PEOPLE
Eddie Vedder: Fatherhood 'Fueled my Anger'
WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 19, 2007 09:00 AM EDT

By Nicholas White

Eddie Vedder
Alternative-rock icon Eddie Vedder spearheaded a '90s Seattle musical sound around adolescent angst. Now a 40-something father of a toddler, Vedder says he hasn't mellowed.

"When I had a child, everyone was telling me that I was going to see the world through her eyes, and everything was going to get this nice gloss to it," Vedder told reporters at Tuesday's Into the Wild press conference in West Hollywood. "I kept waiting for that to happen, and thought there was a real problem with me that it wasn't."

Vedder, 42, says, "It was a different reaction. It wasn't the glowy lovey-dovey. It fueled my anger." Vedder's daughter, Olivia, was born to girlfriend Jill McCormick in 2004.

The Pearl Jam frontman, who performs on the film's soundtrack and is friends with Into the Wild director Sean Penn, blames current events for his emotions.

"I realized that I was getting more angry – the exact opposite – and maybe it was because of the times, three years ago and what's still happening. ... All of a sudden, I saw the world as her world that they were [messing] with. That really pissed me off."

He has kept a low profile in recent years, and fatherhood has forced Vedder to question his attitude about life, he says.

"I don't know what I'm going to say when she sees pictures of me hanging 30 feet off a rafter, over a crowd," Vedder says. "At a certain point, you realize you have a responsibility more behind yourself and your need for adrenaline. I'm glad I did things in my 20s that were more reckless."

One of Pearl Jam's most popular songs, Alive, is reportedly based semi-autobiographically on Vedder's childhood. Vedder insists that as a father he won't repeat his caretakers' mistakes.

"I'm trying to break any chain of negative parenting that I might have survived," he says. "I know that she's going to go through a time where she has to assert her independence. I'm going to have to just encourage that."

And rest assured, Pearl Jam fans ... the rocker feels good about his daddy abilities.

Vedder boasts, "I think she's going to have a great upbringing. ... Already, she's [been] provided a life of travel. I didn't get to New York until 25 or Europe until I was 26. She's been to all these places six or seven times. She's beyond me in terms of her comfortability around other people, to this day."


http://www.people.com/people/article/0, ... 41,00.html

glad he still has his anger. Having a kid was the final nail in the coffin of the singer from live's talent

Interesting read. I have a similar view to his. Having learned to live in this world makes me wish my future children will have a better and less cynical world to live in than how it is now.

Fark comment about article:

So we can blame avocado on Olivia then amirite?

Please change title of thread to "Eddie Vedder's Fatherhood is fueling RM's Anger."




Thanks.

I respect the fact that he seems to take his responsibility as a father seriously.

It is also interesting, given his usual closed nature, that he speaks about Olivia and takes her to Cubs games and The Vic show, etc. I think anything that has the potential to be a creative inspiration in any of the band members lives is a plus for a PJ fan. I dont think, in most cases, you hear too many people associate anger with fatherhood, but I understand his stance. I have a 3 year old and another child on the way. Some of the things my children are going to encounter make me sick to my stomach and I would love to be more able to protect them.

OMGWTFBBQ Vedder unleashes worst interview EVAR!!!!111

If I were Ed, I'd be pissed too. He marries a hot piece of ass, she pops out a kid, and now her vag is the size of the Grand Canyon.

i wondered what happened to him...i just thought he decided to become gay,,,.

its all i could come up with...

Kids piss their parents off, that's a fact.

his wife is hot. she looks like a gwen stefani clone.

His coffin got nailed shut when he decided to write a song about Dolphin's Crying. I'm surprised he wasn't the back up singer on the Whale Song. Please no more songs about aquatic animals!

You have Springsteen as your avatar now, leopold, but you're still a curmudgeon.

Thank God having a kid didn't fuel his need to write songs about the miracle of birth and the wonders of nature. I guess Pearl Jam could cover MORNING HAS BROKEN and be done with it.

that's news to me. What a collapse they had

oh lighten the fuck up eddie.

Money.

It's not about having more or less anger, it's about channelling it and using it in the right way!

All this anger seem forced and stupid, i mean...simplify feelings is a thing emo people do, and I love PJ for the nuances, for not putting things as black and white.