Vs. by Pearl Jam. A 1993 Rolling Stone magazine article.

I dive deep into Pearl Jam's iconic second album, 'Versus'. I consider 'Vs', alongside '10' as a monumental rock album, was a high-stakes follow-up that sold millions and defined the band's career. I examine the band's contrasting experiences recording the album, especially Eddie Vedder's struggle with fame and the luxurious recording conditions. With insights from an article by Andy Green and a nod to Brendan O'Brien's production, I unpack the album's creation, notable tracks like 'Go' and 'Daughter', and shares his personal connection with the album and its impact on his life.

00:00 Introduction and Magazine Review
00:22 Pearl Jam's Impact and Evolution
03:33 The Making of 'Versus'
05:59 Band Dynamics and Recording Challenges
08:33 Song Inspirations and Album Highlights
15:24 Album Release and Legacy
16:32 Conclusion and Personal Reflections

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello Rock fans. This is PJ Pat from the Its One Louder podcast. Now, I picked up this magazine not too long ago. My favorite band of all time, Pearl Jam. Unfortunately, it was like $20. Long. Gone are the days where you pay five bucks for a Rolling Stone magazine. That's pretty much double the size. Now it's shrink to this, but nonetheless, we're not gonna go there.

[00:00:21] Pearl Jam. What an iconic band, and I found this article right here called Versus. I gotta say, 10 is untouchable, but this is right up there with 10. I classify this album, not less than 10, right up there equally as good. I think it was one of the most anticipated albums and one of the most well sold.

[00:00:46] Follow up albums of a rock band when it came out, I remember reading that. So let's dive into this, what it has to say. It is by Andy Green, released October 19th, 1993. Can you believe that already me, like a lot of people were so excited for this to come out.

[00:01:04] Obviously 10. For me personally, it definitely changed my life. The reason how it happened is that obviously a live came out and I was really drawn to that song. Not only Eddie V's Voice, but that Mike McCready incredible solo at the end. Now don't forget, that was after all the shredders and all the glam metal stuff, you saw this movement happening.

[00:01:28] And alive couldn't come at a better time. Now, I couldn't really relate with the hair metal bands and the shredding. I was just getting into learning guitar and I couldn't really replicate what they did. Not that I can replicate what Mike McCready did, but it was just a completely different vibe in terms of the type of music, the type of lyrics, the type of beats as well.

[00:01:47] A lot of the glam metal beats were kinda like a four four beat. Pretty standard beat whether it's just a little slower, a little faster. But when grunge came along and that whole early nineties movement came along with Alison Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana, screaming trees, mud, honey, Melvin's, I can go on.

[00:02:05] You started to hear interesting beats. Whoa, this is not as a guitar player in line. It's whoa. I couldn't really keep up with these beats, especially sound guard when they released a lot of the. Off time beats like the seven eights, the just off rhythm beats was super interesting to the ear and Pearl Jam.

[00:02:23] They weren't as extreme as sound guarding with all the off time stuff, but they definitely had different drum beats that you really didn't hear from the typical hair metal bands. And they completely. Wrote me in. I remember the DJ at one of the radio stations in Montreal when I was living back then made a mistake.

[00:02:42] DJ said that next song up, pro Jams Alive. The single came out not too long. Before that, but the DJ fucked up and played. Why Go officially was not a single at the time, but I don't know what happened. Instead of alive, the DJ played Why Go? And it's actually when I heard why go that was a clincher because Alive was awesome.

[00:03:05] I really dug it. But was curious to see, you know, if the album sounded anything like that or not. But when they played, why go in that? When that opening drumbeat came on, it's man, I was completely hooked. I think I went the next day to go and get that album. That cassette. That cassette. I'm dating myself, but that cassette and man haven't looked back since.

[00:03:26] So let's check out what the mindset of the band was at back in 1993 when verses came out. All right, shall we? Here we go.

[00:03:33] Okay. Versus Pearl Jam battled stardom on their second record and came up with an angry triumph. Damn right by Andy Green, as I mentioned, released October 19th, 1993.

[00:03:45] Pearl Jam were at a major turning point in their young career when they gathered at Remote n Casio, California recording studio, the site to begin work on their second album. It was March, 1993, and the past two years had seen the Seattle quintet rise from obscurity to become one of the.

[00:04:04] Biggest bands in the world selling copies of their debut. 10 by the Millions Landing Monster hits on the radio and MTV and headlining festivals and arenas around the world. Now, for the first time, Pearl Jam had to make a record that was certain 

[00:04:20] to be a high stakes blockbuster and do it while dealing with a lead singer who so uncomfortable with stardom that he entertained the notion of leaving the band and selling solo tapes directly to fans from his house.

[00:04:33] There's so much hype you could choke on it. Gossard told the Los Angeles Times, months after the release of 10. I wish people would forget that we come from Seattle. It'd be different if they thought we came from Cleveland or someplace like that. The plush conditions at the site didn't help matter as much.

[00:04:51] A luxury big budget studio designed to cater to likes of Dolly Parton, Huey Lewis and Linda Ronstadt. The facility had a personal chef on location, a basketball court, access to a nearby golf course, and even Asuna. Unsurprisingly, vetter was deeply alienated by Pearl Jam's new workspace. He wanted the band to emulate the do it yourself ways of his heroes.

[00:05:14] Fugazi and Black Flag punk icons that cut albums in bare bones, low budget studios. The gap between his ideals and the reality of life in a multi-platinum rock band was becoming unbearable. On the first record, we were living in a basement. Veter said I was pissing in Gatorade bottles and putting quarters in the parking meter so my truck wouldn't get tickets.

[00:05:38] On the second one, I felt too far away from the basement. It was a hard place for me at that point to write a record, especially with lyrics. I didn't wanna be writing about hillsides and trees among luxurious surroundings. I was warned to people in society and chaos and confusion and answering the question, what are we all doing here?

[00:05:59] While his band mates unwound by betting on $5 games of horse on the basketball court, ed would take long solo adventures in his beat up pickup truck. He was the one member of the group not to upgrade to a sleek car often for days at a time, and come back with a notebook overflowing with lyric ideas.

[00:06:20] His new writing went well with the melodies. The others had been working on drawn from soundtracks, impromptu tour bus, and backstage jams, and even the demos. Gossard McCready and Amen had crafted in the dark days of 1990. After Mother Loved Bones, Andy Wood passed away, and a San Diego security guard named Eddie had yet to enter their lives.

[00:06:43] The task of shaping everything into a cohesive album fell to Brendan O'Brien. Yes. What a producer He is a 3-year-old producer whom the group hired after hearing his work on the Black Crows 1990 album. Shake Your Money Maker. They had just blown up with popularity out of nowhere. O'Brien told Rolling Stone back in 2013.

[00:07:06] I think that my role at the time was really getting those guys in a room and getting them in a head space to record and make records. By the way, speaking of Brent O'Brien he has a great interview with, for those of you who don't know, there's this guy called Rick Beto on YouTube. Go check him out. He interviews all types of producers, musicians.

[00:07:25] Actually he interviewed Mike McCady and Jeff Emmett from Pearl Jam recently. I think that's his most recent big album. So go check him out. Rick Beto, he interviewed Brendan O'Brien, and Brendan specifically talks about this time actually recording verses and it's really interesting. He mentioned how Vetter was.

[00:07:44] Pretty much removed from the whole process. He did feel very uncomfortable and there was some tension there between veter and O'Brien, where, they weren't really on a very friendly relationship basis, and they just went in and did what they had to do. 

[00:07:59] so I highly recommend you go check out that interview with Brenda O'Brien and Rick Beto on YouTube. Very revealing.

[00:08:05] Okay. Coming back to the article, in a lot of ways it was a lot more difficult than it is now just because they were trying to feel their way around it. O'Brien instructed the band to meet every morning at nine 30 in the kitchen for a quick pep talk followed by a softball game to relax everyone before they went into the studio.

[00:08:22] My job was to try and keep everyone feeling as creative as possible. The idea was to camp out at the site, work the songs up, and record them one at a time, so that way we wouldn't get too far ahead of ourselves. Inspiration for the lyric came from an array of disparate sources, even the palpable tension between veter and his band mates, particularly Pearl Jam's newest member, Dave Azizi, the jovial drummer, joined right before Tan was released and was elated to be in a popular band.

[00:08:50] Vitter of course, found such naive enthusiasm for the rockstar life endlessly grading. Early on in sessions, I meant mistakenly told Vetter that Azizi had recently purchased a gun. In fact, I bought two Azizi blurted, but they're glorified versions of pellet guns. Vetter quickly sketched out a bitterly sarcastic song called Glorified G.

[00:09:14] Beginning with the lines, got a Gun. Fact, I got two. That's okay, man. 'cause I love God. Glorified version of a pellet gun feel so manly when armed. Man. What a song. What a song. That's so cool. I didn't know it was inspired by Dave. Wow. Ironically it was Azizi, a drummer with little experience at songwriting or guitar playing.

[00:09:36] Who came up with the riff for the song that would become versus his explosive opening number go. The song began as a little acoustic bit in Drop D tuning that he worked out one night without a pick. When the group was sitting around a campfire, it was odd to have a drummer playing guitar set McCready.

[00:09:55] But also to have such a cool riff. We worked on it a little bit that night and the next day we finished it in the studio. Daughter took far longer to come together. The acoustic tune began in a hotel bathroom in Denver where the group found a cool echo sound and was later fleshed out on a tour bus as a camcorder, documented a writing session.

[00:10:15] Originally called Brother, the song took on a whole new power after its title was changed to Daughter, A Switch that made the song seem as if it were coming from the perspective of an abused girl disowning her family. 

[00:10:29] the haunting elderly woman behind the counter in a small town was a response to criticism that nearly every song on 10 was a single word title.

[00:10:38] That's true. While animal has been interpreted as coming from the perspective of a gang rape victim torture from Udemy, abducted from the street, huh? Did not know that. So I can see that song coming from the perspective of someone being sexually abused for sure. But just like a lot of music and a lot of songs, each song means something slightly different for each person and for me, that song, man, that song 

[00:11:07] got me through some feelings of being repressed and being kept on a leash. I had really strict parents and this song pretty much vocalize. My anger when I couldn't do certain things or whatnot.

[00:11:21] And this was perfect. Let out a lot of aggression when I was alone in my room. Animal man, still to this day, I think is one of Pearl Jam's greatest songs ever. Okay. Coming back to the article. So regarding animal, though, others have seen it as Vetter, commenting on the tension between himself, his four band mates, and the band's manager. Kelly Curtis said 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Against one, huh.

[00:11:45] Now from that perspective, it makes sense. Vetter growls, confrontationally five against one for a while. Five against one was also the album's working title and for much of the LPs gestation process, that was the dynamic. Vetter versus everyone else. The singer didn't wanna promote the album with a music video costing them untold millions in free promotion on MTV.

[00:12:07] Definitely. He also refused to grant interviews to virtually anyone other than Cameron Crow of Rolling Stone, even Nirvana, who came from a more indie background and frequently took shots at Pearl Jam in the press, submitted to videos and granted interviews. To Abruzzi and the others. It felt like a willful act of self-destruction.

[00:12:28] When we pulled back, I was like, Aw, man. McCready told Rolling Stone in 2006. I was a bit bummed out because I wanted to keep doing it, keep doing videos. We had this chance, let's take it, let's not blow it.

[00:12:41] But VE saw it as a necessary way to lower their profile, avoid over exposure and trim their sales for a long and fruitful career.

[00:12:49] That thinking helps explain why he was so reluctant to record better man. A gorgeous ballad he wrote years earlier for his group Bad radio. I was like, awesome. That's a hit, said O'Brien. Who heard it first? During pre-production. Why haven't I heard that before? They all looked straight down and the whole room was deflated.

[00:13:11] I knew I'd said the wrong thing. Vetter even wanted to give the song away to Chrissy Hindi to sing on a Green Peace charity record. But the band convinced him to keep it. The rare time when the five went out against the one, still Better Man wouldn't surface until Vitality a year later. Wow. No idea.

[00:13:30] Better Man was written during verses pretty crazy.

[00:13:33] I think on vitality, I think there's another song called Nothing Man. So you think maybe they should have released it on verses to avoid that redundancy, but hey, who knows? Doesn't really matter. But even a better man, they had crafted an incredibly compelling record that toggled between the raw Fury of songs like Go and Animal.

[00:13:51] Oh yeah. Sublime moments like daughter rear view mirror and leash, and idiosyncratic tunes like rats. Man, I'm telling you, every single song on an album, just Freaking Rocks, that's definitely a nons skippable album right there. That's a no skip. It was a little bit like we were making our first record all over Against at Emin because it was with a different drummer and a new producer, and Dave had really different strength as a drummer than 10 Drummer Dave Cruisin.

[00:14:20] The groove shifted on that second record. I gotta say Dave e has gotta be my favorite Pearl Jam drummer of all time. Don't get me wrong. I love Matt Cameron. And he's been around, what is it now? 15, 20 years now. He definitely has his own thing going. I actually think that his talents are better used in Sound Garden, because Sound Garden did a lot of off time stuff and Matt was amazing at that.

[00:14:44] So I think his talents being a little bit wasted with Pearl Jam, just with the four four timing. But man, no one had the groove like Dave Azizi. Nobody, I think with Dave. Just his groove. And I love how Dave used his symbols a lot and used it like another, almost like another instruments. And that's, I loved his sound with all the symbol crashes and incorporating all that stuff as part of the groove.

[00:15:10] I'm telling you there's no other drummer that kind of sounded like him. And that was a damn shame when he left. I think the Pearl Jam sounds just started sounding differently, naturally, but all that to say, freaking amazing drummer and my favorite.

[00:15:24] okay. Back to the article for the cover. The group selected a photo of a sheep on a farm in Hamilton, Montana, trying in vain to squeeze its head through a tiny hole in a fence. The message was clear. Pearl Jam may have felt trapped by fame, but escape was still possible. Lack of promotion notwithstanding versus still sold an astonishing 950,000 copies in his first five days on shelves.

[00:15:49] A sound scan record at the time. Yeah, so just like I was saying earlier, that was at the time the fastest selling. Second album of any band. Pearl Jam had created a deliberately non-commercial record, but nothing could stop their fans from gobbling it up. Vera's vision of returning to its normal life before the band had taken off remained a distant fantasy.

[00:16:11] The first meeting I had with Vetter, he said, help me. I don't know whether I want this. Recall, Pete Townsend, I think I said. Once you've been elected, you have to serve as mayor, you don't have a choice. Coming from that legend definitely has some weight, and that is it.

[00:16:30] Short and sweet article about verses. Like I said, my favorite album after 10, 10 is untouchable because it was basically the album that changed my life. But after that versus absolutely right up there. All right hopefully you enjoy this one, especially all you Pro Jam fans. Even if you're not a fan, it's cool to see Eddie Vedder's thoughts.

[00:16:56] Eddie Veder is such a legend just himself, he's done a lot of solo stuff now and he's collaborated with a lot of artists. So even if you're not a Pro Jam fan, you may be an Eddie Vetter fan, or you may know more about him than you want to admit. Really cool to see his perspective on things.

[00:17:10] And there you go. Hopefully you'll enjoy that. All right, rock on.