The band everyone in Pearl Jam loved: “Their place in Western pop-music history is pretty clear”
Despite being an artistic medium created and conceptualized for youth (at least historically), the young have a tendency to take rock ‘n’ roll very seriously indeed. Which makes sense. A lot of very prescient, very incisive points have been made in the name of youthful rebellion. As a group of wise men once said “we’re the young generation, and we have something to say.” It doesn’t half get old though, and if you need proof of that, just ask Pearl Jam. Because, my God, if you want proof of how seriously young people can take rock ‘n’ roll, they are probably the best example you’re ever going to get.
The Jam (no, not that one), were achingly, profoundly sincere for basically their first decade of existence. This is a band whose first hit was about a mother revealing to her son that the man he thought was his father was actually his step-father and that his birth father was dead. Their second hit was about an unhoused man trying to stay sane. Their third was about a school shooting. Even in a grunge scene where smiles were as rare as washed hair and proper mental healthcare, Pearl Jam stood out as a particularly humourless band.
Then, something happened as time went on. Something that happens not just in the world of rock ‘n’ roll, but life in general. With age, Pearl Jam stopped taking themselves so seriously. Now, to be clear, you wouldn’t think it to hear the music, which has remained as serious and impassioned as ever. While they take the music as seriously as ever, the men who make up Pearl Jam have let the world see their playful side on more than a few occasions. That may be the influence of a band who, somewhat incredibly, have been an influence on them from the very beginning.
On Halloween night 2009, Pearl Jam played the last ever public concert hosted at the legendary Philadelphia arena, the Spectrum. As part of getting into the spirit of spooky season, the band dressed up in yellow jumpsuits and red plastic energy dome hats to play a spirited cover of Devo’s deathless 1980 hit ‘Whip It’. Complete with Eddie Vedder (very, very carefully) cracking an actual whip in time to that indomitable riff. It seems like a very confusing dream, or perhaps a catastrophically lost bet, but the band have always loved the Mothersbaugh brothers’ art-rock fever dream of a band.
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, guitarist Stone Gossard elaborated on their love for Devo, saying “If you thought back to Pearl Jam ten years ago, you wouldn’t immediately think we’d be celebrating Devo, you wouldn’t have heard we even liked that band, but everyone in this band was affected by that band. In my perspective, their place in Western pop-music history is pretty clear. They broke down a real barrier of what is typical rock and what you can do within the framework of rock and how you can challenge convention.”
This is one hundred per cent true, and they’re not the only band to profess their love of that most unique of rock bands. David Bowie, Brian Eno, Neil Young, Radiohead and LCD Soundsystem have all professed their fandom. They’re supporting My Chemical Romance on an (at the time of writing) upcoming date of the emo giants’ stadium tour. With that in mind, it makes sense that even a band as po-faced as Pearl Jam can learn to lighten up under the influence of such a special band.
