the characters that are in it. It's going to be fictional – historical fiction, a lot of music, and I've written a script for it. So I'm working very hard on that right now. 

"I'm working on a Beach Boys documentary, too, with this guy John Goodmonson who's a great engineer and producer. So that's doing some scoring and working on this other thing."

Wow – you're keeping busy!

"I always drink a lot of coffee!"

The last time I spoke to you, you said you were spending a lot of time playing and you'd learned Eruption, going deep into challenging yourself as a guitarist. 

"I'm still learning it! I mean, there's this one part of it, it's like halfway through, and it just frustrates me. I can't… he plays so interestingly, and classically motivated, that he's hitting these scales that I never learned because I was too lazy. So I'm trying to learn these notes that Eddie Van Halen played super fast and with the feeling and I'm still not there yet. I'm getting really close, and I'll never really get there. Because he has such a groove and apparently when he did that, he was just warming up and they were recording it, which is like, crazy. It's like, oh, that's what you sound like when you warm up? Wow! 

"I was lucky enough to see Eddie Van Halen four times in Seattle – with David Lee Roth in that era, and it was mind-blowing so it was always a dream of mine [to play it]. It was never a reality when I was a young player when I was 12, 13, 14, 15, or even into my 20s. And then finally YouTube came along, and there, guys have picked it note for note for note. There's this guy Marty Schwartz I love these. He's a great guy, but I need my YouTube guys to help me figure these things out.  Or I couldn't have."

It's great watching young players playing your solos – songs like Animal. The standard of players out there is unbelievable. 

"It's way higher now than it was when I was learning – when you had to put on a record and put the record back to learn part, or a tape and rewind it, and get it wrong. They're learning a lot quicker now. Which I'm happy about." 

• Find out more about the Fender Mike McCready Stratocaster at Fender

We recently talked to Mike McCready about his new signature Fender Strat based on his 1960 favourite that's clocked over 1,000 shows with him, as well as every Pearl Jam album apart from Ten. Check out the full interview here, but while we were there we just had to get some info about Pearl Jam's forthcoming album from him – and what he told us about the guitar and drum side of things is very good news indeed. And it seems their producer has been a catalyst.

"Andrew Watt is known as a giant pop producer guy but he's a great guitar player," McCready said about the Post Malone, Dua Lipa and Justin Bieber producer who first came on our radar as guitarist with California Breed with Glenn Hughes and Jason Bonham. "He comes from rock, that's where he cut his teeth. He loves our band, I think we're his favourite band – I know we are. He's told us."

So far McCready is echoing what bandmate Stone Gossard has previously revealed about working with Watt, but the guitarist revealed to us the effect Watt's presence in the studio had on him personally. And it sounds significant.

"He pushed me in a direction for this latest album that we've done with him, that we're still doing, to do more leads," added McCready. "I'm doing leads on almost every song. And that hasn't been the case with Pearl Jam for a long time. If anything there's been songs [where's it's been], 'Don't put a lead on it' and sometimes I go, 'Well f*** I want to do a lead', it's sad. And sometimes it makes sense to not have one but it's kind of what I'm the best at. So I missed it for a few years, and a lot of records.

"So Andrew went completely crazy and said, 'You're putting a lead of every single song' and some of them have two," McCready revealed to MusicRadar. "And that's what's happened and it's been really fun to do that again because it's given me the freedom to express myself where I haven't been for the last couple of records."

McCready also dispelled to us any idea that uber fan Watt's reverence for the band would mean he shied away from being a taskmaster – and revealed tantalising news on the drum side of things.

"He kind of kicked our asses," he admitted. "He kicked us to record quickly, got Matt Cameron to play more like he did in Soundgarden, in my mind. Matt Cameron's pushing this thing and it makes it sound more powerful than anything we've done in a long time.  

Ok, now we're properly excited. But the album isn't done, and Pearl Jam are now back on the road for US dates. When Stone Gossard spoke about the album a few months ago he suggested they were nearing the end of the process then, but that was soon tempered to some degree by bandmate and bassist Jeff Ament, who revealed the band were taking the summer off and hinted they still had plenty of work to do. So when can we expect it?

"I think we're still kind of in it right now," McCready explained to us. "We're touring right now so we're kind of in tour mode playing our other songs and more of the Gigaton stuff. I feel like… it's not done yet, the Andrew Watt session stuff. And it will be, and we'll put it out next year for sure. I think it's getting close. But that I don't know for sure… it's not done per se. We don't have a name for it, we don't have artwork or anything."

Like the signature Strat, it sounds like this is going to be something worth waiting for. Look out for our full interview with Mike McCready soon where he reveals more about the process of developing this version of the Strat with Fender, and what other musical plans he has on the horizon outside of Pearl Jam.  

• The new relic'd Mike McCready Strat is the most ambitious Mexican Fender guitar to date

If you were disappointed with the $15,000 price tag that was attached to the Mike McCready Custom Shop 1960 Strat in 2021, we have some great news. Fender has a Mexican Roadworn version that is much, much cheaper and it's the most ambitious relic from the Esenada factory yet.

Mike McCready's 1960 Strat looms large in his and Pearl Jam's history; it's clocked around 1,000 performances in his hands with the Seattle band, creating glorious sonic runs on Even Flow. It's shown up frequently both onstage and on every Pearl Jam record since second album Vs, it was also the guitarist's key instrument for his 1995 Mad Season project alongside late Alice In Chains vocalist Layne Staley. It's part of his musical DNA, but the appeal of this guitar should extend to anyone looking for a '60s-inspired relic Strat. 

As far back as 2013, McCready told this writer that he had been in discussions with Fender and stated early on how important an affordable model was to him; now it's delivered and seems to be as close as the company can get while keeping the price sub-$2,000. Even though there's no getting around this as the priciest Mexican-made Fender guitar to date, above the Jason Isbell Road Worn Telecaster. 

"The thing that stands out for this Fender initially which is super important to me is the feel of the neck, and it feels identical to my original one," notes McCready. It even looks like it, so the wear pattern on it – how there's not a ton of finish on it. It feels like it's been played a million times. The frets feel great when I go across time. That's a super important part for me."

High praise; because something the critics of relic'ing often miss is that it's a feel thing as much as a cosmetic experience. But this also has the headstock damage McCready sustained in an unspecified stage incident – we're going to wager it could have been near the end of the Mad Season's 1995 Moore Theatre show performance of November Hotel above, and McCready hasn't ruled that out either. Pearl Jam's firebrand hasn't mellowed with age in that regard. 

To match McCready's guitar, the 'slim' C-shape neck also features a 9.5" fretboard radius that is slightly flatter than Fender's usual vintage-style. And by the way, that's a rosewood slab 'board. Lovely stuff! 

The nitro-finished Road Worn Sunburst alder body guitar looks and feels the part, and the McCready pickups should ensure it sounds it too. "This custom pickup set is voiced to sound like his beloved 1960 Stratocaster," assures Fender. "Warm and articulate, this custom pickup set nails McCready’s signature tone and sounds great for any style of music."

A vintage-style six-point tremolo with bent-steel saddles and cold-rolled steel block also features and just like Mike's guitar, the middle tone knob is aged cream, rather than the white of the other two. 

"I want them to have a great experience with it," McCready hopes for potential future owners of his signature model. "I want them to have fun with it – that's number one. But I want them to be creative. I want them to get out of it what I get out of it. That's what makes my life better and I want it to make their life better…that's the icing on the cake. But I want them to know that they're getting a quality product and that it plays as well as it possibly [can] for me. I love it, so I want them to know that they're going to get that, and they'll be able to create themselves."

The Fender Mike McCready Strat is $1,899.99 / £1,649 / €1,899. More info at Fender

Mike McCready has form for guesting with Jason Isbell and his band the 400 Unit (they jammed on Hendrix classic Little Wing live last year) but this time they're playing an Isbell song, and it sounds glorious. 

The Pearl Jam man joined Isbell and his band the 400 Unit at the end of their Woodland Park Zoo Amphitheatre on 5 July for a run on This Ain't It, a highlight from Isbell's latest album Weathervanes. YouTuber Jesse Cornett was close to the action as he captured some great footage of the performance.

From the moment McCready plays a lick in the intro it's unmistakably the player behind iconic albums like Vs and Mad Season's Above, and a treat to hear him in the mix with Isbell and the huge talents of 400 Unit guitarist Sadler Vaden.

McCready didn't get McGreedy with the limelight but he wasn't even playing his own famous 1960 Strat – he borrowed Isbell's, and he seemed to be right at home in the breakdown lick tradeoff with Isbell and Vaden that built into an Allman Brothers-style guitar harmony. 

Isbell was roughing it with what looked to be his 1953 Blackguard Telecaster, but tagged in his 1961 SG (from back in the early era when they were called the Les Paul Solid Guitar) for the second half of the song when the guitar dynamics ramped up.

As much as Isbell loves Les Paul's (and he's the owner of famed '59 Red Eye) he definitely doesn't discriminate between the classics – utilising an arsenal of vintage beauties for different needs, as his use of two classics in this performance underlined. He once told us he has a special appreciation for Telecasters, calling it "probably the best guitar design overall ever" in our 2021 interview. 

You can check out McCready's previous appearance with Isbell in Seattle below.

• Mike McCready interview

It's no secret Pearl Jam look up to The Who, and it looks like guitarist Mike McCready was channeling the spirit of Pete Townshend as he went about destroying his Strat, amp and pedalboard at the end of Pearl Jam's last show of their triumphant and troubled European tour.

After a few gig cancellations due to Eddie Vedder's vocal issues, the 25 July show at the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam went ahead. So who can blame them for blowing off some steam, right? Well this is a whole new level.  

During the set's final song – a cover of Neil Young's Rockin' In The Free World – McCready attacked not just his Sunburst Strat, but his guitar amp and pedalboard too.

Credit to YouTuber George from the Netherlands for the excellent footage above.

We're assuming this was the 2021 Custom Shop version of his favourite 1959/60 vintage Strat at the very most, and even it was… ouch: that's a $15,000 guitar! 

McCready first throws the, soon-to-be-ex, Strat straight at his cab. Then begins using the guitar to demolish what looks to be the front of his Rola Lead Custom head (a Seattle company). He then uses the guitar to push the head and its cab backwards. But he's far from done.

At this point the Strat's body is still kind of alive… it's attached to its neck at least. But then comes the breaking point; McCready swings it over head straight down on his pedalboard – including an unsuspecting Line 6 DL4 – while amused / shocked touring bandmate Josh Klinghoffer looks on and the guitar's body is splintered into pieces. 

McCready throws it down again, numerous guitar picks go flying, and somehow the strings are holding the broken pieces together. As if waking up out of a daze, the guitarist simply drops what's left of his Fender and walks away, leaving eager fans disappointed to not get a piece passed their way.

For those who are recoiling in horror right now, we would like to assure you that McCready has probably got it out of his system, but alas, he's a repeat offender…

Classic interview: Pearl Jam's Mike McCready 

Disclaimer time; this isn’t our pick of the five 'best' Pearl Jam songs, that would be an even harder rundown to create. Instead we’re casting a light on the different facets of guitar approaches that make up one of the greatest rock bands to emerge in the last 30 years. One that has the benefit of all its members as songwriting and three guitar players onstage with Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready.

That dynamic of different creative perspectives has made for a rich variety over 11 studio albums as the band lean into their punk rock influences and stretch out into experimental territory. Here then is a great place to start…

1. Alive  (Ten, 1991)

It makes sense to begin at the band’s genesis and what for many is Pearl Jam's defining song, even 30 years on. The music was written originally written for Mother Love Bone by Stone Gossard and was on the demo tape under the title Dollar Short that the guitarist and bassist Jeff Ament circulated in the hopes of finding a singer for a potential new band following the tragic death of MLB’s vocalist Andy Wood. 

That version fades out on a solo by the guitarist that had joined the duo's new endeavour; one Mr Mike McCready. But it hadn’t yet become the show-stopper that would emerge during a later demo session with the late Rick Parashar. And that was the version that ended up being used on debut album Ten.

For the band’s first two albums Gossard would take the lead role in songwriting and his slide into the intro and verse riff here ushers in the sense of open groove that typified his early writing with Ament. But its final two minutes are all McCready as he builds his E minor pentatonic scale and E blues chops into an incredible crescendo. With a little help from a KISS icon…

“Basically, I copied Ace Frehley’s solo from She, ” McCready admitted. “Which, of course, was copied from Robby Krieger’s solo in the Doors’ Five to One.” Regardless, Alive is one of the all-time great rock solos.

2. Just Breathe (Backspacer, 2009)

As far back as Ten's Porch and Vs's Rearviewmirror Vedder was contributing guitar compositions to the band, but this song showcases a distinct approach that has emerged in more recent times, and reflected on the solo tours he's played. 

Vedder's soundtrack for 2007’s Into The Wild showcased the work he’d put into his acoustic fingerstyle technique, and this cut was birthed from the first chord in the instrumental track Toulumne from it. Unashamedly romantic ("as close to a love song as we've ever gotten,” as he said himself) but weighted with lyricism on mortality, Just Breathe uses minimal accompaniment to allow Vedder’s fingerpicking based around C and G chords to shine. 

It was reflective of the relative simplicity the band explored on 2009’s Backspacer, that saw them back with hands-on producer Brendan O’ Brien. And it's also a great workout for anyone looking to built their rapid picking dexterity. 

3. Present Tense (No Code, 1996) 

Pearl Jam’s conscious withdrawal from the spotlight after their rapid rise to platinum-selling status lead them into unexpectedly experimental places and No Code threw a lot of fans upon its release. Time has shown it to be a landmark in the band’s evolution.

Musically the record is a fascinating selection of textures and approaches, some that evolved from jams but elsewhere saw Vedder fully stepping into the creative driver’s seat with five songs credited solely to him. But it’s this deeper cut and live favourite that is all McCready’s music and typifies the band’s ability to balance the experimental with the anthemic. 

Present Tense also smashes any pigeonhole of McCready as just the band’s guitar hero and reveals a deeper side to his writing. And it’s the kind of masterful atmospheric rise and fall approach he’d mine later for songs like Given To Fly and Inside Job. Moreover, Present Tense especially demonstrates the power of less is more when it's in the right dynamic context.

It’s in dropped D tuning for the drone note in the minimalist, calming intro / verse section. Then completely open strings kick in for the first chorus chord to take it up a gear. Things get really interesting immediately after the second chorus where a Bb signals a change in pace, building to a driving edgy chord-based section before taking the song right back into a dreamy place with cascading high arpeggios repeating over the returning verse part. It’s quite a trip.

4. Animal (Vs, 1993)

Pearl Jam have cemented their versatility early on but have never been as thrillingly intense and folky as on second album VS. The former element certainly helped by the wonderfully hard-hitting grooves of drummer Dave Abruzzese (who also wrote the riff to their heaviest song and album opener Go). 

Indeed, Go and Animal are one of the great leading combos of any rock album with the second bringing weighty swagger from Gossard’s riff and the chorus’s funk wah before McCready’s most gloriously intense solo to date. It’s the funkier sibling to Ten’s Why Go, but it actually predates that song with a demo of the riff going back to 1990.

And both were hard enough riffs to seemingly influence Metallica on Death Magnetic’s The End Of The Line

5. Yellow Ledbetter (b-side, 1992) 

Are we at number five already? But we haven’t even mentioned State Of Love And Trust, Immortality, Yellow Ledbetter, Even Flow, Deep, Life Wasted, Of The Girl… you get the picture. 

Before streaming lay waste to the physical single, a band could once be judged on the standard of its b-sides, and Pearl Jam’s 2003 Lost Dogs compilation proved the quality of outtakes that didn’t even make it that far. But this unabashed homage to McCready’s hero Hendrix ­thankfully landed on the flipside to Jeremy back in 1992. 

It’s a bit of an anomaly in the huge PJ catalogue – there really is nothing else like it, and perhaps that’s why it is loved enough by fan’s to become a PJ set closer for years. That and it's hallmark of  an absolutely stunning blues song. 

McCready’s classic Strat tone and earworm clean Jimi-worthy lick take the spotlight beside a wistful Vedder, his lyrics opaque and poetic. The solo is second only Alive in the McCready roll-call, back in that E minor scale and perfectly pitched succinct expression where others would milk it for a few more bars and lose the moment.

5 songs guitarists need to hear by… Neil Young

Eddie Vedder and his Earthlings solo band played the first night (3 February) of a new US tour in New York last night with a 22-set of cuts from his forthcoming third solo album and classic covers.

The Pearl Jam man had plenty of guitar help; Glen Hansard, Josh Klinghoffer and Vedder's producer Andrew Watt are all part of the Earthlings lineup, along with Jane's Addiction bassist Chris Chaney and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. 

In addition to playing 10 of forthcoming album Earthling's 11 songs in the set at the Beacon Theater, Vedder also played a selection of covers…

First up is Abbey Road Beatles classic Here Comes The Sun, and that wasn't the only George Harrison song in the set either… 

Vedder put down the guitar for a moving band version of Isn't It A Pity from Harrison's classic 1970 solo debut All Things Must Pass, with former Red Hot Chili Pepper Klinghoffer and Watt (who is also reportedly producing the next Pearl Jam album) playing a dual guitar solo.

Fans will already be familiar with Vedder's take on REM's Drive, that appeared on 2021 film Flag Day's soundtrack and was performed during Vedder's solo set at last year's Ohana festival. 

It was also great to see Vedder performing Tom Petty's Room At The Top with his Rickenbacker 360/12 again – a song he performed during the In Memoriam segment of the 2018 Oscars ceremony. The band bringing a while new heft to the singer's emotional delivery on this version and Klingoffer contributing backing vocals and a searing solo on a Gibson Firebird. 

Vedder also showed his love of The Pretenders with a cover of Precious, thanking the crowd for making it out to the gig in the wake of the pandemic; "I'm sure it wasn't easy to get in this room tonight," he noted.

Vedder and The Earthlings paid tribute to another female icon with Patti Smith's People Have The Power too; played back to back with a singalong performance of Pearl Jam fan favourite Better Man. 

Pearl Jam uberfan Andrew Watt also got to play the band's Wishlist, from the band's 1998 record Yield. An album that turned 24 this week. 

Eddie Vedder & The Earthlings full setlist from Beacon Theater, New York 3/2/2022

• 1. Drive
  2. Room at the Top
  3. Here Comes the Sun
  4. The Haves
  5. I’ll Be Waiting
  6. Invincible
  7. The Dark
  8. Power of Right
  9. Fallout Today
  10. Long Way
  11. Tender Mercies
  12. Wishlist
  13. Brother the Cloud
  14. Mrs. Mills
  15. Try
  16. Rose of Jericho
  17. Porch
  Encore:
  18. Precious
  19. Better Man
  20. People Have the Power
  21. Isn't It a Pity
  22. All Along the Watchtower
  
  

Earthling is released on 11 February 

Don't feel too sorry for Josh Klinghoffer, though he departed from the Red Hot Chili Peppers after a decade to make way for John Frusciante's return he's now in the touring lineup of his other teenage heroes, Pearl Jam. Though guitar is only part of the equation now. 

"It’s enormously gratifying," Klinghoffer tells Consequence of Sound regarding his new role. "My bedroom wall when I was like 11, 12, 13 years old was all these people. I feel like I’ve known these guys for 30 years already, I don’t know if that will make it work better or not."

Klinghoffer is also playing on Eddie Vedder's forthcoming solo album but has already made live appearances with both the Pearl Jam singer and the full band at October's Ohana festival. But he's still feeling his way into the Pearl Jam sound. 

"I mean obviously the role that I’m filling in their band is kind of funny at the moment, just in terms of the music that they’ve recorded in the past and the songs that I know really well," Klinghoffer explains. "I’m sort of doing a new role, playing a lot of percussion or background vocals, predominantly with the new stuff. And then anything that’s an older song that has a harmony, extra little things that they sort of get by without, I have free range to add if it makes sense to.

"I generally don’t go up there for one little teeny part," the former Chili Pepper continues. "I try to make my being onstage matter instead of just popping in and out for one little word. But they’ve been incredibly welcoming and generous to me, and have just sort of let me find my place."

The idea of Pearl Jam with four guitarists is certainly an interesting prospect, but multi-instrumentalist Klinghoffer suggests that will be the exception rather than the rule as he hangs back onstage near Mike McCready's guitar amps. 

"I play guitar on a few songs, but it’s usually a tiny part," explains Kinghoffer. "There is a song called Seven O’Clock that I play guitar on, and Eddie is playing guitar, but he doesn’t really play ‘til the end. So there are four guitars up there, but it’s sort of like the minute he takes over on guitar, I put mine down."

Instead Klinghoffer is playing additional percussion and mainly providing backing vocals when he's not playing guitar.

"I have a couple concert toms up there, but predominantly my role is helping with the background vocals, of which there’s more than in the past perhaps, particularly on the song that was their single, Dance Of The Clairvoyants, there was a bunch of BVs that Eddie added that the rest of the band wasn’t involved in when they recorded. 

"Background singing is kind of particular in that band where the guys who do it, they do it when they come up with a part, but it’s not really something that they focus on."

The Pearl Jam / Chili Peppers connection continues with Pluralone, his solo project that features Jack Irons on drums as his cloest collaborator, who has played in both bands just like Klinghoffer. 

"I was seeing him a lot that week," Klinghoffer says of the time he was asked to tour with Pearl Jam, "and he was saying, 'You couldn’t have fallen in with a greater group of people.” I particularly love the records that Jack made with Pearl Jam — those two were so important to me.'"

Read the full interview at Consequence of Sound. 

If it's good enough for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band, it's good enough for Pearl Jam; the Seattle titans now have four guitarists in their live lineup with the addition of former Red Hot Chili Peppers man Josh Klinghoffer.

It's only fitting that the band unveiled the addition of Klinghoffer at their live return at the Sea Hear Now festival at Springsteen's stomping ground of Asbury Park, New Jersey. Pearl Jam's first full show since September 2018 featured a 20-song setlist, including a cover of Springsteen's My City Of Ruins featuring local singers Michelle Rushing, Joshua Rivers, and Jason Rogers, alongside Alexander Simone - the grandson of Nina Simone.

Pearl Jam also paid tribute to late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts with a section of that band's Waiting On A Friend during their performance of Yield album favourite Wishlist.

Through the set, Klinghoffer hung back wearing headphones and contributing electric guitar (including a Gibson semi-hollow), percussion and backing vocals. "We started working with him to help fill out some of the new songs," explained Eddie Vedder during the show to introduce Klinghoffer. "Our special guest tonight, covering all the bases and some of the words, Mr Josh Klinghoffer on guitar, drums and piano."

Klinghoffer has also contributed to Vedder's forthcoming third solo album, Earthling – namely the first single, Long Way. 

The band ended the encore with their version of Neil Young's Rockin' In The Free World featuring Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye. 

In addition, the set saw the live debuts of songs from 2020's Gigaton album with Superblood Wolfmoon, Never Destination,  7 O'clock and Stone Gossard composition Quick Escape. 

The band will play Ohana Festival dates on 26 September and 1 / 2 October but fans over the Atlantic now face a long wait before Peal Jam's next scheduled show; their long-delayed European tour will start up in Amsterdam on 14 June.  

5 key songs guitarists need to hear by… Pearl Jam

Appearing on the Cobras & Fire podcast Whatever, Never Mind, legendary engineer Dave Hillis has been spoken of Pearl Jam's intense recording sessions for the Seattle band's groundbreaking 1991 debut LP, Ten, revealing that Eddie Vedder was not the finished article when first arrived at the studio.

“He wasn’t really the Eddie Vedder that we know yet,“ said Hillis, who was chief engineer on Ten, having worked for 10 years alongside producer Rick Parashar at the famous London Bridge Studios in Seattle. “He showed up first. This lowrider, tinted window Chevy LUV pickup comes roaring into the parking lot at crazy speed. 

“I’m like, ‘What the hell!?‘ He gets out and he’s a really nice guy and everything [but] the point is you don’t see tinted windows, yellow lowriding Chevy LUVs in wet, rainy, cloudy Seattle. That was kinda, ‘Whoah! That’s not a Seattle dude.’“

Vedder had got the gig after appearing on Temple Of The Dog, a Seattle supergroup formed in tribute to former Mother Love Bone vocalist Andrew Wood, who died on 19 March 1990 after overdosing on heroin. But Vedder was new to the Seattle scene, having grown up in Illinois and moving to San Diego County, California, in his teens.

As Hillis notes, Vedder had big shoes to fill. And Pearl Jam – who then comprised Mother Love Bone alumni Stone Gossard on guitar and Jeff Ament on bass, with Temple Of The Dog's Mike McCready joining on guitar and Dave Krusen on drums – had some doubts about Vedder.

“I remember particularly the moment when the band and Rick were in the control room having a discussion,“ said Hillis. “I am not really involved in it, but I am hearing it while I am doing whatever I was doing, and there was some concern whether Eddie could do this and pull it together. I didn’t notice anything in particular that was bad or anything, but I remember the discussion.“

The solution, as it so often was with Pearl Jam, was work, and lots of it. Hillis taught Vedder how to record himself remotely, locking him in the studio overnight to work on lyrics and vocals. Ten, which started out from instrumental demos and pieces of ideas carried over from Mother Love Bone, soon took shape. So, too, did Vedder.

“We would lock him in the studio,“ said Hillis. “He would work all night. And over that period of time, he kind of developed that Eddie Vedder that we all know, through the lyrics and his vocal style, and cadences. That’s really where he seemed to become Eddie Vedder all of a sudden.”

As Hillis remembers it, Ten was all about the pursuit of perfection. Pearl Jam were obsessed with nailing the perfect take. They would work through the night as two-inch tape reels mounted up. Once Parashar had left for the evening, Pearl Jam would track and track, with Hillis keeping score in the control room.

“It was all about that magic take – the perfect feel, the perfect groove,“ said Hillis. “That was what it was all about. You could tell. The record has that. Everything has such a great feel and groove to it.”

Check out the podcast above and be sure to follow Cobras & Fire on SoundCloud. 

Thirty years of Ten is a special anniversary for Pearl Jam. Marking the occasion, Fender has released a super-limited edition replica of Mike McCready's 1960 Stratocaster. 

Pearl Jam's European tour has been rescheduled and begins on 14 June 2022. See Pearl Jam for dates and cross your fingers for no Covid-related cancellations. You can read our classic 2012 interview with Stone Gossard here.

Fender has pressed the big green button and sent its limited edition Custom Shop reproduction of Mike McCready's 1960 Stratocaster to dealers worldwide. 

As signature electric guitars go, this one is at the upper end of the price scale, with $15,000 needed to prise one from your local Fender dealer. You had best be quick, too. Only 60 pieces are in existence. 

Let's see what you get for your money. Firstly, you get a heavily relic'd and stunningly accurate repro of his 1960 Strat. The big story behind this guitar, which is being released to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the release of Pearl Jam's Ten, is that for nearly three decades McCready was labouring under the illusion that this was a 1959 model. He even got the year tattooed on his wrist.

McCready's equipment manager and luthier knew it was a 1960 model, but it was only when Fender Master Builder Vincent Van Trigt was putting this special replica together that he found out. 

Let McCready's story be a cautionary tale for those looking to permanently mark themselves in honour of a vintage instrument – the scarred quality of one's financial position after buying the thing should be enough to remember it by. 

Nonetheless, this new signature Strat sure bears testament to the restorative powers of the Fender Custom Shop. 

Fender and Van Tigt has gone to town with this. Look at the guitar above and look at McCready with the original below. Its uncanny. Every effort has been made to make it feel and sound like the original. 

The McCready Strat has a trio of custom Josefina hand-wound single-coil pickups to match the original, and these are connected to a five-way switch and a vintage wiring loom that includes a treble bleed tone capacitor. 

It has a two-piece select alder body, with a bolt-on flat-sawn flame maple neck that's carved into a 1960 “oval C” profile and topped with a flat-lam rosewood fingerboard with 21 vintage frets. 

Completing the picture you've got a three-ply vinyl pickguard, vintage-style synchronized tremolo with Callaham bridge block, vintage-style tuning machines, a bone nut, plus a wing string tree.

Inside the deluxe hardshell case you'll find a strap, polishing cloth, and a certificate of authenticity. Will we ever see an affordable McCready signature Strat? Who can say. But if you point your cursor to the Fender Custom Shop, you can metaphorically press your nose against the shop window and dream.