Apple Music’s Zane Lowe travels to Chicago for an in-depth conversation with Eddie Vedder, Chad Smith, Josh Klinghoffer, and producer Andrew Watt about Vedder’s third studio album ‘Earthling’. Vedder discusses his Chicago roots, touring the album, featuring his father on the album, his relationship with producer Andrew Watt, how activism has informed his art, the emotions that inspired “Brother The Cloud”, and the star-studded collaborations on the album. Later on, self-proclaimed “biggest Pearl Jam fans of all time” Andrew Watt, Josh Klinghoffer, and Chad Smith join Zane to collaborating with Vedder on ‘Earthling’, his undeniable vocal performance, and the fun of working together.
Eddie Vedder Tells Apple Music About His Chicago Roots…
Chicago is the original roots and they've never been completely ripped out of the ground. It helped form me both as a young kid, and then moving back as a young adult and some of my first adult jobs of waiting tables and things like that were here and fond memories of being a kid were here, Schwinn bikes and having a little gang of nine year olds, like Stand By Me kind of stuff. I think Seattle is actually where a lot of the identity stuff came in to be honest, because that's when you really had to figure out ... I knew who I was as a workman and someone who had a work ethic and somebody who could put in the hours and produce whatever you need from him. I was ready for the workload, but as far as who you were, I think a lot of that got formed up in Seattle in a way.
Eddie Vedder Tells Apple Music About The Importance of Consistency and Loyalty…
Consistency and loyalty, they can't be underrated or they can't be overrated, rather, those two things, and so when you have a long group like the Peal Jam group in Seattle and all our crew and even the people we work with with the label, it's mostly people that have been with us since day one or the week after. This group of fellas, it's kind of amazing how quickly it come together but really the threads of our relationships go way back. Our first real Peal Jam tour outside of us just playing clubs on our own was with the Chili Peppers and with Chad Smith, and that goes back to '92, Chad and all our uncles in that group, Flea and Anthony, and then getting to know Josh over the years. I'm just real fortunate. I'm fortunate that Andrew Watt worked so closely with these guys. It fit quickly and closely and there was no alterations needed and we were off to the races as far as playing and writing and recording and Andrew had so much to do with that and every aspect of that.
Eddie Vedder Tells Apple Music About His ‘Earthling’ Tour...
Yeah, it's a lot of history. Some of these venues that we've played on this tour, some of the ones we've... They're a hundred years old. The Spectrum, the backstage is where Roger wrote Comfortably Numb for pink Floyd. Many nights there, Springsteen, all these historical... I think that the main thing is to celebrate it with the people there that night, and then take all those memories back with you and kind of make sure that they live inside you. And it's good that it happened to somebody who really appreciated it. And not to mention Dr. Jay and the 76ers and Philadelphia Flyers. All these venues, there is, there's a lot of ghosts in there. You make friends with the ghost and then say, "If you need some place to stay when they blow this one up, you can come to my house."
Eddie Vedder Tells Apple Music About Featuring His Dad on ‘Earthling’…
There was reasons to celebrate because here it was, and my dad, he sounded great. Yeah. He really sounded great. And I, I shared it with Andrew and Josh in the studio one night late. They had a real powerful experience as well hearing my Pop. And so then we decided, we just kind of added him in to the record in a collage at the end. And it'd probably be the first time my dad was ever on like a real record. And he actually did okay, but he probably just... He was a professional musician in that he played for tips, I reckon. So that's professional, I think.
Eddie Vedder Tells Apple Music About His Relationship With Andrew Watt…
The first I knew of him was someone left me a letter and a guitar at the Shoreline Amphitheater in San Francisco, which is where we would do the bridge school shows and I think it was at the last bridge school, however many years ago that was, that somebody said, "This guy left a guitar and this note for you," and it was from somebody who was in a band that had played that venue a weeks before and asked that this guitar get delivered to me, and it seemed like it was a really nice letter. I gave him a call back, thanked him and when I gave him the call back, he had my number, that's how that worked, which was great because then every once in a while I'd get a nice little message, he was very responsible with the number. I was just feeling so grateful, I wanted to leave him a message and what does this person want? But sometimes it's good to put yourself out there because... he handled it great and every once in a while I'd get a little text from him here and there and it was cool, and I knew that he was working, but didn't really know what he was working on or anything like that and I'm just really proud of the guy. He's as passionate about music as anybody I've ever met in my whole life, and that says a lot because I know you… he’s good because he's quick and as far as just the technical side of things, microphones and signal paths that you're running stuff through and the mix board, all the technical stuff that these guys do, and he has a great right hand man called Paul and another guy called Marco. It's a real fast moving experience. As a writer, that can be really, really great and there's not too much pressure that you have to do it in time, but if you want to go quick, it's like this quick little waterspout or those small tornadoes you see on the street every once in a while, it's quick, and it'll last for a few minutes, and then it just goes away. That could be what songwriting is sometimes.
Eddie Vedder Tells Apple Music How Activism Has Informed His Music...
What I've found and I think what our group has found is that to talk about making a difference or suggest that other people make a difference or having your songs be about making a difference for this issue or that issue, I think really the key after all these years is just having done that in our own lives. So without anybody needing to know... Now I'm realizing, I'm talking about it now... But without anybody needing to know, you just do that stuff on your own and it's practical and you watch it get done or you help individuals or you help a group or you help... but you just kind of are able to do that. And it's more really what you learn from that experience, and maybe that informs the songs. And maybe because if that informs the songs, then you know it's real and it's right. Even though we'd rather be hopeful than the other, but I feel comfortable doing it that way because then it's from experience and it's real and it is attainable. There is such a thing as like agitprop, agitator propaganda. And I think that's a slippery slope and I think it will activate people and I think it'll get them pumped up in the streets or whatever, but then they walk away from the rally and then they go, all right, now, what do we do? I felt like this and it was really intense and rah, rah, but wait, what do we... You have to have those things kind of in place. Exciting people is one thing, educating them is another.
Eddie Vedder Tells Apple Music About The Emotions That Inspired “Brother The Cloud”…
I guess those feelings, they just must have been just waiting to come out or something. It just came out quick. And then by the time we got to the end of it, it was like, okay, that was something, all right. And I've lost a few people in different ways in the last decade. And apparently, just like you said, as soon as you think that you have something figured out, you're about to find out the otherwise. Something else will come along. But this one, I guess, Informed me that I hadn't quite dealt with as much as I thought, at least in a positive way, or I still had a lot of emotions kind of under the surface. There was a fire inside my core that was still throwing, spitting magma.
Eddie Vedder Tells Apple Music About Collaborating With Elton John, Ringo Starr, and Stevie Wonder…
I think it was creating a painting and then knowing that within that, and you've tried to create all these little bit different colors. You kind of invented these colors on your own. And then knowing the exact color that you need for that part and it's kind of an important part, and if you had that, that's what we need to really make the song. But who has that color? What color is that? And then the color is Stevie. So, it's either you do something like that. Let's say the Ringo example because that would be the perfect … That's the perfect color. So, you can try to mix that color on your own…
Andrew Watt and Josh Klinghoffer Tell Apple Music About Working With Eddie Vedder...
Andrew Watt: Me and Josh are just, we're very… I'm proud to say it, biggest Pearl Jam fans of all time. We know the catalog backwards and front. So, I think when you sit down to go and make music with Eddie, your instincts take over, right? So, it's not as thought as let's do something like this or that, it's just what do you want to make with him, what do you want to hear him sing. He's got the best voice there is. I still don't look at it as real. It doesn't feel like it was real. It was just this kind of dream, a dream sequence which is continuing to the stage now that we're on stage playing the songs now. And it's like, oh … We wrote these songs. It's just so cool.
Josh Klinghoffer: And it's seeing for us both with how immediate a lot of it was at the beginning when we were first coming up with the first few songs, obviously the lore of how Pearl Jam wrote their first record in a couple days and they played a show at the end of the week. It seemed like that in a way. I said to Andrew at one point, "I'm not sure." Because Pearl Jam got so big so fast, so I feel like from the second album on it was always a lot different than it was that first time… Whereas on the first album they were just the guys who had just met making music. So, I felt like what we were capturing in that room was maybe a little bit closer to that that he experienced with the band the first time because they… Never again were they this little entity
Andrew Watt Tells Apple Music What Eddie Vedder Gives To His Vocal Performances...
What he gives to a vocal I've never seen before. And you can hear it, right? But to see it, it's like, okay, I got to move this chair and I got to move that. Let's get those guitars out of the way because anything could happen when this guy gets up on the mic. He just reaches in in a way I've never experienced. And watching him sing a song like Brother, and you’re sitting … The best thing in the world for me is I put on these headphones and I feel like I'm again 10 in my room with headphones listening to this singer that I listened to when I was 10.
Chad Smith Tells Apple Music About How He Became Involved With The Project...
It's rare when you just get to hang out with your friends and play music and haves have fun. I've known Eddie longer than this guy's been alive. That puts it in perspective. And we all played a lot of music together. Obviously, me and Josh has, and then we make records all the time. And then just to have this all kind of happen so organically. This summer, I went to be with my family on the East Coast, and he's like, okay, you have to come back. Find me a window. And I'm like, I had one week in July, literally like six days. And they probably told you, but the process was really... I mean, Ed had some songs. And then the three of us would get together, and these guys would have acoustic guitars, and you know, who's got a riff, who's got an idea, something, something, something. I would just kind of sit there and make suggestions about the arrangement, thinking about the drum part.
Chad Smith Tells Apple Music About Playing on Eddie Vedder’s ‘Earthling’ and Drumming Philosophy…
I mean, you have to have facility on your instrument to a certain point. There is practice involved. So you have the tools to be able to do what you hear in your head when you hear a piece of music. At least for drumming, not being a melodic instrument, rhythmically. And that's obviously a lot of practice, and it doesn't just happen like that. But most of the bands that I grew up listening to were a lot of spontaneity jamming, the Deep Purples and the Zeppelins and the Whos and the... I love those drummers and those bands. So that, early on, was ingrained in how I approach...And so... The most important thing, you can have your chops and your thing and all that, these things on the side of your head, that's the best. And these guys are such good listeners. And that's so important. You got to listen to the other guys when we're playing this kind of music, because you play off each other, the dynamics of what they're doing, even just live show, everything. So it's just capturing that, that's the lightning in the bottle, and that's what you try to do, but you don't always succeed. When I was young, I mean, I always just... That felt the most authentic to me. And that's when you're in the moment, and there's no... People just feel that.
Chad Smith Tells Apple Music About The Fun of Working With Andrew Watt…
He's comes from a rock and roll background. He does all this other stuff because he's so talented he can do anything and play anything and write, and he's so good with people. And I've seen it, and I'm so proud of him as my friend, to see him do that, and rise. I saw him conducting the orchestra at Abbey Road, telling them what to play. It's just so fun because we love to hang out and we're best buds. And then to play music together, whatever it is, and obviously, we've done rock stuff together, and the Ozzy record was really special and amazing, and had a great time doing that. You know how that all came together, and was incredible. But he does a lot of pop stuff, as we all know, and if he needs drums on it, he'll be like, hey, you want to play on this Dua Lipa song? I'm like, who's that? Obviously now... But the last record, and whatever stuff that normally was not in my world. But it's so great to put that hat on and try to make something really cool to please that artist and make it right for the music. And Andrew is so good at that. And it's fun.
