I should never, ever try and grow a mustache again.
— Mike McCready
When we're not doing any Pearl Jam stuff, that's when I'll probably think of doing something else, whether that be scoring - hopefully more opportunities will come - or doing a solo thing.
I don't know if you could call me a natural-born runner.
I think, as an artist, you want to keep going - you want to keep taking challenges; you want to be pushed, in a way - and I think Sonic Evolution does that, it makes me feel a little uncomfortable and get out of my comfort zone.
Recording 'Ten,' we probably did 'Even Flow' 30 times.
There are moments in South America, in Brazil, where you look out, and there are literally thirty, forty thousand people jumping up and down at the same time.
I used to sit for hours and copy every lick on those early AC/DC and Kiss records. From there, I went on to Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. After a while, you kind of develop your own style.
I love surprising the fans.
I like to have a lot of different creative outlets.
Chris Cornell painted in song the darkness and beauty of life in Seattle.
Actors want to be musicians, and musicians want to be baseball players.
When you're really young, dating girls, and trying to explain Kiss, they just look at you like you're kind of crazy. I think they got so big in the Seventies and were such a phenomenon - they did the 'Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park' movie, the solo records - some people only know the merchandising stuff.
Playing albums in sequence can be awesome, or it can be very limiting.
Mad Season changed my life in a million different ways.
We can go to Australia and play to 30-to-40,000. We can do that in certain places in the States, but not everywhere.
We came out of a very provincial city that was not very supportive of music, and we had to do our own thing and flyer everywhere.
We have a ridiculous amount of material.
Whether it's Neil Young or Johnny Rotten, a band has to have someone like that: someone who you listen to and know that he believes what he says.
I wanted to start doing more music, doing more things than just playing guitar. I started taking singing lessons and piano lessons. I need to learn more things, to be an artist or whatever, and then transfer that back into writing songs.
There's no time for regrets. You've just got to keep moving forward.
Duff McKagen's been a dear friend of mind for a long time, and he's a Seattlelite.
I really liked Stevie Ray Vaughn, so hey - I tried to look like him.
Honestly, I'd rather do regular interviews. It's more interesting to talk about whatever... anything other than guitars. I'm not into being a tech-head.
Everything I know, I stole directly from Ace Frehley, Angus Young, and Keith Richards. That's how you learn.
I hold Mad Season very fondly to my heart, and there's a lot of sadness in that, too.
I like 'X-Files'-type shows with government conspiracies and extraterrestrials and all that.
Jeff Ament, the bass player, plays basketball. He ultimately wants to do music, but he's really good at basketball, too. We all want to do what we can't do, maybe.
Am I really an author if I just put pictures in a book?
Pearl Jam sit down and have conversations about Kiss all the time on tour.
In the early days of Pearl Jam, we were caught up in such a whirlwind that I was just trying to keep my head on straight and play music. I didn't have the kind of confidence that other guys in the band did.
After Mad Season, I started writing my own music for Pearl Jam and brought it in. 'Given To Fly' came out of that, and so did 'Faithful' - those were on 'Yield,' which came after Mad Season.
We'll go to South America and play to 60,000. It's insane.
A lot of times, bands will go on tour, and people only wanna hear the hits. Luckily, our fans are receptive to our new stuff.
I never play as well without these guys; the best I have ever been creatively has been with Pearl Jam.
'Even Flow' is the best to play live because of the long solos. It starts out slow and builds, and, depending on what the audience does, I can reflect that in the solo.
A song kind of comes out of anywhere. A song will come out of the sky, or an idea, or walking around, or playing with other guys.
I still believe guitars will be around as long as there's rock music.
I remember, after the New Year's Eve 1991 show, somebody running onto the bus and saying Nirvana had just hit No. 1. I remember thinking, 'Wow; it's on now.' It changed something. We had something to prove - that our band was as good as I thought it was.
When they're singing the guitar lines of songs in South America? Never heard that before. And in Canada, when they're singing all of the lyrics to every song - that blows me away. I don't know all the lyrics to every song.
Tom Petty sent me this amazing 12-string Rickenbacker, and 'Not for You' was the first time I used it. It was like a Christmas present. One day, it just showed up at my door. I called him up and thanked him.
That's a fantasy of mine. We could do every record in a residency. It would be so cool. We could play the B-sides along with the album and get really creative with it.
We want to have a life outside of Pearl Jam, too.
I love some kind of pressure in the air. Some kind of weirdness in the crowd, good or bad. That's what we thrive on.
It's always cool when somebody from a football team or baseball team comes to your show.
There's a Kiss through-line to a lot of the music that came out of Seattle, and it hasn't been talked about a lot.
'Black Diamond' blew my mind. Ace Frehley came onstage and did it with us at Madison Square Garden a few years ago, which was a total high watermark in my life. When I was 13, I never thought in a million years that I would even talk to him; I'd probably pass out. And here I am playing with him!
When you're in a band, you're just trying to do whatever you can to keep your band together. You're thinking very inwardly, very myopic.
We value doing things grassroots, even at this level. That means no real high ticket prices or meet-and-greets and all that kind of stuff.
We're always working on our communication, which is something that's important. Instead of going through managers to discuss things, we will sit down and have meetings about things. That's a process. And you have to be able to be honest with each other as much as you can.
I think our fans are bigger and better students of Pearl Jam than we are.
