Jeff Ament on Eddie Vedder’s New Track, Watching ‘The Beatles: Get Back’
Jeff Ament, like many others, was very moved by “Brother the Cloud”, Eddie Vedder’s latest single.
In an appearance on WMMR Preston and Steve, Ament said: “I just got the whole record yesterday so I just heard ‘Brother the Cloud’. I heard it once yesterday which is pretty heavy from what I heard. I didn’t look at the lyrics, but whenever I hear Ed’s first lyrics, there’s often a few lines that hit me pretty deep and that was definitely one of they.
Regarding the lyrics, Ament continued, “Well, when I was a kid, when I was buying records, it was one of those things where you buy a record once a month. You open the package and the first time you’re listening to it, you’re reading the lyrics. And I think I think to this day, that’s kind of my favorite way to listen to music for the first time, if I can actually put my headphones and just read the lyrics as the song plays. I’m in a band with one of the great singer/lyricists of our time. So I’m always curious, because he’s always changing style, and I’m always curious where it’s going. So, I don’t have the lyrics; I have to put in the lyrics for the new record.
He also spoke of former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who joined Pearl Jam’s touring band: “I’ve loved Josh forever, like the handful of times I’ve seen him with Chili Peppers over the years. I think we sort of enjoy the same kind of weird, eclectic music like the “no-wave” scene in New York and a lot of weird jazz and ambient music. And so we have these big conversations about it. He kind of brought a super cool energy to what we do and we really like that Plural recordings. Initially, we were just thrilled to see him play with us. And then when we started dating, he said, “Hey, I could, I could sing that part or I could do that.” And he’s a crazy good musician. You know, like keyboards, drums, whatever. So it was just fun. It’s like a new infusion of energy into the band and it’s easy to get along with him.
The subject of The Beatles: Come Back also appeared during the interview, and Ament divulged: “So be it was the first album I bought growing up, and my uncle growing up was a huge Beatles head and he let me borrow singles. And so I’ve always been quite obsessed with this record. So to go that far and see and see their process and basically see Paul McCartney’s eyes roll back in his head and create these songs from the ether. The other guys are across the room working on a track and there he is, working on “Let It Be” and it turned out to be “Let It Be”, you know?”
He continued, “I kinda identify with that part because in particular, in the beginning, that was kind of how Pearl Jam wrote songs. You know, someone can come up with a riff or something, but we kind of made stuff from scratch. And so watching the Beatles do that and in particular, Paul, as you can see, George and John worked on stuff at home and they brought it in and kind of semi-worked it. I’ve read some stuff since I watched it… That’s his business, man. He does not want to prepare; He wants to feel this energy flow through his body as he creates. He wants to create things out of nothing. For me it was like witnessing a miracle or something like that. It’s always kind of been my religion and my God and whatever, and so to see him in a movie, to see like to see those songs come out of nothing, it was so magical. I was like I stood up, I was like, ‘Oh my God! He writes ‘Let It Be’ there! ‘All Things Must Pass’ with George here!’”
Ament also spoke about his Montana Pool Service, his nonprofit that builds skate parks in Montana. Check out the full interview here.
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Erica Banas is a rock/classic rock news blogger who knows the label well and is extraordinarily nice.