Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American band from Seattle, U.S.A. The band currently consists of Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guitar), Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), Mike McCready (lead guitar) and drummer Matt Cameron. Previously, the band has had several drummers: Dave Krusen, Matt Chamberlain, Dave Abbruzzese and Jack Irons.
Pearl Jam was formed in 1990 and has gone on to be one of the most successful bands out of the United States, with over 33 million records in the U.S and 60 million worldwide. The band has been performing for over 30 years and in that time, received a plethora of awards; 11 in total with five American Music Awards and four MTV Video Music Awards.
The early founders, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament formed previous grunge bands in the mid ‘80s to early ‘90s and the name Pearl Jam only came about when their original name Mookie Blaylock proved contentious and was changed for legal reasons.
Pearl Jam’s first album Ten was released on 27th August 1991 and contained the hits: "Alive", "Even Flow", and "Jeremy". The album went 13x platinum and stayed in the Billboard for two years. The band spawned many other popular grunge metal bands such as Soundgarden and teen favourites, Nirvana.
Pearl Jam tickets proved highly popular and ensured the band toured exhaustively for the release of Ten; however, during the early ‘90s, the band was becoming problematic and disagreements with the record label and ongoing ticketing issues began to mount and resulted in the band being unable to perform in the U.S for three years.
Further albums Vs. (1993), Vitalogy (1994) and No Code (1996) were all released and did remarkably well; No Code contained the hits "Who You Are", "Hail, Hail", and "Off He Goes” and moved away from the earlier sounds in their debut album Ten. In 1998 Pearl Jam released Yield (1998) and also brought out a charity compilation, No Boundaries: A Benefit for the Kosovar Refugees – a first in a number of charity projects they would work on.
Following the success of the Yield tour, the band went on to produce Binaural (May 2000) and went on tour, bringing out a DVD to coincide with their North American tour. In the early 2000’s, the band continued to tour the world extensively, going to America and Australia. T They went on to produce Live at Easy Street – an album released on Easy Street Records and only sold in independent shops.
Pearl Jam played at a tribute concert to raise funds for the victims of Hurricane Katrina in October 2005 and in 2006 embarked on a world tour.
By 2009, Pearl Jam’s original album was re-released and the band also brought out Backspacer – a new album in 2009 which debuted at number 1 in the Billboard Chart.
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