[Music] i'm glad to this is happening and i'm i'm glad that it's happening here i'm glad it's happening now because i love now and also i love that this album represents right now and i'm excited to talk about this amazing record that i enthusiastically fell in love
with in front of a group of strangers about mexico that was that was fun you know i feel like this has been a real um your journey is the right word because i feel like when you fall in love with an artist or someone's music or art you do begin a journey with them and i was
talking to josh about this last night josh klinghoffer and he was saying how when he was young falling so deeply in love with the chili peppers and pearl jam and now being a part of each of those families respectively there's this undeniable connection that you build when you're a fan of something
and if you make music it does draw you closer and i feel like you know that more than anyone because that's kind of been your life like fan and now friend and colleague and collaborator and the whole thing does that make sense yeah well i think the other thing too is to go
from the audience to the stage so so that's that's another i don't know i i think you have a as opposed to someone who maybe kind of just grew up you know or had opportunities early or was very comfortable with being on stage or you know it's it's a little
different you know fighting for an opportunity to get on that stage or at least giving it your best shot you know it's it's a rarity you know to to succeed in that kind of way and um and as it goes it just gives you further and further appreciation for the ability to be on that stage the the
fortunate feeling of having people that care what you do on that stage and and also the overriding kind of grace and that that you you're feeling useful you know something in your life that you're you're able to to do something to to just be useful you know you share it so openly i've
watched so many pearl jam performances in different environments online and whatnot and one thing it always comes across and that is that you love to make the audience feel like they're on that stage like you really there's no barrier there at all um and when i was growing up i don't know how
it was for you when i was growing up like that barrier was kind of part of what was meant but that was sort of the marketing part of the excitement you know like you never get up here you got to worship me this is a rock show and you just don't have that thing about
you at all you get up here with your friends and you're like if i could do this in the front row i would right yeah do you know some of that escape is something that's that's valid too and that's useful too it's just really how you you know in some ways you know we're here in chicago even
being a we're talking about baseball we're talking about a lifelong fan of a team but but but the beauty that is wrigley field and the history that is the chicago cubs and all that when i i knew people that worked with the team they were very close and some of the players
managers and when i was kind of allowed to be in areas that that fans don't get to go average fans would not have that kind of access they would they would love to have it yeah and they would be soaking everything up and and i feel like i was doing that kind of for everybody you know i was
just like soaking it up and and and would have stories to tell all my my friends forever based on that in in the same way you could apply that to music too you know i i just feel like i'm i'm getting to appreciate it for you know a lot of people my story with you began with you in
seattle and then i got to know you better through your music and the stories and so i traced it back to san diego and then i finally traced back chicago and then i realized that it's always been chicago and then it's like you being here in this city so i guess
if from a fan's point of view seattle was where you found your family that exists with you today in san diego is where you went on your journey to establish your own identity what does chicago mean to you when you think about it chicago is the original roots you know and um
and they've never been completely ripped out of the ground you know it's it's just it really did a lot of um it helped for me both as a as a young kid and then moving back as a as a young adult and you know some of my first like adult jobs of waiting tables and things like
that were here and you know fond memories of being a kid were were here you know schwinn bikes and having a little gang of nine year olds you know like stand by me kind of stuff i think seattle is actually where a lot of the identity stuff came in to be honest because i
that's when you really had to to figure out you know i knew i was as a workman and and and someone who had a work ethic and somebody who could who could put in the hours and and you know kind of uh produce whatever you needed from you know i was ready for the workload
but but as far as like who you were or who i think a lot of that got formed up in in seattle in a way you're a family man not just a family man like i'm a family man but you're a family man like you love to to be in a group of people that inspire you and you can inspire
back and i see that with your band right now and the whole earthlings with the earthling and you know watching the movie and the way that you embraced the outside moving inside and i i was thinking about your story and i wondered how important being around those young kids when
you're a young kid and your mum opening the door to to kids who needed that and you being at the centre of it because you were her son kind of prepared you for that and that desire to like you know welcome people in and be a part of a group you know you know consistency and
loyalty are that they can't be underrated you know or they can't be overrated right you know those two things and so when you have a long group like you know the pearl jam group and seattle and all our crew and and even the people we work with with you know the label and thing you
know it's mostly people that have been with us since day one or the week after and so this group of fellows you would think that it's it's kind of amazing how quickly it come together but but really the threads of our relationships go way back i mean our first real pearl jam tour
outside of us just playing clubs on our own was with the chili peppers and chad smith and what that goes back to 92 or something chad and all our uncles in that group flea and anthony and um [Music] and then getting to know josh over the years i i guess i'm just real fortunate
i'm fortunate that andrew watt you know worked so closely with these guys yeah it fit quickly and and closely and there was no alterations needed and and it was just we kind of off to the races as far as playing and writing and recording and you know andrew had so much to do
with that whether in every every aspect of that i mean he tells me a story about i'm not sure i've heard it from anyone else but um so i'm sure you know it which is that being a lifelong fan of the band that he had there's something in the story where he found himself on the receiving end of
a birthday message or there was something where the connection was still after he he made that first connection he was still by rights the fan not the on the road to friendship do you know what i mean is this yeah is this familiar to you like how you got to know
him the first i knew of him was was a someone left me a letter and a guitar at the shoreline ambi theater in san francisco which is where we would do the bridge school shows and i think it was at the last bridge school however many years ago that was yeah um [Music]
that somebody said this guy left a guitar on this note for you and and it was from this somebody who was in a band that that had played uh that venue a few weeks before and and asked that this guitar get delivered to me and it seemed like a nice it was a nice
really nice letter uh i gave him a call back thanked him and um and i guess when i gave him the comeback he had my number i guess that's how that worked which was great right because then every once in a while i'd get a nice little message he was very responsible with the number
and i mean that you've got to be careful with that because once you open the door especially with somebody you're a fan of and b that is pride's their privacy right and you've been very clear about that like i give you what i give you but don't don't get in between the lines i was
just feeling so grateful you know i wanted to leave leave him a message and uh where this person was yeah and you know what but but yeah sometimes it's good to put yourself out there because like what happens he handled it great and in a while i'd get a little text from him and here and there and
it's cool but and i and i knew that he was working but didn't really know what he was working on or anything like that and and i'm just really proud of the guy you know he he's he's as passionate about music as anybody i've ever met in my whole life you know and that says a lot because we
because i know you and i know you and we number people are supremely passionate about music but you're right andy is an enthusiastic fan you almost have to be careful what you say the next thing is yeah it could happen um and at some point it's almost like be careful what you
think he talks about you in the same way though in a sense that when you you have to be careful you have to be entirely ready because when lightning strikes with you it's like you gotta get it like you gotta capture it gotta catch that performance catch that
much well he's good because he's quick and and you know he's as far as just the technical side of things uh microphones and signal pass that you're running stuff through um through in the mix board you know all the the technical stuff that these guys do and he has a great right-hand man
called paul and another guy called marco um you know it's a real fast moving uh experience as a writer that can be really really great you know and and you would think it would be there'd be there's not too much pressure that you have to do it in time but if
you want to go quick and then you're in that you're you know it's like this quick little you know like a water spout or or those small tornadoes you see on the street every once in a while it's quick yeah and it'll last for a few minutes and then it just kind of goes away that that could be
what songwriting is sometimes you hear it all over earthling it as a record um you know it's it's it's really light on its feet which isn't to say it's not heavy and it hasn't got a lot of you know strong very direct energy but there's a sense of freedom i hear
through the record even through some of the more personal and intense songs um you're covering a lot of ground too you know there's moments of the need you know desire for reconciliation for supporting someone through pain um loss but it starts in this overwhelmingly positive space
you know invincible is just like let me get that cb radio and start this transmission and send this message out there and wider than a way because an opening line is like wow okay so and that was where it began right and it kind of blows my mind that that's where it began because the world was not
that when that song came to you well musically is where it began and then lyrically it was i think it was the last thing to happen yes we ended on a positive note and then our ending is really the beginning so what was the first lyric that would change my whole
timeline completely i believe it was the house that was the first one i think we wrote together and then power of right yeah we did like a loud one in a fact we just started writing real quick and then decide to keep going and then kind of get out of the way
of the stuff you know it's funny because you can kind of time stamp what you're going through by songs and when they were played and it would have been strange to to tell you know the guys in seattle because we've been working a lot too and it would have felt weird to say hey i'm going to go
work with this other guy and these other people and chad and all that that might have felt strange except for having just been down there and then all these songs like falling off of trees and then they were ripe and pretty looked pretty great tasted pretty great
um and you're not allowing yourself at any moment during this process to second-guess to your point about hmm if i'm making an album here do i tell the other guys in in seattle like um what's going on here what's the line i'm walking i know we were talking about loyalty and long
relationships yeah right so what an yeah musical adult rehab but really it was it was just the whole process and then i and then i thought well this this might be a really interesting process because the guys might really like this too and so then we kind of kept going and
about halfway through then we had um all the pearl jam fellas come down to and work with andrew in his space and with his people and his room and now sounds and and that was feeling really good too so it all balanced out you know um and everyone's feeling great about it and and excited about
the future and recording in a in a little bit different way pearl jan's been recording kind of like the more laborious long processes and and spending time like in the laboratory and that was great but um you know it's good to kind of move around and switch it up just
different energy i mean it's you know i i think about your solar records and what and the music you've made on soundtracks and things you've done in the past and and i'm sure it's not as good as conscious as this it's my job to over analyze things um but but but
but it might but it might head the way i look at it is that you know you sort of okay i've got these songs but the ukulele is my friend and it's not gonna it's not gonna blur the lines over here you know i can get these songs out and it'll be precious to me and the soundtrack gives me the distance
i need and whereas this is a rock record this is like right yeah you've got another rock band and so that's where it gets interesting cause it's like but they're your rock band so then it's like we're really in i know it's it's it was i could feel the difference and
especially and now even being on a tournament is a very small tour but it was enough to start realizing wow we're in a band and we're on the road and you know what happens and you know stone's been on the road with uh groups and jeff puts out records and tours them and
i just think i just think it informs what we do in pearl jam i think all of this allows us to be more well informed but more able to uh you know another routes or experiences with communication with others about music about sure i just think it's a a healthy healthy thing and
you know and it probably gives us that always will give you a a fresher outlook or something there's gonna be something new that you'll be bringing back into the fold and and i can't you know it's always gonna be positive um if it was negative you wouldn't bring
it back in exactly and you wouldn't take these shows on the road and you look like you're having a great time and it's just free form and picking the songs you're doing and dude that was a large deep cut by the way respect um you know most people would be like there she is for the last period
yeah but i mean there she goes even hollywood used that right that's the one but yeah but i mean it was it was great oh you could go deeper with the cuts though there's so many greats you know you're probably playing a lot of these places but for the first time in a long time because i mean pearl
jam when you go on the road you make a count you want to reach as many people as you can um when you walk into these clubs and you decide what you're going to play i've always been fascinated by the way you approach your settlers each night because i know that you really try to
sort of get inside the experience before the experience begins like how is this going to inform the room and add value to people so how how do you sort of i've got a bunch of songs there's got to be some way to make it meaningful it's going to be but i think it must be the most fun one
i think it's most most fun part like this whole old school clear show like i have a set list it's like wouldn't that why is that not the most fun part like what do we start with but i was i was going over you're talking about the cubs and i was i was reminding
myself of some of the great experiences you've had there and i was i was reminded that you had a world series experience before you had the world series experience and uh and the thing that i took from that story was the spectrum moment because i was like wow you played the
last night of the spectrum so that's a good opportunity for me to ask somebody eddie who it's not just another gig what something like that feels like when you walk into a room that's hosted so much music and music leaves its mark it adds to the spirit of a room it doesn't
leave when a band leaves right when you walk into a room like that and you know you're the last one's going to contribute to it like what that feels like for you beyond just notes and set lists and yeah it's a lot of history you know these some of these venues that
we've played on this tour some of the ones we picked you know they're 100 years old um the spectrum you know the backstage is where uh roger wrote comfortably known for pink floyd how many nights there springsteen you know all these kind of historical i i think that the main thing is
is to celebrate it with the people there that night and then and then take all those memories back with you and and and kind of make sure that they live inside you and you know it's good that it happened to somebody who really appreciated it you know and not to talk you know not to
mention dr j and 76ers and philadelphia flyers you know there's all these these venues there is there's a lot of ghosts in there you make friends with the ghosts and then say if you need some place to stay when they blow this one up you can come to mind making friends with
ghosts my gosh that's a big part of what i hear in this album y'all really open in this album about things that maybe young and eddie veda would have been protective of and afraid to share is what i think you know as a fan i mean listening to this record some of the
ground you're covering what you're talking about some incredible incredible lyrics um that idea of you know your past or your future um is really an evidence on the last moment on the record um on my way where it's like okay everyone knows the story let me bring it to life
in the right way how did that how did that happen how did you sort of get find yourself there where you were able to do that well yes somebody that i knew through a friend of a friend threw a friend on a baseball team and it's just the most random confluence of events but uh i got
four or five songs of my father singing um my father didn't i didn't ever really know so it was pretty intense to hear his voice and and and one night and you waited right you waited a while to do that uh someone would give me the cd and and uh i carried my little suitcase bag for
probably three months just waiting for the right time the right you know feeling uh [Music] anyways just so it wasn't something i was going to throw in or oh uh or i don't want to be driving because i wanted to be able to you know get home yeah be in an appropriately safe space too
because i don't know what's up and you don't know how you're going to react to it right yeah yeah either way i'm probably going to want to drink but but uh either celebrate or sorrow exactly um not a place for a red light there was there was there was reasons to celebrate because
here it was in my dad he he sounded great yeah he really sounded great and i i shared it with andrew and josh in the studio one night late they had a real powerful experience as well um here in my pop and uh so then we decided we we just kind of added him in to the record in like a collage at the
end and uh it'd probably be the first time my dad was ever on like a real record and you know he actually did okay you know but he he probably just you know he was a professional musician and that you know he played for tips i reckon so that's professional i think sure man
if you can make it your day-to-day then that's yeah many people that's what the dream is but i love listening to that piece of music because hey there's the the combination of your voices is wonderful and b it's kind of i suppose in a weird way being someone who
like any human being is kind of trying to get to that place i was talking to an artist about this idea of tabla rasa right this idea of a clean slate the practice of trying to clear as much away of your learned experiences as possible to create new experiences right because
we only have a finite amount of space and more often than not we fill it full of all the that's right right and then it's like how much space can i clear to fill with good right right and i feel like this song is like that might have been created a lot of space a little clear
made a little clearing right must have done you know i sometimes we don't know why we do things yeah sometimes we meet people later that figure it out for us you might have just done thank you i think you're right so i i think it's what's good to follow your
instincts you might not know why you're doing something a lot of the record was like that like i don't know where this is going or why but sticking with it i think that was another thing about working quickly that you you find yourself in places that as opposed to working something and taking
a really long time with it you know just long time and re-editing and re-you know adding another filter and then i think working quicker is gonna get you somewhere unexpected more than when you take your time with something so i i think i think with the arts or maybe right i
think you know even if your process is it is that you normally work kind of slow and methodically every once in a while it's good to like just yeah what was the quickest what was the quickest pilgrimage made what's the fastest one um good question it wasn't the second
and it was probably it was probably much later probably in the second half of no code i think was pretty quick for being a good record that's great record you know what andrew taught me on this one was that you know after you've been in a group with guys for 30 years and they would say the
same about me like they know how my filters run and and they know kind of like where i you know it's it's it would be like uh scottie pippen always shoots he uh he always comes up short so dennis robins always going to know that scotty pippen's so he knows where to be to rebound
because he's yeah 70 if it don't go in it's coming up there's only so many variables human beings can actually express in our lifetime right i mean we try to be reinvent ourselves all the time but really there's a code with only so much going on we fall back into the whole and and
and just because you're aware of it that can that can be like oh see i knew he was gonna do this exactly and i know that they they know that about me and yeah i think i'm a pretty easy read i wouldn't be a a good good poker player but andrew i just i i
became more open to you know i think it'll be good for our group i've been able to re-learn how to remain open um and that's an that's really is one of the first things to go it's it's easy to lose that so yeah um you just this is a bit of acupuncture to loosen up that muscle i reckon
it's not like you're not covering some real i mean rosa jericho when i really read the lyrics i was like oh man like this is a real like one-inch punch on a sort of species level this is like what are we doing here what are we doing here and when you listen to it at first it's
like oh this is a great rock song about a cool plant but but it's actually like it's like this plant is like really going to be here long after we're gone and and and i i get the feeling that one had came quick yeah yeah it's that stuff's always in my mind it was just more of a way of
giving it like a uh a concept yeah you know i had the the really great fortune yesterday to to speak with some astronauts up on the international space station through a zoom call and you know i knew it was going to be exciting my daughter has gone to space camp and is very like got space and
science theories and ideas running through her brain most of the time she was your younger daughter thrilled yeah she's young right and and the entertainment industry laments because she was so good in the footage of ohana that sweet moment when you guys had that
do it at the end of long way and i'm thinking oh well that's great we're going to get two incredible vetter female artists but no one's going to the moon one's gone um yes there's no singing in space to say what they say um well i knew she'd be excited about it
yeah you know i asked him what's it like getting along up there and do they have any lessons that they feel they could share with us down here on earth when they say you know what he said is you know the nice thing about up there there's there's no boundaries and there's no
they depend on each other yeah you know they really truly depend on each other and and they've also been through a lot together yeah and even in the training they've been through so much so by the time you're up there it's absolutely no differences and and respect everyone
cares about each other again it's a it's you've created a family i just feel like we talk about the health of the planet and you know just when you know pandemic world leaders that are representing a minority but but doing it in such a way that um it it feels dangerous misleading
when because where should we be headed is is getting along better resolving our issues erasing the divides you know so good at building them though that's the problem we're such an effective species at creating problems for ourselves it's crazy and when you talk to your friends up in space
they're like the only problem we have is making sure we don't spiral off in any direction yeah because the stakes are so high up there yeah because there's no artificial constructs of problems yeah one problem stay on the right side of space simple yeah and deadly
yeah you know whereas here it's like i read somewhere the other day someone was talking about your music and they referred it to the to the first two albums as the clinton you know clinton aerosols and i was like oh my god like yeah these are songs that relate to different
eras of time and whatever and and i i i wanted to ask you like because i have a certain relationship with with artists and politics and i i have this thing that makes puts a perspective for me which is like i never expect it but i respect it if you do and you mean it right but i
never expect artists just because you have a voice and a microphone and you matter to me to show up you know it's like it's your journey you have shown up over and over again and and you're still talking about things that matter as this pers conversation so you know
what is the kind of overall takeaway for someone who has never shied away from speaking your truth about the relationship between your art and making a difference in a system that is fundamentally still searching for ways to break break society what i've found and i think what our group
has found is that um to talk about making a difference or suggest that other people make a difference or you know having your songs be about you know making a difference or this issue or that i think really the key after all these years is just just having done that in our own lives so
without anybody needing to know now i'm realizing i'm talking about it now but without anybody needing to know you just do that stuff on your own and it's practical and you you you watch it get done or you help individuals you help a group or you help but you just kind of are able to
do that and and and it's more really what you learn from that experience and maybe that informs the songs and and maybe because if that informs the songs then you know it's it's real and it's right yeah it's authentic so it's not you're not singing about something that that might be just
not attained unattainable or or pipe dream or or giving anybody a false message of hope yeah even though it sounds you know we'd rather be hopeful than than the other but um [Music] i feel comfortable doing it that way yeah because then it's it's from experience
and you know it's real and you know it it it is attainable there is such a thing as like agit prop you know agitator propaganda and i i think that's a slippery slope and i and i think it will activate people and i think it'll get them pumped up in the you know in the streets
or whatever but but then they they walk away from the rally and the rally and then they go all right now what do we do i felt like this and it was really intense and rah-rah but wait what are we you have to you have to have those things kind of in place exciting people is one thing educating
them as another you know and and really the songs in in a you know three and a half minute song it's this you know and and percentages are hard to rhyme you know so you just it's just you just try to find a way to to communicate it's really all about you know
communicating and connecting it's it's a challenge but it's it's my favorite challenge i wasn't sure if i was going to ask you about this because some songs are just better left to be listened to and absorbed in their own light but you know it moved me so much because of
i think this um as you get older you realize like man life is is unpredictable you think you get it figured out and then the next thing you know just this we're all so different and you can't control anything and it's it's just like up and down up and down you've
got to write it right all the time and there's a song on the album and you know i'm going with this um you know which is brother the cloud and you know it's we've seen a lot of pain in the last couple of years and we've seen a lot of people it's been very evident because we're actually looking
at each other for the first time ever in my lifetime where the whole world is sort of looking at each other and one focus it's not like i don't know what's going on in another country we're all going through to some degree similar experience so it's leveling it all up
and that song is really powerful and uh did it catch you by surprise to catch you off guard that song you know i guess that i guess the uh i guess those feelings must they just must have been uh just waiting to come out or something it just came out quick and and then um
you know by the time we got to the end of it it was like okay that was something all right and um [Music] you know i've lost a few people in different ways in the last decade uh and apparently just like you said when as soon as you think that you have something figured out
you know you're about to find out the otherwise you know something else will come along but um this one i guess i guess informed me that i wasn't i hadn't quite dealt with as much as i thought or or at least in a positive way or i still had a lot of emotions kind of you know
under the surface there was a fire inside my core that was still um you know like throwing spitting magma but i want but but so funny that you didn't there's a moment in the song where it's like put your arm around my friend and i'm waiting for it like i'm waiting for that moment that you've
given us before it's like all right i'm gonna let this go like yeah you know and you didn't you were like you like i need to be my needs to be really like you like look at me like i need you to know you gotta say this like it's not like i'm not irrational here yeah and
and maybe after the queue then it's then it's just then you get a big smile and then you get a hug you know yeah yeah maybe that's what a friend's fault for that's a powerful question yeah break your heart you know somebody uh i talked about in jersey the other night
right before the show somebody texted me they thought it was another friend that we had in common that i was referring to particularly um and he was one of the the new town dads one of the sandy hook fathers i got to know quite a few of them and i was real close with him um jeremy and
he was actually supposed to come and visit me stay at my house a few years back i believe in january of that year and i think we had a good long talk around thanksgiving he's come visit in january he had some work to do up in in washington uh he's a neurologist lost his daughter
and that that tragic massacre and uh her name was aviel and he started something called the abial foundation and and about two weeks before he was gonna i was expecting him at the house then uh he he uh commit suicide and i had to tell the friend who thought it was maybe i was referencing
the chair and i said no that's the one after that after that you know sometimes it's hard to find forgiveness in people that that have committed suicide it's it's hard to forgive them you're you can be angry for a long long time yeah he captured it beautifully on that song and
i i you know i think but it wasn't i wanted to make sure that this friend of mine knew it was not about jay that when somebody if you lose your own child to something that maniacal and insane that would be a very very difficult one and i would never judge him and you know what another one
i just thought of too when you say suicide iamakai has a lyric and no more suicide uh it kills everyone that was from the band embrace that record sometimes people maybe they do that to to to hurt someone and but they don't expect it to hurt so many
people there there's just no way there's going to be a lot of collateral damage in that yeah well that song um this really powerful acknowledgement of a lot of those emotions that i think people have to suffer in in silence and private and um i know i'm sure it's the kind of song
because of the power of it and the kind of life you live that will have everybody wandering and talking but at the end of the day it's your song and it should mean something to people in their own ways really matter who it's about in a strange way it's about everyone
i want to make sure that we uh we finish this this conversation um this time talking about um your super flossy guest list on this album it's like it's like most flashy stuff most people are like let me let me manifest something here can i get elton no i'm gonna elton i'm gonna get stevie
i'll get ringo like it's the best thing ever because it's just so uh it's just perfect and every one of them shows up and plays the perfect version of themselves in relation to their relationship with you so alton sounds beautifully elton and stevie just is like stevie on fire and
even ringo just puts in the most ringo of ringo performances you know how did you get that i mean how i mean you just gotta talk me through i don't have a question this is just a reflection i think it was i think it was like you know creating a painting and then knowing that you know within
that yeah and you've tried to create all these little bit different colors you know you kind of vented these colors on your own and then and then knowing the exact color that you need for that part and it's kind of an important part and if you had that that's what we need to
really make the song but who has that color what color is that and then the color is stevie or but so it's either you do something like that or let's say the ringo example because you know that would be the perfect that's the perfect color so you can try
to mix that color on your own yeah chad can you play light ringer of course he could it just wouldn't be you know and then it would be like well well it's like a ring well we can but actually to to have you know the inventor of the color the color himself than it then it's
you know i mean i we're just very fortunate to have had the were you there when andy said to him you're the best oh he's yeah he understood something more family maybe we'll just you're just the best man thank you so much you're just the best and ringo yeah he says uh looks like no andrew
you're the best and andrew stops he goes ah i'm the best here it is i'm the greatest that's what i love about this this is i say that to all the drummers i love it when it couldn't have been sweeter but at the same time couldn't be more of a sh if he tried that's what i
love about people at that caliber is that they've learned to be sweet in order to offset the anxiety of meeting ringo starr but he's still i'm ringo starr and then stevie stevie we just we you know stevie's one of the greatest well certainly the greatest drummer that
can sing yeah and then yeah history of music you've seen somewhere so right have you seen something incredible i mean that's that's there's my case right there yeah but we thought about you know him having him playing drums on something but then we had this idea of like
because we cut there's a song called i'll try on it and and we cut it kind of a little slower version took most a day doing it and then at the end of the day or maybe the next day i can't that we really should bump that up it's a good song but it would be just yes let's freaking get through it you know
it changes the lyric from being like okay here's like a bit of a testimony or i i have an issue that i want to bring up and i just shut you know shut the up you had uh 20 beats per minute on it yeah and now it's like oh this is fun let's talk about our issues but let's
let's yeah we don't have let's have a blast doing it yeah then for some reason um we had the theory of what if stevie played on this we never heard him just something we hadn't heard before yeah you know so then it's taking that color the color of stevie wonder which is one of the greatest
tones of all time um and and putting it into a place where you least expect it and having it be beautiful you know you know my thing is to stay in the moment as much as i can right i'm doing a lot of work on that and it's it's actually it's it's good it's a practice and i'm getting better
at it so i want to ask you like how good are you at that like as someone who has is constantly in your job description being kind of reminded of your past because that's what we do as fans we can't help but like even play that song all right and then being focused on the future
because you are a futurist in the sense of where are we going how do i make things better how do i help what's your relationship like with the present and how much time do you really get to spend in it you know i think it's not only living in the present but it's it's like
slowing down the moment and of course as you get older i think you want to slow down like all the moments right it was in some ways a very inopportune time to get coveted and then in other ways it might have been the best time because it was it was about two weeks before this tour started
and you get hit by this thing and did you get hit by this thing yeah wow and then you realize that when it happens to you and everything you've read over the period of last year and a half two years and now all of a sudden you get hit i'll tell you one thing i'm
so grateful i was vaccinated and boosted because you feel it and you think okay this could be it i thank goodness that that booster made me feel like i had an armored jacket on you know but you still go through two three days where you think this is this are you forgetting me this is it
are you kidding me this whole life my favorite life i've ever had still working on it still still like getting to yeah and and and with kids young kids wife home all these things that you've worked for are grateful for and it's all gonna be taken from this
one thing first of all i don't understand why anybody wouldn't want to wear an almond jacket the armored jacket that's been one of the most fundamental reminders of how we are as a species capable of just being so fundamentally resolute in our belief it's so fundamentally different
well i tell you when it happens to you i wouldn't wish it on anybody yeah and and it's happened to a lot of people and it's continuing you did a lot of a lot of soul searching in two three days with covet and the second you find out you have it your wife looks at you says
do you feel okay because you're positive you say okay i felt i had a little something you know if if a scratchy throat a sore throat is one of the symptoms a singer is not going to be able to a singer has a sore throat pretty much all all the time it's just what we do
there's a little bit of a lump in there all the time unless we have two weeks off and so i'm not going to figure that out so i'm positive you do not hug your wife you do not kiss your wife immediately no if you're a good person you go to jail you do it personally and you do an audit
on everyone you know who have i spent time with it that is one of the coolest things about it is that you immediately take your own health out of the equation and start prioritizing everybody else that you know or don't even know well yeah i went into that store two days ago
seemed like a nice person and then you watch your daughters through the window and uh you wonder as you go to sleep am i gonna wake up ah so i'm glad you're here i'm sad that others are not and um i'm so happy you made this record because of everything that you said so
eloquently about the future not just about what we get right now listening to it because it's awesome album eddie but it's like oh cool what's gonna how is it gonna inform the next thing how's up you know how is mr head to toe and gucci gonna take my favorite band is that what that is i know
something high-end i love that you guys just come straight from rehearsal and i just came straight from fashion week paris it's the best that's funny he's incredible i mean the thing is i think you get the same target it's in the kids section sleepwear [Music] so this is is this really what you're
going to be called even when you're not touring with eddie now because this is this kind of pretty much the same group of musicians that come together and work on various projects um this is the kind of what house banned in a strange way right in a traditional rad kind of sense
and i sort of wonder like is is are you just now the earthlings is that kind of just what you should should be probably yeah probably right the wrecking crew the earthlings yeah we like to think of ourselves as like muscle shoals it's got a definite feeling like that
but it's also really amazing how adaptable you are to each of the artists that you work with i mean each record that you've played on feels very different it's testament to you as a producer but also as a player josh you got to really you got to step into the room and you
have to be fully adaptable right is it is it fun for you to kind of be in that make-believe space of like cool what do i get to do to fit this person yeah yeah absolutely and i think i because what we were talking about playing with people for years who were sort of older or
established i i've often tried to just sort of serve whatever i'm doing and it changes a lot so yeah it's it's easy for me and it's always fun which is easy though because when you're in the chili peppers there was always a sense of improv certainly live when you come out
and play on stage it was like look i mean we're going to tune for four minutes before we even play our first song you know what i mean the whole thing feels very improv um and then you get into this room where it's like you have to work to structure like do you have a preference or do different
disciplines right uh there i guess they are yeah um but just just as much as live or studio are different you know so i think there's a lot of live energy in the work we do at andrew's house and we're essentially as close to each other as we would be if we were at this table
which is you know more connecting than than you find even on stage that's true because there's been photo shoots and we've done a few shoots in in your room but it's not like there's that much footage around of the room so for people who haven't seen it it's small i mean it's
to rehearse in like and it's a great room to record him but when you say oh man you know eddie came down to rehearse there and that's where it all got started i was like how did you fit in that room like my favorite rock music of all time my favorite music in general of all time is
highly improvisational music is people playing with people and so the whole idea of that room was to get rid of a control room there is no control room the live room and the control room are together my engineer paul who does everything with us you've
met before paulo malphite was amazing is at the desk he's on headphones he's right where your camera guys are and he can see us at all times we're all communicating we're just all there sitting because of that it makes you know you don't want to miss something yeah you know
all those records that we love the zeppelin albums the black sabbath albums those were all made pretty quickly yeah even the first pearl gem album right yeah it was kind of made pretty quickly and we go out of our way to kind of get smaller too i mean like there's a couple
takes we would do where i would i'd have to move from the symbol because i was so close to chad i mean that's a lot of energy to be that close to chad i mean there are a few drummers in the world it's powerful yeah now my hearing will forever has forever suffered because of
my being drawn to him on stage and being like right next to his symbols for 10 years yeah yeah because you do it i mean i've seen you what do you say it's worth it i've seen you um obviously perform with chad multiple times and then and on this tour as well i've been watching the
footage and you you do there is a gravitational pull in particular for you toward him right is that something that is fully subconscious uh well i just there's i mean maybe it's from my starting as a drummer i'm just very connected to what he does and obviously we're looking i'm looking out
i'm not necessarily looking at him so i'm really hyper aware of everything he does and i always look to give him a little love when he does something you know special or changes it up a little bit so i'm just kind of i just from day one i was always interacting with him
like that just kind of drawn to him like that you know he's back there by himself you gotta go one of the things i love about this album by earthling is that um it feels like you are lovingly reflecting himself back at him that you're showing him these are some of the things that you do that you may
not even be aware of anymore that are just wonderful and brilliant and i wonder if that was if that makes sense to you and if that's kind of what part of the process was it's just letting you know like we get you and don't be afraid to let us show you how great you are
there is so much of that in this record and that you saying that out loud i think is the first time that's ever been even described like that because it wasn't done intentionally me and josh are just we're very you know i'm proud to say it like biggest pearl jam fans of all time
you know i mean we know the catalog backwards in front so i think when you sit down to go and make music with eddie your your instincts take over right so it's not as thought as like let's do something like this or that it's just what what do you what do you want to make with him what
do you want to hear him saying you know how does that and it's a fine line because a lot of artists as you know haven't been in bands and produce records and stuff they don't want to be reminded even lovingly what they're great at it's like a sometimes artist the
artistic spirit is so restless let me break away from that all together but i do feel like he's actually embracing that on this record he's like no cool like this is a little reflective of who i am rather than just breaking away from the last thing that i did you know what i mean
he's got the best voice there there is so yeah what was it like being such a super fan and getting behind the curtain and and actually seeing the process of him writing and being in that creative process that you could have only imagined when you were actually listening to those records as a
kid i still don't look at it as real it doesn't feel like it was real it was just this kind of like dream it was like a dream sequence yeah which is continuing to the stage now we're on stage yeah playing the songs now and it's like oh we wrote these songs like it's just so cool yeah
you know and it's it seemed for us both with how immediate a lot of it was at the beginning and the first when we were first coming up with the first few songs it you know obviously the lure of how pearl jam wrote their first record in that you know in a couple days and
they played a show at the end of the week and it seemed like that in a way and i i said to andrew at one point you know i'm not sure because pearl jam got so big so fast so i feel like from the second album on it was always a lot different than it was that first time i
agree it was like they were trying to claim some new identity every single time because we as fans had thrust this thing upon them and it's like but they were pearl jam whereas on the first album they were just the guys who had just met making music so i felt like what we were capturing in that room
was maybe a little bit closer to that that he experienced with the band the first time because they never again were they this little and like you brought him back to that place and he didn't reject it outright it was awesome it's awesome eddie came from san diego mm-hmm to seattle and joined
yeah san diego yeah yeah yeah but when he went and made that first program album yeah he went and joined you know a new scene a new group of people he brought what he had there and that magic thing happened and you know he came to l.a and came and hung out with all of
us here on this record and it was like he was again just kind of coming into like another group of musicians it was just it was just cool to you know even think of the parallels and stuff like that what was your favorite experience in the studio do you have one have you
cataloged it yet have you started to reflect enough to be able to say oh man like i always remember that one well i think we all share this one particular chad smith moment for when we watched him when we tracked in the dark the song in the dark with him that all
of us will never forget that but i mean i i was in the room for a couple of stunning vocals and um honestly the one of the greatest moments i think not just of this recording process of my life was listening with andrew and ed to the recordings of ed's father which we
included a little bit at the end of the record but we he he kind of told us the story told us about how through some former chicago cubs this music that was recorded probably here in the city was um made its way to him and just sitting there with him obviously that story being part of
the story of the whole band that we've loved for 30 years that was a special moment just hearing the how the subtle similarities in their tone and the feel and he's he's not played those recordings really for anyone it took him he said a long time to even listen to
him he carried around a cd with him forever of it before he listened to it and he barely played them for anyone just to you know for him to feel comfortable enough and close enough with us to play us that yeah but that's that's evident across the whole record
that's what i love about it is it there's very little in the way of head going on here it's all hot what he gives to a vocal yeah i've never seen before and you can hear it right but to see it it's like okay let me i gotta move this chair and i gotta move that like let's
get those guitars out of the way because anything can happen when this guy gets up on the mic you know he just reaches in in a way i've never experienced and watching him sing a song like brother you know and you know you're sitting the best thing in the world for me is i put on these
headphones and i feel like i'm again 10 in my room with headphones and this thing till the singer that i listened to the moment in that song that just when he talks about put your arm around my friend and it's like here comes that moment when he's going to release
and the craziest thing happens he does but he does it in a really thoughtful kind of restrained way like that's the moment i would expect him to be like yeah right but he's like it's really like make sure you say this it's so different yeah it's like looking you straight in the ass yeah yeah
there's no rage it's all just you need to do this for me that that song gets me every time because of the times but i actually like the fact that i don't like the fact anything about that song because the subject matter is so deep and heavy but i respect the fact that it's it's become
something that should be applied in a universal way because right now more than ever people are in pain and that's why i think this album so unique because there's a lot of joy on this record during really crazy times that even surprised the both of you that the way
the record came out given that you it was made during covert and there's a lot of it is such an empath i'd imagine he would have reflected the pain more than that i think there is pain reflected on this album for sure but for us it was almost like the escape yeah and the release from it
all it's like okay all this stuff is happening everywhere in the world and all the way around yeah and we could just go into this basement put on headphones just be safe and create and create and i think it really does encapsulate both pure joy the joy we all
felt doing it with each other and that time we spent closely you know creating this thing that we didn't know was going to exist the day before and but there's obviously tons of pain all around us in our own lives the entire world but um somehow both of those
things we we're able to capture i think when i hear it so and i think that's what connects and he is and i've never seen someone have this have the a as profound effect on the people in the room with him and 20 000 people in a field it's it's it's unbelievable he's honest yeah it's just honestly at
its best right like yeah and it's you know it's it's pretty hard to do both equally you know i wanted to talk to you josh about um that moment that you got the call or somehow someone in the band or how they make contact with you after your departure from the chili
peppers and i'd imagine you were thinking cool what's my next era where do i go the world's wide open i'm a musician what can i do how quickly you got the phone call to sort of you know join up with pearl jam in whatever capacity and be part of their family eight days wow eight days
better yeah and it was we had planned a call on the 22nd of december which would have been seven days but um just something happened schedules i think ed was in hawaii so time differences so we wound up speaking on his birthday beautiful did you have any inkling that that was
what was going to be talked about no not really i mean there was a um i had had a few conversations with some mutual friends about perhaps that there had been discussions about maybe they needed someone to tour with them but i didn't but they didn't have any uh tour plans their record
wasn't released or announced yeah i didn't know any of the timeline so um yeah i mean i cannot understate how and especially for what uh the next year look like for everybody what their invitation to join that family having come from a beautiful family you know having eight days of of that
but then knowing that i had this um this other group this exact character that you could go on yeah and uh even though it never happened then and we all spent a year by ourselves sure um just knowing that i was sort of accepted and invited to join this incredible
family that i loved for so long and as a family i mean if anyone has seen the movie which is just over 10 years old now and kind of um 20 which obviously encapsulates the first 20 years of the band well that 30-year anniversary of pearl jam just went by in a covert haze of nothingness
didn't it it's like we did nothing to celebrate that i mean you were making a record i suppose but it's like i sort of feel like we should like have a post-dated celebration like that because 30 years there's no joke where the last 10 years ago it is a family and what
that movie really perfectly encapsulates is how the differences make them so special how everyone very honest very different kind of human beings in a strange way you know joining a family like that joining it just on a stage like that like figuring out your place is you know a challenge you know it's
something you have to be really thoughtful about and make sure you move in in in that in that way i mean have you had a chance to experience it yet to any degree or do you have thoughts about it uh i well we've done a couple shows now we did um danny clinches festival in
asbury park new jersey back in september and then we did a few at ohana which is eddie's festival and um yeah so i've i've you know and we've done some rehearsing we did the whole rehearsal period for the tour that didn't wind up happening in march so i've had enough time now to sort of
to where i feel like i know everybody and you know have relationships with everybody i mean i knew them all to a degree before but now i remember right on stage it's like a different thing absolutely yeah yeah but but um yeah i think it's just getting going and it's
still very early days josh is the dream i mean it's the dream it's the most important question are you kidding me like what come on it's like when you're kidding me you're listening to those records you're like man i'd love to be in one of those beds you get two it's awesome well and i
don't play the entire show so i get to jump off my riser and kind of let me watch one thing about him yeah just like you know everyone knows all of his contributions to a lot of our favorite records already but having josh in the studio and i think just adding to what
you're saying as to like that sounds pretty crazy right that it could be one week between leaving the chili peppers to being in pearl gym yeah when someone like this guy is available yeah grab him yeah because not only can he play every instrument guitar bass sing write do
everything play the drums he doesn't even care if he's playing on something if he walks into the room he'll be like oh no you should try this pedal or you should do this or till just be tweaking sounds whatever needs to happen he helps make happen and it's like you can't find
that you know was it always going to be a limited run of shows just to bring the album to life and just then you know get back to other things uh yeah i think the idea was just it's so funny there's nothing thought out about this process literally at all it was like we made a song
because we were just kind of rehearsed like they wanted to come by my house and rehearse see the basement made a song we had drink we listened to lou reed on vinyl we said should we make an album whichever i guess would be a transformer yep then we were making an album and
then we were having so much fun making this album we're like should we play a couple of shows yeah let's see chad why don't you do it it's just like so not thought out so yeah there's only 11 11 shows right yeah so there's only 11 shows and obviously pearl jam and the
red chili peppers and jane's addiction chris cheney from jane's is playing with us and glenn hansard who has his own illustrious amazing career is also in the band so everyone's got their own thing going on by the way it's kind of just like this one period of time where
we get to do this with each other chris is an incredible bass player unbelievable but what about that moment in ohana when you got pino in the back just sunglasses on just like just literally it's so cool you guys are all just vibing off each other thrashing off
each other and peter's just in the back he's literally just going with the sunglasses on just looking left and looking right just like well i think there's two things i think there's two parts to that he's playing give blood he's the coolest guy and he's also the highest guy on the stage yeah i mean
josh look at you huh in a state where it's not legal nicely done and nicely done save that talk for california andy the way ed is the way ed is is like okay pino's gonna play bass then we gotta play give blood yeah and i'm like okay let's give blood i mean i
know i'm i can get deep but i didn't know that song it's a song off pete townsend's album uh soul white city white city and it was actually the first song pinot ever played on with pete on a fretless space this is why i love eddie because he knows this yeah this is the stuff that informs his
decisions it's not just like oh i feel like this it's like i feel like this but it can be connected to this and this and this and then it's a real experience exactly and then as always with him that's a song that people in the crowd don't even know and then once they hear
eddie's version of it it becomes something they want every night he makes like you know fan favorites out of b-sides yeah and it's so much fun to play that song it's just great are you going to pick one or two songs for the last few shows you're getting to add things because i
mean i know it's a very spontaneous set list you get to like show up to the boss and say hey look you know i know you make the setlist with an hour to go but he is definitely yeah you getting the elbow in what's the dream what's the one you haven't played that because you may
never get look i'm just gonna be like super dark on this you may never get to play with pearl jam ever again you know i mean they made they got enough guitar players now bro maybe one shot like what would it be what would be the one song you'd love to play on this tour
any and all i would literally love them all how much fun has it been for you simple question this whole experience making working on this album with ed and just touring the whole thing it's rare when you just get to hang out with your friends and play music and have fun
that's it i've known any longer than this guy's been alive yeah that puts it in perspective and we all played a lot of music together obviously me and josh has and then we make records all the time and and then just to you know have this all kind of happen just so organically and then
i i in the summer i went to um with my family on east coast and he's like okay you you have to come back for like find me a window and i'm like i had one week in july literally like six days yeah and they probably told you but the process was really i mean they had ed had some songs
and then the three of us would get together and these guys would have acoustic guitars and you know who's got a riff who's got an idea something stuff something i would just kind of sit there and and you know make suggestions about the arrangement thinking about the drum part
not playing no playing no playing casinos it's like get it in one get it in two maybe that's it maybe three for just for safety sure and but it's a performance of course which is rock and roll you know so i wondered about that how much you actually think about the drum part
because so much of it it's distinctive when i hear it i don't right i mean you got to kind of have an idea of what you're going to do so yeah you know but but that's spoken about a little bit but yeah that's the song sinking for chad's torah yeah it's literally like toro with
the ball yeah when did you figure out the being in the moment right which is the key of everything but is ultimately the goal if you're a live musician that's what jazz musicians figured out right at the start in this town you're handsome good looking thank you man when did you
figure out that that was where you needed to be because not every musician is a lot of musicians they're very practiced they're trying to figure out the arrangement they go on a different way and you figure out no no what suits me is to trust my instincts and then figure
it and then figure it out later i mean you have to have facility on your instrument just a certain point you know did say there is practice involved and so you have you know the tools to be able to do what you hear in your head when you hear a piece of music at least
for drumming and not being a melodic and rhythmically and you know that's obviously a lot of practice and you know it doesn't just happen like that but i just most of the bands that i grew up listening to were were spot you know a lot of spontaneity jamming you know the deep purples and
the zeppelins and the hooves and the you know those i love that those drummers and those bands that so that kind of early on was ingrained in in how i kind of approached it yeah i just and so you the moment the most important thing you can have your chops and your thing
and all that these these things on the side of your head that's the best and these guys are such good listeners and that's so important you got to listen to the other guys when we're playing this kind of music because you play off each other the dynamics of what
they're doing even just live show everything so it's just capturing that that's that's the lightning in the bottle and that's that's what you try to do but you don't all succeed you know you know for sure when i was young i mean i always just you know that felt the most like authentic to me
like and and that's when you're in the moment and and there's no people just feel that here's the thing i love about chad the most on this drumming like everyone knows you play ass off everyone knows you're a powerful drummer but the thing i think most people recognize now
given the legacy you put into your music and on the on record on stage is that you are like this incredible chemistry like you attach yourself to other musicians and you make it better just through the chemistry and through the ability of playing right now there's a
question here because you had that for a long time with josh and your other band and then of course that era ends and you another era begins and you're thinking i got chemistry with this guy how great was it to be able to know that that can continue even just for you it's really
fun we were at the first gig where i just looked over and oh yeah big hug because i'm so happy to be looking over here yeah yeah yeah yeah we have a great great very like-minded it is rare and so you don't take it for granted and as you get older and play music for a long time
with a lot of different people there's people that like that you just it's like you know you dance good together whatever you do together you know what i mean that's the thing and and then when you find that you don't like you you really you know i appreciate that and i
love to do that so and and these two have it you know you know unfathomably i mean you guys have been playing together how long five years four five six years yeah i mean i don't know a lot of birthday parties yeah we're good weddings birthday parties foods really fourth of july
whatever girls funerals new year's eve we don't care we'll play when i first watched the world together yeah i saw that instantly i just loved the idea of him going to work at the other the other company like behind the kid josh was on fire today hey you gotta have some fun with this
man no one gets to be a double agent in this world it's one or the other it's awesome getting to earthling and the earthlings and the fact that you get this sort of call from andy sporadically and it's like hey no i'm in the studio with ozzie we talk every day okay okay
but okay so then within that conversation that friendship yeah there's a conversation of like hey you know i just um aussie's coming over or elton's coming over or he's comes from a rock and roll background you know he does all this other stuff because he's so talented he can do
anything and play anything and write and he's so good with people and i've seen it and i'm so proud of him as my friend you know to see him do that and rise i saw him conducting the orchestra at abbey road telling them what to play and like yeah god damn little kids have their
purple hair in their own concession musicians no i think it's just oh yeah stakes as high because orchestras don't play it's just so fun because we love to hang out and we're best buds and then to play music together whatever it is and you know obviously we can we've done rock
stuff together and then the aussie record was really special and amazing and had a great time doing that you know how that all came together and uh was was incredible but just like you know he does a lot of pop stuff as we all know and like if he needs drums on it he'll be like hey you know
man playing this duolippa song i'm like who's that you know obviously now you know but the last record and and and whatever stuff that i would normally was not in my world but i i it's so great to like put that hat on and try to make something really cool uh to please that artist and make it
right for the music and andrew is so good at that and it's like it's fun who would never thought it's fun if this isn't it should be fun if this isn't inspiring people right now watching this to apply themselves or be it enough to be able to get the chops so that they
can actually build a world that's fun like this like watching the way you guys interact with each other and then hearing the result is does more good for music than any industry component business side of things it's the inspiration of it that's why i think you capture really
more than anything it's just it's just inspiration yeah yeah that's why he's you know grammy winning producer of the year where's your grammy you know you got in your bag okay actually you they say in joshua's with me they say when you get when you get one you gotta take a shot out of it
right like all the great videos of all time yeah everyone take a shot of it the day my grammy came eddie came over for the first time so i got to take a shot at tequila out of my grammy with eddie better really and he took a shot out of a grammy i was surprised [Music] you