I've copied this from a guitar magazine (Total Guitar) I found in my room. It's shortly after the release of Riot Act (2002).

Brief comments on every PJ album up to Riot Act by Mike And Stone...

Ten

SG: It was a really difficult record to make. It was 'over-rocked', we were novices in the studio and spent too long recording, doing different takes, and killing the vibe and overdubbing tons of guitar. There's a lot of reverb on the record. It was difficult, especially having made the Temple Of The Dog record right before, which was the easiest and most beautiful record, that we've ever been involved with. Goddam it! Get Chris Cornell in the band with us and we would be unstoppable. Oh man, let's do some Temple Of The Dog.
MM: He is very tall and handsome.

Vs.

MM: On Vs. The band was blown up pretty big and everything was pretty crazy, and this was kind of our reaction to that. It's probably my favourite record of ours. I always go back to this one, or Yield. Vs. is fresh, has more energy and there's less reverb.
SG: Go is still one of the heaviest songs we've ever written. Sounds killer. We got our heavyosity out on that record. Eddie's scream on Blood was the first one of his over-the-top screams.
MM: This was just a wild time in our lives.

Vitalogy

SG: Vitalogy is the first one where Ed plays guitar and he wrote three to four songs. I remember thinking, 'This is so different. is anyone going to like this?' I had to refigure how I was going to fit into the band. All of a sudden I had to play complimentary parts, rather than writing parts. That was a big shift for me. At the end of the session, I was going 'I don't know if i like this record'. It received these great reviews and then I started
listening to it three or four months later, and it was 'this record is great' and thank God we went through that change. It had a more punk feel to it. Simple songs recorded really quickly. Had Ed not started to play guitar we could easily have been kind of one-dimensional, doing the same kind of formula.
MM: For me vitalogy was just a fucked-up time 'cos I was pretty drunk. It was a big blur, a shameful time. I like the record now, but I couldn't listen to it for years.

No Code/Yield (I have no idea why they coupled these together).

SG: That was a change. The first one with Jack Irons kind of being the main guy on drums.
MM: Yield was the first album since Vs where i actually got to write some stuff. jack wrote In My Tree. he recorded that whole drum take just by himself, like, 'here's some percussion-y kind of feel - do you want to add something on top of it?' He's like a Stewart Copeland kind of guy, he really has a unique style.
SG: the songs were a little bit more structured. I don't know if it was poppier, but it seemed more professional.

Binaural

MM: Hard for me...
SG: I think this was a little bit tough on everyone. I think at that time Matt Cameron was still trying to figure his role.
MM: I think that Nothing As It Seems is a good one. that really shows you the dark lyrics Jeff Ament can write. And I was going through some bad personal problems at the time. Drugs, all kinds of shit. So my mind was more on trying to hide that from the rest of the band. It was a terrible time for me...Now, I've been clean for two years and eight months, and I feel good. The tour was great though, except for Roskilde.
SG: We didn't use Brendan O'Brien for Binaural, we were ready for a change. We owned a lot of records that Thcad Blake had worked on. We were super enthusiastic and i think in the long run that we made a cool record, but because mike wasn't all there, and there was a 'get-to-know-you' thing with Matt, everyone wasn't on the same page.

Riot Act:

MM: For me, going from Binaural to Riot Act was total opposites. To me, Matt was 100 per cent more involved. He bought in three songs. He was there.
SG: He played freely and Mike did as well. When Matt was making Binaural, he was careful not to step on anyone's parts, but on this record he just played, like he was free. On top of that, Ed not going through any kind of block at the midst of the record, but just finding new things to write about and being genuinely excited about the whole process, we all fed on that. Riot Act really seems to showcase all of our thing. There's the simple rock songs we could have written in the earlier era, but it covers all the different times and dynamics we have had and still holds together.

thanks for posting this. their opinions on these records is not what i expected at all.

Stone didn't think Vitalogy was any good? Wow.

Thanks for sharing.

Doubtless that came from his position being usurped by Vedder.

Thanks for posting!

I'd imagine that their views on Riot Act would be different now, bearing in mind this was interview was probably an outlet for pormoting the album at the time. That aside, they seem to be pretty honest with every other album, espcially Binaural/Vitalogy. It's a shame we didn't hear more about No Code and Yield.

very interesting, thanks a lot!

No problem

Thanks for transcribing that. I know that they were promoting Riot Act, but I found those comments particularly interesting. Like you, I find Riot Act absolutely fascinating.

Yep. I remember this. There was "blowback". More illuminating would be to find radio transcripts after each album. Or maybe not... it would probably be unpleasant.

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It seems almost like Riot Act was the start of the Matt Cameron era - in the same way that even with Jack Irons' introduction it was only till Yield where the band seemed fully healed and as a unit.

The music may have been sub-par to some, but I believe the period was definitely an important one in taking the band where they are today. It's hard to picture the band that made Binaural leaping up to make an album as cohesive as the S/T.

There should be a thread or place where all the bands comments on albums can be stored. I read a great Billboard interview with Jeff from 2000 that has some good insights in too. It'd be interesting to see how views have changed, and how members perceive things differently.

absolutely

indeed, great idea!

thanks for posting that, really cool to read.

WIKIJAM!!

I hope this is a bad Gossard joke. I'm not saying that TOTD is a bad record but this sounds like one of those musicians living of the one good record they made decades ago and he sounds like he still isn't over Vedder having a strong effect on the direction the band took. And we're talking about 17 years of Pearl Jam here. Ok I'm done with the bitching.

Interesting read, it would be nice to have the inputs of all of them about the albums.

The whining continued with S/T. Maybe I should start a blog devoted to this. Guess the title.

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I find these quotes astonishing. Matt Cameron is a force of nature on this album. Think of INSIGNIFICANCE, GRIEVANCE, PARTING WAYS with Jack Irons. They would have been completely different songs. Was Stone at these sessions? Has he ever listened to the album?

Very cool to read. Thanks.

I've often wondered what Binaural and Riot Act would have been like had Jack stayed in the band and Matt was never a member. But you're right - the songs, and the albums as a whole, really - would have been entirely different. Definitely food for thought.

It's not about how Matt is different from Jack, it's about how he probably still felt a little uncomfortable with recording with the band, which I agree to. His presence on Binaural compared to the following albums is minimal.

Well since they were all on the same page for RA, it was just so much better right?



New album marketing speak.

It's not about who's on what page or even who participates. Bottom line, how good is the material? ''Nough said.

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