I just found this today:

When Worlds Collide

Paula Abdul wouldn’t be as thrilled to discover an extra Vicodin stashed in her bangs as we were to meet our favorite band’s drummer at our favorite coffee shop this weekend.

We’d just paid for a pound of Peet’s beans and stepped aside to wait for them when our girlfriend asked, "Does that guy look familiar?" She cocked her head at the guy at the counter beside us: tall, thin, close-cropped blonde hair, distinctly lined face. Holy crap!

"He looks like Matt Cameron," we said, in a whisper of disbelief. More evidence: A Pearl Jam patch on his jacket’s arm. Would a famous rock drummer really advertise his famousness in such a way? We stared. We panicked. We absolutely had to say something to this guy—one of the few fathers of grunge not dead or obsolete—who had to be Pearl Jam’s master percussionist.

"Matt Cameron?" We stepped forward and put out our hand. He said yeah and shook it. He smiled, totally cool with our acknowledgement. We told him we were a long-time fan—the best we could come up with despite having fantasized for years about bumping into a PJ member. He modestly thanked us. We made some lame observation about the jacket patch. He laughed and said "It was free, so why not wear it?"

There was a moment of not-quite-awkward silence. Faced with the unexpected and overwhelming combination of two things we love as much as we love writing about them, we were at a loss. The girl who’d taken our order handed over our bag and it hit us: "You a Peet’s fan?" we asked Cameron.

"Oh yeah," he said. And he told us that "we" (Pearl Jam) took Peet’s beans on tour with them. They had a giant vat of them on hand at all times. (Fuck you, Starbucks!) He made a big cube with his hands to give us an idea. He said he was always dropping in for beans. Before our usually ironfisted internal censor could catch on, we told him about living in Queen Anne ("That’s cool. My son and I eat lunch in Queen Anne all the time.") and having our Peet’s unfairly shut down ("Oh man.").

The Peet’s girl was ready to take Cameron’s order, so we exchanged nice-to-meet-yous with the drummer. As we walked outside, we realized we’d forgotten to give him our name, introduce him to our girlfriend, thank him for his fucking brilliance and irreplaceable contribution to Seattle’s legendary sound-splosion, or ask him what he (and Pearl Jam) had planned for 2007. Sigh. Maybe next time. We know where he gets his coffee.

A question for the Seattle branch of RM, is Peets great or what?

I would've been just as starstruck, if not more so. Cool story

Great story. Best drummer ever....

cool story.


whatever you managed to say to matt, is way more than i could've managed

I'd tell him I'm a fan and everything, but I'm no Stallion.

I would have said,"Pearl Jam? Who in the hell is Pearl Jam? What're you a Hippy, are you stupid?"


Not really though, I'd probably say something like, man, big fan.