PEARL JAM, TEN. TABLATURE
Pearl Jam - Ten
Series: Guitar Recorded Version TAB
Artist: Pearl Jam
Matching folio to their break-through album including 11 songs. Includes: Alive • Black • Deep • Even Flow • Garden • Jeremy • Oceans • Once • Porch • Release • Why Go. Also features photos. 112 pages
Inventory #HL 00694855
ISBN: 9780793519026
UPC: 073999948554
Width: 9.0"
Length: 12.0"
112 pages
Alive
Black
Deep
Even Flow
Garden
Jeremy
Oceans
Once
Porch
Release
Why Go
PEARL JAM
... crashing down in an explosion of splinters. "There, now you try it."
The fan tries in vain to imitate the simple maneuver and succeeds only in breaking
the guitar-by dropping it again. Laughter and applause by onlookers break
up the scene. "Cut! That's a keeper," shouts a director. The camera stops rolling, ending
McCready's stint as a teacher at the Rock Star Fantasy Camp. The Pearl Jam guitarist is taking
part in a satirical sketch that is being taped for broadcast on cable channel Comedy Central'
s Almost Live! He ambles off the stage, smiling. He is followed by Soundgarden's Kim
Thayil, who plays the rhythm track to "Black Hole Sun" as a group of shirtless, short-haired
hopefuls try their hand at being sexy lead singers. Later, Nirvana's Dave GroW will be
taped demonstrating the finer points of drumstick twirling and accepting MTV awards. Like
McCready, Thayil and GroW are having a lot of fun taking jabs at their own celebrity.
But there is a serious side to all this alternative cheekiness. The camera sets up to shoot
a bit on how to party hearty like a rock star. A bar table is covered with full bottles of beer
and Jiigermeister and heavily salted snack treats. The on-camera players, whose job is to
look as drunk and wasted as possible, crowd around. McCready declines the offer to sit in
on the shot, not wanting to perpetuate the assciation between himself and alcohol. He's
recently attained clean and sober status and is not being preachy-he's being honest.
"I learned a lot about myself while in rehab," he says. "But I still have a ways to go."
Given the dual pressure of being in one of the world's most popular bands and, in his
mid-twenties, having the kind of disposable income that Donald Trump would envy, it's
not that surprising that McCready overindulged in booze and drugs during Pearl
Jam's first three meteoric years. But he says that's all behind him now, a claim that he substantiates
with his calm demeanor and clearheaded thinking and speech. Having successfully
completed alcohol and drug rehabilitation late last year in Minneapolis, McCready is anxious to get back to what he does best-which happens to include turning guitars into kindling.
The cast and crew break for lunch. McCready, stil1 squirrely with adrenaline,
jumps on stage andjams with Bil1 Stainton, the show's producer, on drums, and Joe
Lockett, of the Kiss tribute band Gene's Addiction, on bass for an impromptu reenactment
of Kiss' Alive, minus "Cold Gin." The makeshift band bulldozes through
"She" and "Black Diamond" as McCready lights up the room with some electrifying
soloing. Young, rich, famous and alive, he's at the top of his game. Vitalogy, Pearl Jam's latest album, is also flying high, so to speak. Like its multi-titanium predecessors Vs. and Ten, the diverse and experimental (and occasionally downright confusing) record sold a staggering million copies in its first seven days. With their popularity soaring to cosmic levels, this spring Pearl Jam will embark on a world tour that will last well into the summer. Until then, the revitalized McCready looks
forward to the March release of an album by Mad Season (Columbia), a side project he
formed with members of Alice In Chains and the Screaming Trees. A no-frills, melodically
grounded slab of moody guitar rock, Mad Season showcases McCready's powerful,
minimalist riffing. "It gives me free reign to playa lot of leads, too," he says with a grin.
Time to go back to work on Almost Live! McCready joins Thayil in a bit on how to
make rock star faces. There's the "heavy metal magazine" face, the "rock video" face, the
"album cover" face, and the "screaming guitar solo" face. McCready, 13 million Pearl
Jam album sales behind him, knows them all' whether the camera is rolling or not.
GUITAR: Tell me about Mad Season.
MIKE McCREADY: We have Layne Staley [Alice In Chains] on vocals, Martin Barrett
[Screaming Trees] on drums, and a guy I met in rehab who's become a good friend of mine,
John Baker Saunders, playing bass. Mark Lanegan [Screaming Trees] came by and
helped out on a couple of songs; he sings with Layne on ''I'm Above," which is our first single.
I called up Layne when I was in rehab in Minneapolis to see ifhe wanted to play some
music together. I've known Layne socially for a long time, but we reallY didn't know each other on a personal level. I started coming up with specific song ideas that I could just hear his vocal over, like "Life Or Death," which I thought would be a cool, heavy thing. So I
methodically tracked him down. [laughs] The band came together after we had jammed together two or three times and decided to do a gig. We did a show at the Crocodile Cafe [a watering hole popular among Seattle's rock-scum elite],just making up shit as we went along. We had a couple of song ideas and knew that it was clicking really well, so we thought we'd hit the studio. It's hard to describe the album. Martin plays some vibes and Layne plays guitar, there's some jazzy stuff, some blues, some arena rock. I bought a Gibson Jimmy Page double-neck [EDS-I275] for the sessions. I look like an idiot with it, but it sounds so cool. I can totally get Jimmy's "Stairway To Heaven" sound. But who knows what the plans are for the project. We'll probably just do this one album.
We're going to do one show in New York and one in L.A., but other than that, all I want to
do is play around Seattle.
GUITAR: How does working with Layne differ from working with [Pearl Jam singer] Eddie Vedder?
McCREADY: Both Layne and Eddie will write out lyrics while we're recording basic tracks. But they're very different people and just the process of working with a different person has added a whole new dimension to my playing. Layne is more spontaneous because that's how Alice In Chains work. We did all the Mad Season music in about seven days. It took Layne just a few more days to finish his vocals, which was intense since we only rehearsed twice and did four shows. So this has been the most spontaneous thing I've ever been involved in. This was done even quicker than Temple Of The Dog, which took about four weeks. When we sit down to do Pearl Jam material, we'lI work for maybe a month or two, then....
PEARL JAM
... Basically, we agreed that we had to decompress and find the same space we
were in when we first started the band. We've experienced so many strange and
exciting things already, now we just want to get back and do music like we used to. When
everything blew up, everybody kind of lost their minds. Actually, Jeff and Stone had a
pretty good hold on it throughout, and I think Eddie did too ...but everybody has their own
ways of dealing with it. And mine, for a long time, was getting fucked up. I was clean for
about a month-well, semi-clean; I can't bullshit about that-but I fell off the wagon
after the Kurt Cobain thing. That fucked with everybody really hard. I mean, how do
you get to that point of depression where suicide's the only way out?
GUITAR: This is probably a redundant question at trus point, but how are things going for you
now that you're clean? McCREADY: Trungs are good. It's great to be
clear-headed and wake up early and get on with my day. And putting trus Mad Season
thing together has been a blessing. It's weird, though. I want to drink every day. But the
longer it goes, the more the urge lessens. I drank for 15 years and I do want to drink, and
I get depressed sometimes when I'm in a social situation where people are drinking and
I want to get in on it. But I realize I can't do that because I'll end up on the floor, pukIDg
and pissing my pants and rolling around in the street naked and blacking out and breaking
things. Willch was always the way I seemed to end up. ThIDgs are good and bad. The rughs are a
lot rugher and the lows are a lot lower because I can't cover up my emotions with alcohol.
Playing live, I'm a lot more focused on the music rather than just being in a daze, the
way I was before. And the whole concept of me thinking that I needed something-be it
valium or crystal meth or pot-to write songs or be creative is bullsrut. 1 couldn't put anything
together when I was doing that crap. LSD might have helped me in certain ways,
but it fucked me up a lot more than it helped.
GUITAR: Is that all behIDd you now?
McCREADY: I trunk it is. But like they say, it's just one day at a time. I want it to be over. I
don't want to go back to feeling like srut every single day of my life and blacking out. If! go
back, I'm gonna die.
GUITAR: Vitalogy is a strange album, very eclectic.
McCREADY: There is some weird stuff on there. It came from being on the road; it was
mostly recorded wrule we were on tour. We lid a little bit at Bad Animals Studios in Seattle
at the end of our Vs. tour, then some in New Orleans and some in Atlanta. They were
songs we had been doing at soundcheck. Edlie had some old tunes, like "Better Man."
Jeff had "Notrungman."Those songs mostly came just from jamming. At first I didn't
trunk it had any continuity. It was weird; when I heard the final album, I lidn't really like it,
wruch may have been because I was so fucked up when we recorded it.
I like it now, I trunk it's cool, but I'm ready to do another one right away, just because I've
become clean. I couldn't even come up with an idea for a fucking song before. To be honest,
I couldn't even put a song together. I'd come up with parts of songs like "Glorified
G," but now I can actually put two things together. I have about 70 songs right now.
Some are good, some are shit. But I'm finally focused. I also have a lot more confidence
now, whereas before 1was kind of intimid ated by Stone and Jeff because they're really
good songwriters.
GUITAR: What happened to the solos on this album? I think I might have heard one. McCREADY: Vitalogy is not really a "solo" album. I don't think the songs demanded solos; it was more of a rhythmic album.
GUITAR: Does Edlie play guitar on the album?
McCREADY: Yeah, he plays a lot. He plays on "Better Man,'" ot For You" and a couple
others. He plays a lot more live, too. Having three guitars has added a whole new rumension
to the band. He has trus kind of punk rock way of playing, and Stone has this weird
rhythm thing, and I do the leads, so it's opened up totally new doors.
GUITAR: Vitalogy, even with all its iliosyncrasies, sold nearly a million copies its first week out.
McCREADY: That to me is so far out there that I don't even understand it. It does fuck
with my head, but at the same time, if! try to figure it out, it'll really make me crazy. It's
very strange. Granted, I'm happy we sold that much, but I have no idea why.
The thing that really freaks me out is when really weird people follow us around at airports and hotels. Fans are cool, but these obsessive people just scare me. Thankfully, now that I'm clean, I can see through it all a bit better and understand that this is part of the whole thing. Before, I never wanted to leave my house. It's still fun for me, but I feel stupid sitting around bitching about it. I was the same way [as those fans] with bands when I was a kid. I hid underneath the Scorpions'
limousine when they played the Hec Ed Pavilion in Seattle with Iron Maiden. [laughs]
GUITAR: I know what you mean. I'm surprised Kiss didn't have me arrested for stalking them
when I was in the eighth grade.
McCREADY: I worship Kiss. They're the whole reason I started playing guitar.
GUITAR: How do you feel about Pearl Jam's occasional punk leanings, given that punk rock is
not your background? McCREADY: That's not my background at
all. Mine's more metal and arena rock. I think it's cool, though. It's new for methat
aspect is definitely coming from Eddie and Jeff and Stone-but I'm into it. I'm into
all kinds of music.
GUITAR: How do you relate to punk, then?
McCREADY: It's music. It's the common denominator when we get together and play.
We play well off of each other despite our different musical backgrounds.
GUITAR: What are your thoughts on the new punk explosion? Do you see it as succeeding Seattle
as "the next big thing"?
McCREADY: Yeah, it's probably a natural progression, though I'm not really into bands
like Green Day or Offspring. I think Nirvana did the punk thing really great. I trunk the
Clash were a really good example of a great punk band. I wasn't into them when they were
around, but now, looking back at them, I can see that they were great rock and pop songwriters,
as well as being punk.
GUITAR: Do you think people are attracted to Green Day and Offspring because of their sense of humor? Do you think they need some relief from the "seriousness" of the Seattle sound? McCREADY: Could be. But we don't actually take ourselves as seriously as people trunk.
GUITAR: Has Pearl Jam's conflict with Ticketmaster worked against you in any way?
McCREADY: It's eliminated us from certain venues, but we won't know how it's really
affected us for a while. We're working on an alternative right now.
GUITAR: Pearl Jam turned down the opening slot on the Stones tour. Was that because Ticketmaster had their weenie in that campfire?
McCREADY: No, I just don't trunk Jeff and Eddie were into touring with them. We got to
play with Keith Richards on New Year's Eve last year, and even though Keith is one of our
idols, we felt like we had already done it.
GUITAR: Can a band of Pearl Jam's stature survive without touring, or maybe doing just selective touring?...
A GUIDED TOUR OF PEARL JAM'S GEAR.
ALTHOUGH PEARL JAM shies away from doing product endorsements and advertisements, their tech George Webb was more than happy to give Guitar World a detailed description of the band's touring rigs.
EDDIE VEDDER
"EDDIE HAS THREE reissue Telecasters, including his first guitar, which his mom bought him. The other two are just '52 reissues. He stole one from S.I.R. [Studio Instrument Rentals] about a year ago when he went to Roger Daltrey Sings The Music Of Pete Townshend. He ended up just taking it home-then we got this huge bill. "Amp-wise, Eddie is using a vintage 4x 10 Fender Super Reverb, but he may switch to a '72 100-watt Hiwatt. Eddie definitely has a Who/Pete Towshend fascination, hence the TelecasterlHiwatt combination. "
STONE GOSSARD
"STONE CHANGES HIS gear constantly," says Webb. "Fortunately, though, he keeps things simple. He doesn't like rack units, and he doesn't want to deal with MIDI or any of that crap. He basically wants to plug straight into an amp and use a couple of stomp boxes. "Stone mainly uses Les Pauls. He has two Goldtops-a '54 and a '72- and the sunburst Paul he's had since Mother Love Bone. He's also got a reissue Strat and a Hamer Duo-Tone electric/ acoustic that he uses for 'Daughter.'" Gossard's tech Tim "Skully" Quinlan tunes all the guitars to their many alternate tunings using GHS Boomers 0.0 II's. Gossard uses Dunlop Tortex 0.73mm picks. From the guitar, Stone's signal is sent to his pedal board by a Sony WRR-840 wireless. "We use different pedals to achieve different amounts of distortion and overdrive: a DOD graphic eq pedal that boosts the signal and drives the amps' preamp sections harder, a Boss Hyperfuzz and an old Ibanez TS-9
Tube Screamer. Stone uses two amps, so we use a Rocktron Rack Interface that feeds the
amps two totally separate signals to elirninate any impedance problems. "Right now, Stone is playing through a atchless H/C-30 head powering a Marshall 1960 100-watt4xI2, and an old brown Fender Deluxe. He uses relatively low-powered amps and drives them hard, so he gets the tone and warmth of the power tubes working. Stone doesn't push them to where they really distort though-he leaves that to the foot-pedals."
JEFF AMENT
"Jeff had two basses, NBA I and NBA 2, which were basically Warmoth necks and bodies assembled by Mike Lull at Guitar Works, who works for everybody in Seattle. Unfortunately Jeff destroyed both of those. Mike is making Jeff a new bass with a Warmoth neck and a body shape that Jeff kind of stole from an old Mosrite. "Jeff has Bartolini 94-1's in all his basses, except for his Hamer 12-and-eight-strings [whichfeature EMG s]. Right now, Jeff's main four-string is a custom-made Modulus Graphite copy of a 1960 Fender stack-knob Jazz bass." Other basses in Ament's collection are a Wal four-string fretless, a Gibson hollowbody Les Paul Signature Model bass strung
with flat-wound strings and a Curruther's Sub- I upright bass. Jeff's fretted four-string basses
are strung with Dean Markley SR200 Mediums, and his fretless takes Medium-lites. He favors Dunlop Tortex Imm picks. "The signal from Jeff's wireless goes immediately to a D.I. box so the house soundman gets a signal, and then to a crossover that splits the highs and the lows. The low-end signal gets sent directly to an SWR Grand Prix tube preamp and then to half of a dbx 166 compressor and to a Crest 6001 Power amp that drives three SWR Big Ben 18-inch speakers.
"The other half is the fun part: The signal gets sent out to the foot-pedals-a SansAmp
GT2 distortion pedal, a Dunlop Tremolo, a Boss CE-2 chorus and a Boss Octaver-and
then returns to an Uptown Flash MIDI switcher/ mixer which divides the signal and sends it
to four preamps. The signal from each preamp then gets sent back to the switcher. This system
allows me to select whichever preamp I want at the press of a button, because Jeff Iikes
to use different tones for different basses and different songs. The first two preamps
are Pearce B2P's. They're two-channel units with a lot of eq capability, especially
in the mids, which are parametric. One channel is meant to be dirty and one is meant to be clean, but you're able to use one channel at a time or combine the two of them; Jeff can get a really dirty, distorted sound and combine that with the thickness of a clean sound. Each channel has its own master output, so you can blend clean and dirty in any ratio that you want. "The third preamp is an SWR SM900 that Jeff can get a couple of clean sounds out offor his fretless. He's also playing clean more and more with his regular four-string. Finally, there's an Ampeg SVP Pro, which is the only
tube preamp that we use. It's basically an SVT preamp in a single rackspace that he uses mostly for his upright bass sound." The output of the Uptown Flash unit goes to the other half of the dbx 166 unit and out to two Crest 600 I power amps that drive three SWR Goliath II 4x10's.
MIKE McCREADY
"MIKE's RIG IS a pretty basic mid-Seventies classic rock setup with nothing digital," says
Jeff Ousley, McCready's tech. "He uses a lot of guitars: a maple-necked, hard-tail' 56 Strat,
a rosewood-necked '59 Strat, and a mapleneck '58 as well as a couple of '62 reissue
Strats that we got from the Fender Custom Shop and two '52 reissue Telecasters. There's
a Gretsch hollow-body that he uses on 'Glorified G.' He also owns a bunch of Les
Pauls. There's the '72 three-pickup Gibson ....
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