Everybody Loves Our Town_ An Oral History of Grunge - Mark Yarm [208]
Let me make this very clear: I never really did heroin on tour. When I came home and I was bored and depressed with money, yeah, that’s when I would do it. In my whole career on tour, I’m thinkin’, I did it three times. Otherwise, I’d do that thing people do—they kick by drinking themselves to death for at least four days, get through the withdrawal symptoms, and be on their way. At that show in San Francisco, some person from Minneapolis brought it to me. I didn’t ask for it. Never really did that onstage before. Really slows things down to a sub-dirge.
MAUREEN HERMAN The San Francisco stop was the day of the Entertainment Weekly photo shoot. My mom and my sister came to the show. Kat has to be revived, and then she starts asking for my mom! I’m glad they have a great relationship, but I was just like, “Oh, Christ, Kat! Don’t ask for my fucking mom when you OD.”
Kat was indisposed, so Entertainment Weekly ended up taking pictures of me and Lori, and that’s probably how my image ended up on the cover as opposed to Kat’s.
DAVE ABBRUZZESE When Pearl Jam started talking about laying off on doing interviews and stuff, I had a Modern Drummer cover already in place to be done. One of those nights on tour in Italy was when I was doin’ the last interview with Modern Drummer. Kelly said something to the effect of, “You might just wanna lay off of that.” And my response was that I’d already committed to it. And Kelly said, “Hopefully you’re prepared to deal with the consequences.”
If I had to guess at what moment I crossed the Eddie threshold into him makin’ a power move to get rid of me, it was probably that one.
ADAM KASPER (producer/engineer) Vs. was the first Pearl Jam album I worked on, as an assistant. I’ve become really good friends with Eddie since, and at that time he was definitely a different guy. I don’t know if it was an affectation or what, but he was very moody and serious, and most of the guys in Seattle were pretty lighthearted. Maybe it was because of his fame; it was probably a shock to his system. Basically, you gain a lot of power when you’re in that position and everyone is kissing your butt, nobody wants to upset you, and “Can I get you something?” Matt Lukin used to call him the Pope because Eddie would say something and people would cater to him.
EDDIE VEDDER The second record, that was the one I enjoyed making the least. We didn’t record it in Seattle, and it was just like being on tour. I just didn’t feel comfortable in the place we were at because it was very comfortable. I didn’t like that at all.
JEFF AMENT Recording Vs., there was a lot more pressure on Ed. The whole follow-up. I thought we were playing so well as a band that it would take care of itself. Toward the end it got fairly intense. He was having a hard time finishing up the songs; the pressure, and not being comfortable being in such a nice place. We tried to make it as uncomfortable for him as we could. He slept in the freaking sauna.
BRENDAN O’BRIEN (producer/mixer/engineer) There’s a great song we recorded for Vs., “Better Man,” which ended up on Vitalogy. One of the first rehearsals we did they played it and I said, “Man, that song’s a hit.” Eddie just went, “Uhhh.” I immediately knew I’d just said the wrong thing. We cut it once for Vs. He wanted to give it away to this Greenpeace benefit record; the idea was that the band was going to play and some other singer was going to sing it. I remember saying to the engineer, Nick, “This is one of their best songs and they’re going to give it away! Can’t happen!” And we went to record it, and I’m not going to say we didn’t try very hard, but it didn’t end up sounding very good. I may have even sabotaged that version, but I won’t admit to that. It took us to the next record, recording it two more times, before