SmartLess | Eddie Vedder

all right hey check check hello this is eddie vetter the guys do not know that i'm doing this they don't know i'm here early i'm usually late but uh you know they want to start this thing early and then why the [ __ ] are they come on fellas let's do this welcome to smartlist [Music] this is what i want to bring up when we had dinner on sunday we we started talking about words that we get mixed up like i was i never knew the difference between rife or ripe like if something is ripe or rife with with with information or ripe you know what what is the right and then jason didn't you have one um yeah my my big question uh up until a couple of weeks ago a couple years ago rather uh was making ends meet uh-huh now i always thought that that's right people would say that as a uh well we're just trying to make ends meet meaning we're just trying to buy the cheapest kind of meat you know we're not we're because we're poor we're trying to make ends meet the meat at the end of the day i need a new crew i need a new phone but it's really about completing the circle making ends meet m-e-e-t now if i'd been a reader i would have seen this in print and known that it wasn't uh m-e-t now the more egregious one sean before we move on here we'll but yeah i [ __ ] i can't wait this is all of this is so i'm so close this is and listen and mystery guess we're getting right to you stay awake so but this is uh music related so you'll enjoy this mystery yes it is from the tip but you know what he's going to say sean so sean sean p hayes yeah that's me who's a music fan and and also a music student aren't we all students studied music this is this is uh when we were watching the beatles documentary together oh that's right yeah we all watched the beatles documentary this ding-dong uh didn't understand that the beatles i spelt b-e-a t right like like the beat like one makes a beat i never knew it was a pun on beat like a rock like a drum beat yeah so you did know that that beatles the bug is spelt with two e's i do i just didn't put two and two together didn't put it together but listen i can't be the only person out there well no most of those people are locked up um you know you know what you know we're gonna get we're gonna get online we're gonna get people responding to this like on our social saying like i was today years old which by the way that expression [ __ ] off but wait don't you think don't you think if you would if you want to make it write a comment on any one of our feeds or whatever and and admit that you didn't understand that the beatles was a pun on the word beat and not the bug yes please join me it'll really help sean out yeah i mean we'll help sean out and and uh really help me out it's good we've got bennett and rob uh i want everybody to we got ben and rob and michael here can they contribute as well just to say what did you guys know we've never done this before but you guys knew about the the pun i knew that's for sure i knew better you did for real michael grand terry knew about the pun yeah and robert are you serious you guys you're not well yeah it's like beatles with one s beat less feet less beat less beat less it's like smartness did not clear they went with beethoven's eat less so they oh my god they anyway we did wait i was about to accuse them of ripping us off but i guess that was 60 70 years ago so it was probably it's an homage oh it's an homage that's what's nice thank you thank you very much so yeah so we cleared that up so that's so the beatles super inspiring though yeah watching them back right mm-hmm watching their but wait a minute let me just say i wasn't the only person in the room when we were all watching that together that didn't know that beatles was a pun on the word somebody else who's in who's a big listener of the show she also didn't know she was our kind host too let's just stay here we're not gonna no you know why we're not gonna out her because she's a friend she's a friend okay and um we give you initials at least right no no we don't need to we just just say that she's a friend she's a friend she's she's with a capital f she's a friend with a capital f that's right 8 pm must see tv listener sorry for that um mystery guest sorry for that here comes here comes all right after this after our after going on like this they're gonna be more like a misery guest am i right you like the rock and roll i love the rock and roll do you like the sound of actual instruments being played plugged in played loud this isn't dance music listener this is heart pounding head-banging mosh pitting stage diving rock and roll but his music is also melodic at times it's rhythmic it's complex it's emotional the lyrics are often poetic and complex in february he will release his first solo album in more than a decade called earthling we know mostly from the group pearl jam oh he's one of our most enduring rock stars of voice for a couple of generations now on one of my all-time favorites folks mr eddie vetter no way hello there it's so crazy to meet you this is so cool you better i mean hey will now eddie i have by the way how are you so nice to meet you me too sean eddie we met we met once uh years ago at snl do you remember that i do remember wait wait tell us about that why would you remember that what happened we took a he took a photo of us together right ed yeah it was the after at the after thing yeah and and it was that memorable just of just one photo with will arnett will do it it'll burn it into your brain it was no i wish it would have went longer but those things are sometimes crowded but that was the the highlight of the night we had a little corner minutes with this guy this can i do can i do a little little thing about you eddie so when i was in college i was uh on the entertainment committee and we were in charge of getting bands to come and at illinois state university greatest university in the country sure you played and i don't know if it was the same ticket as the um red hot chili peppers or not i think it was right yeah and maybe you opened for them or is it was it just a double yeah it was this and the pumpkins and the and the peppers i believe yeah and the pumpkin's right it's nice and you all and and i remember seeing you i was like everybody in the audience was just blown away and you hadn't really become you yet and the band was was just kind of on on the rise right do you remember when you weren't you yeah what was that like eddie wait sean you you sean you organized a night that had red hot chili peppers pearl jam and smashing pumpkins well we we we ha as a committee discussed of the band's touring who would we we would go after who we thought the student body would like this was at your college god what is what a school and and uh yeah it was wild to see you then and how have you been do you remember that night eddie what was the venue like was it was it kind of a hall it was called the bone center we used to call it the boner how did you guys come up with that was there a lot of lovemaking happening at the center no um boy if if uh will our net was there i bet eddie would remember no no um eddie so eddie before you were eddie were were there any were you always doing music and and and wanting to planning on dreaming of being a rock star or were there like some regular jobs that that that kind of uh put some food in your mouth before you started successfully rocking and rolling oh for sure yeah i ended up doing a lot of midnight shift work which uh it came in handy because because that's kind of the job now is that you kind of night work you know you're not supposed to peak to like nine or ten at night and and that kind of uh that lifestyle ended up working for for the current occupation but um yeah i know a lot of waiting tables a lot i i really had like a a passion or an instinct and a drive and all these things to to if if i was gonna try to write songs right i was at least gonna just give it my best shot and um you know worked hard in little bands and then would do midnight shifts and do all the you know making of flyers and i i heard when you talked to dave grohl the other day and he was talking about recording with cassette to cassette players and going back and forth i mean it's the same thing yeah that i did and i think that comes from a desire you know that's not that's before the advent of home multi-track recording which was in the early mid 80s which we finally got around to i'm sure dave did too but um before that it was but it was really just wanting to be able to to write a song yourself or you know have it sound like a drum machine or have it sound like a real a real piece of music even though you're doing it by yourself and i think that came from listening to early pete towns and demos which back then were on bootleg vinyls that i would acquire and um and hearing that one guy could kind of play everything and what about what about how dave played every single instrument on that first album for foo fighters that was pretty impressive wasn't it yeah he gave me that tape long before it was out i think it just said this side play here did you give him any notes on it or was it pretty much done oh it was done yeah it was done and then their first tour um it was actually dave and i um oh wow and mike watt we were supporting mike watt who had just put out a great record with a lot of collaborations and so when we took it on the road it'd be me dave and watt at the end of the night as a three-piece and then pat smear would join us etc oh cool um and then i would start the night playing drums with a little three-piece and then foo fighters were playing that was like their very first tour and i want to say it was something a little insane like 28 shows in 30 days or wow you know i wanted to ask you eddie about like you were saying um jason touched on then you touched on when dave was talking about um recording and trying to do like a like a real patchwork sort of multi-track with cassette tapes and stuff and and like using the home story his folks home stereo and stuff which is so cool and just that desire to like get it out because he knew obviously he had like a song or an idea of something and he he had to do it so he had to and and you probably heard us rambling on before you came on here about uh watching the beatles dock together in i was sean will attest to this jason was minding his own business but i was obsessed with watching this documentary watching that process that creative process is one of them i said to them the other night it's one of the most inspiring things i've seen in years and years watching that process and watching paul work out songs and john and watching him go through let it be and trying to figure it out and then ringo sitting next to him blah what i'm getting to is promise probably i don't want yeah i don't want this to turn into one of those like eddie vetter says on the podcast that he puts him you know he's like the beatles or like one you know cause that's what people like to do they want no one's listening but what is was did you have that experience as a kid as well where you were just like had all these ideas for songs that you just knew had to come out or like you had a vision for it like was that kind of coming out of you in that way in the way that i imagine it would you know one thing i have to say about the documentary was which was enlightening and exciting for me to to finally realize that i had something in common with john lennon and that is that i'm always the last guy to show up at practice [Laughter] how about that he was so late all the time in common however i was early today i'll be late for practice but see i you know maybe i'm a little too comfortable with the fellas in the band but you guys i deeply respect you know i thought you were very attacked no i i'm usually late the guys would know this i'm usually late because i'm i'm working on a last-minute lyric or something so we have some we i can make some progress from my side of the fence but um i think early on i think it was just uh you know how to cross that bridge or how to build the bridge from playing somebody else's song to writing one yourself and and you know like our lead guitar player mike mccready is just you know unbelievable and um and i was never going to be able to do that or or my interest lied into kind of communicating and getting lyrics and and chords and momentum and beat you know rhythms and to to to communicate and that started early on you know and it's still it still continues it's still the uh ever moving gold line you know that you you try to get across on a daily basis was it more of an excitement to get uh lyrics out or get music out rhythm melody um you know sound or or was the initial draw um more writing poetry you know well i think it's to get them to match you know so the the song is you know the song is the lyrics and the lyrics are just fit with the music that the music means what the lyrics mean and the lyrics sound so are you saying that rarely will there be a a stack of lyrics on one side and a stack of cool sounding melodies and it's just arbitrary what set of lyrics go with what kind of song in other words are they written separately sometimes um in your process and then you go oh these lyrics would go good with this sound or does it happen simultaneously you know every once in a while because i will to sit and just write to write just write to write and typewriters or calligraphy whatever i'll just write to write and then i'll bring those uh notebooks and and pads of paper and and then something comes up and then i might think that this song sounds like that one thing i might have been writing about so um you might take the one line that's interesting you might take two and then you flesh it out rarely would you take a whole page and just have it match up yeah but so many of your lyrics are like just stuck with me and they always will be like i just know so many of them off by heart they're kind of part of my experience uh you know especially in my sort of 20s and 30s they were really just they're so ingrained in my head like i at any point i i can't this is not a joke i can't tell you how many times out of the blue i will go alone listless breakfast like out of the box eddie it's crazy absolutely what's nuts is and jason kind of said like you know your lyrics are you are like a i don't want to embarrass you you're like a poet though and your lyrics do have and i know that your songs have so much meaning what was funny to us was a couple weeks ago we had david byrne on on the podcast and i was asking him about like you know um you know the the song all that lyrics are like this is not your beautiful house it's not your beautiful wife i was like whoa what was that moment like like that those lyrics are so important to so many people and they read into them and he's like oh it didn't mean anything he said he said i was trying to sound like a preacher from am radio and i just kind of made it up and it has no meaning and we were like what is being a little modest cause so many people have like you know really read into that [ __ ] i have i have david byrne lyrics that you know it's it's they're one step short of being tattooed on my forearm i mean i lived i've lived by them you know be a little more selfish it might do you some good yeah you know yeah but to will's point eddie do you ever like do you ever like actually let it in the fact that because music is such a a psychological uh thing for people that when you grow up or what what you listen to becomes a part of who you are and do you ever just really soak that in and realize you're one of those people that have created music and lyrics that now live inside so many people it's kind of a unbelievable feat he's shaking his head no no he's taking i never think about that at all it's it's more just it's more thinking that that that if that opportunity still exists to uh still do something better or you know uh current or you know i feel like these days or especially last couple years you know i've leaned on music our whole family's leaning on music whether it's been having dance parties or recording together or whatever it's always been a positive thing and and um you know what hell i'm still looking i need music to get me through and and i'd like to have music that may uh you know do the same for others maybe i'll try um do you ever find that i know that you you have a love-hate relationship with uh with fame and success like most people with uh with an admirable level of humility but do you ever do you ever treat yourself to reaching into that bag of accomplishment um to help you through some of the extraordinary levels of pressure or anxiety like you know standing in front of a hundred thousand people you're about to walk out and play like i would imagine a normal person would need to reach into some sort of bag of something uh of some sort of um pride to so that you don't have an anxiety attack so do you do you at least use it for for that um if you won't pat yourself on the back when you don't need it no but you bring up a good point i should do that yeah like that's that's okay to tap into it there yeah all right jason what's the bag you reach into can you talk about it it's got it it says got a zip lock um and um no um i i want to say this i want to say sorry just just wrap up the lyrics thing because it's just killing me i've always to me one of the most sort of heartbreaking lyrics of all time is from your song black which i know was many years ago eddie so forgive me for again embarrassing you but that there's that lyric who says i know i know you'll have a beautiful life someday i know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky but why can it be in mine that to me speaks of somebody who understands pain and heartbreak and stuff in a way that's so profound it's so honest and revealing and and you know you start crying well i'm gonna man no it's it's like there there's a there is a vulnerability in that to be able to say that to communicate that to somebody that that i don't know man it really speaks to i don't know if you want to talk about that or that kind of writing a lyric like that does it feel exposing or does it make you feel vulnerable at all well back that was in the that was the first record so we didn't have anybody listening to us you know so yeah there was no reason to when we were recording there was no reason to think that you know i was exposing any kind of vulnerable side it was just really communicating what i was feeling or or or that to be honest again that was something that that music that the plaintiff chord changes and all that it it sounded like heartbreak so you know i think some of it may be based in truth or experience but then you create a story around that or you create and then you witness some stuff going on over here and then you incorporate that and you kind of but in the end you had it wasn't just you know men singing that it was like men and women singing and actually it was so many you know back then our crowds were average age of 19 or something we will be right back smartlist is supported by helix which i support because they support me not just in the show but at night when i'm in bed doing the thing that i do every day my entire life which is sleep how important is sleep you guys have heard us talk about our felix mattresses we absolutely love them i mean so much so that we all just upped our helix game and got some more mattresses yeah i just got another mattress sent my way sleep they should be talking about sleep on the news every day that's how important it is everybody does it all the time yet we we just kind of like you know it's it's this thing that exists on the periphery it should be front and center good sleep is the key to everything feeling good longevity health etc etc etc helix sleep has a 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music because of the way you guys were so open in that way i loved that you weren't just sort of music oftentimes especially kind of hard rock music was very sort of felt very male driven and like you said there was much more inclusive it felt like you know i was always a little bit envious of of um the the singer and writer of lyrics and this band mud honey uh mark harm because it was so acerbic and and felt so his lyrics were pushing outward and and galvanized and it felt to me like he was just protected you know it was like iggy pop or and kurt too his lyrics were cryptic and tough and weren't even sure sometimes what he was singing about or michael stipe it was like protected in some kind of shroud of mystery and and i always i always wished i was better at that at the time but it was just the way that i was writing or feeling or you know i really to be honest i didn't know what i was doing as far as you know what would happen if anybody heard it because we just didn't think anybody really would not not not like as many people has ended up hearing it um which maybe probably made the second record a little tougher because then you did have the thing of of maybe people were listening and right right or that it would be heard and and criticized and and that was probably the hardest one to get through lyrically and still have it be pure and and not reacting to uh the future reaction you know yeah yeah yeah all those albums are just so good and uh you've made so many of them and and now the the solo effort um getting that done in between is there a dominant thing in your life now i'll bet it's family uh and just generally just us having the uh privilege of getting older because the only other alternative is death and you're starting to absorb a lot of different things is that what's fueling your change in sound to the extent that that there that there is one i mean i know i'm sure it's vastly different than what you guys do with the band but what what is what's the main thing that's driving what sounds good to you nowadays and what you're writing about you know i i think i i went down to los angeles to participate in something called a vax live it was put on by global citizen and um a lot of great people coming together to encourage people to vaccinate right when the opportunity was being uh afforded and encouraging pharmaceutical companies etc to make the vaccinations available to third world countries etc so it was a great endeavor and um and then i just happened to bump into a guy that i'd come to know over the years a bit um his name is andrew watt and a kind of producer musician and we've been friends for a while or just kind of acquaintances and i just wanted to go see a studio and and we hung out for a couple days and just immediately started writing so i i think what was informing some of this new stuff was just a new collaborator a new studio a new which is a little home kind of spun basement and just working with some uh another guy josh klinghoffer which has been working with uh our group um with the when we go out live playing the our new record which was two years ago which we haven't toured on yet uh can't wait for that called gigaton so so josh was in the fold and we just started hanging out and then and then we actually it was going so well we had the rest of the guys come down and then we started doing some pearl jam songs as well just in this new uh atmosphere and and new feeling and and that went really well too so i think coming out of covid it was it was um like an antidote to all the isolation um but what's affecting your taste nowadays is it is it your sensibility is it being adjusted mostly with your with your with your family dynamic and and your tempo there or i think well certainly that's part of the fabric you know of of you know nothing makes you feel more grown up than being a parent yeah and having kids now that are you know becoming young adults if they're not already there and it's a house of of of badass women so um you know i i think it comes from a place of humility and responsibility and and always looking out for you know their world um let me ask you something just about i was going to say eddie sorry sean just before you i know that you mentioned that you like you your buddy had a little basement studio that's i'm in my new little basement studio anytime eddie i just know i don't want to embarrass you sean jason stay out of it yeah any eddie any time man i got like a like a little vocal area look how inspiring that environment one microphone he's all set up i got two microphones dude sorry he turned yeah you know what we'll i'm gonna send you see that blank space right there yeah i'm gonna send you a nice ukulele with a holder just put it right there yes i think i should send you all of it look jason you got space for ukulele right there right there bring it and jason will send you a signed headshot yeah i can sign a uh eight by ten for you happy to be right up there yeah you look like the dry cleaners up at the oakwood corporate housing um but speaking about that you just pointed to your guitars on your wall do you well i don't even know how many instruments do you play and and what's the one instrument that you don't that you wish you did uh i wish i could play i mean i can make i can get a sound out of a violin but i wish i could actually really play one or maybe a cello like a fretless stringed instrument with a bow would be is that because you love classical music no um but i don't mind it but i i think you could sure it's fine in the background you could do some enjoy i'm a big fan of this guy warren ellis who plays with nick cave and the bad seeds and just nick cave and and warren had a band called uh the dirty three which was all instrumental back in the day and and we almost called this podcast that that's amazing by the way it would have been good but they were incredible and it was all improvisational and and um he's been a a huge inspiration to me all my life so um was there as as time went on you know pearl jam i think was formed around late 80s early 90s right or something like that 1991 yeah yeah and as time went on did and technology improved around music did that help and did that hinder did you embrace it were you like screw that all we're all acoustic like did that influence you in any way analog we're analog i think that i think technology is great i still my goal has been or i think the group kind of agrees using the technology to do what we've always done but maybe do it more efficiently or quicker and and to be honest it probably doesn't sound quite as good if you don't do it right onto tape like two inch tape like we used to analog etc but um i just think you can get lost in the technology and so but if you can comb through it and distill the technology to do the simple things that you used to do with the old stuff i i just feel like nothing can really make the music better than just playing well and writing well right and that you can do with anything so we don't need all the extra stuff but um you can use the technology to just make it you know go a little quicker and maybe sound a little bit better sometimes so you guys don't feel any any pressure to sort of keep up with what i seem to see as somewhat of a trend where this this integration of electronic sound with uh the more sort of traditional sort of amplifier you know music guitar sounded older jason i know never sounded more out you know like in this moment and you've sounded out of touch a lot uh i'll name the the uh the two other groups i listened to uh radiohead and wilco where they they take sort of an electronic sound and they infuse it into some of the is that is that something that you guys play around with do you feel obligated to uh is it interesting to you i think if i was better at it i i think sometimes i'd be inspired to do that and then um and then and that entails reading like manuals and figuring out how to to work these knobs and you know i'll i'll buy this i'll i'll read about a guitar pedal that uh ed o'brien from radio had used and or i'd watch him use it and then i thought i need and then realize that you need to spend a lot of time figuring out what the knobs do and i i wanted i'd rather be writing right or doing something that i could write about yeah hey eddie i forgot to ask you can i just ask you really quick um i keep going back like oh man i've always because these are things i've always wanted to talk to you about because we only talked to each other for like 90 seconds well i'm so happy to be talking you know yeah 15 years he's been waiting since that phone like i got my list out i have like a whole eddie oh wow but uh oh god bless you lighten up a nap oh he's smoking while he's smoking go ahead well this is not smoking i don't smoke in my studio that's the only thing there's a breakfast why not well if you're gonna have eddie over there you're gonna have to allow smoking no of course he can who's kidding who so hang on so uh i don't know what year it was but you and uh a guy who i've known for a long time bill jenovitz from buffalo tom you know bill i love them great guy great guy and great band and you guys played their song um daylight's fake yeah oh my god have you guys shawn and jason have you guys seen this no i have not i want to say it now can i youtube that that was cool right you were in boston doing that where everybody you know and you guys knew the song i mean did you and bill know each other for a while or what was the deal i think we played one show with them i think in boston um back in maybe 91 and um i had already had their record or cd at that time and then that song used to hit me and i remember the first time we ever had a tour bus and and looking out the window and feeling very uh tragic amongst all the newfound uh success but um and and having that song really hit me and then i and then years later i used the i used the word taillights and in one of my songs and i and i next time i saw bill i said hey you know i i was going to call you but i used that i used taillights and um and i and i apologize and he says oh don't worry about it he goes you know i got it from keith richards [Laughter] so uh what is the song about uh before they make me run i think either that or when the whip comes down some about taillights fade but yeah wow um why do i remember you in a in a red sox cap is that a cap you wear often are you a red sox fan you're a baseball fan aren't you well i have an affinity to to the red sox and partly because of the history and and the glory of that old building which is fenway park and i grew up at um wrigley field so the old buildings and baseball and the smaller field are kind of in my dna and then the third oldest ballpark is dodger stadium that's right mm-hmm my beloved uh so the so yeah so it's the cubs that are your that are your that's your team yeah but i feel like i can like the red sox because it's american league you know yeah yeah i gotcha um talk to me about the difference between recording in a studio where you guys have multiple tracks and you can really dial in you can do your vocals a million times once the music is laid down or vice versa i'm not sure what the what the sequencing is there versus when uh you get together as a group and you play live and you know that you're there's no net under you guys and you're feeling and hearing the momentum and the sound of the music at the same time the audience is do you leave yourself open to a completely different experience there and allow the audience to to to drive and inform the the mood there what songs what order you're going to play how you're going to play them um is it participatory like that or or or is it pretty siloed no for sure i mean that's what makes our job harder but we we've done it to ourselves and and that's why people like to apparently like to see us more than once or or more than once in a weekend or more uh or ten times on a tour or something because uh all the shows are are different and and i think that comes we have a our crew we've just been a big family for 30 years and you know if i were to do the same thing twice they would they would know it and and i like to entertain we like to keep them entertained and on their toes and and i think they respect that and um and that level of respect and and feeling like we're all part of it and and everyone's gonna have to be on point for the whole night is part of why we can make changes or or you know we do things like call audibles you know if we're feeling something's happening or or you know the other thing is being able to stop a show yeah yeah have you ever cut a show short because the audience wasn't as responsive as you'd like or didn't come back for an encore because you're like you know what we're good you know what sean they don't deserve it i shouldn't say this but we probably end up playing longer on those nights because we're gonna get them we're not leaving that until we [ __ ] get it i get that vibe i get that is there a city that's tougher than than others uh or a country that's tougher than others and and and and the opposite as well is there is there is there an easy lay somewhere well if i could take it out of that vernacular um all right please do yeah please save jason from himself the crowds in south america are just they will sing guitar solos they will sing in unison a hundred thousand people will sing their guitar solo that's great they'll also there'll be five thousand people outside of your hotel room at one in the morning singing the song and singing the guitar solos and that's great i bet you la and new york are tough crowds they used to be yeah um i i think they used to be and and i think back in the day we were more concerned about that or look we were spoiled at some point so if people weren't being riled up we'd want to rile them up even more or something but i i just don't think we we care about that as much anymore and we're there to just play well and i mean we're there to you know communicate and the other thing is making a a big room feel small and intimate and that's always kind of the goal and um you just never know what can happen and creating a space where other things can happen um it could be some kind of crowd interaction or some interaction within the band or but just being open to that and grabbing it as as opposed to having like a scripted out thing which would kind of be amazing you could do longer tours if you just kind of knew that you got up at two you had a workout you went to soundcheck you did the set you went home you did the same thing the next night i mean you could really fit in a lot of shows it would it would be easier got up at two in the afternoon that's a wake up at two in the afternoon well because you stay up until five in the morning you see good lord this is a tough question it's like do you have a show or experience or a festival or like a moment that you felt like was kind of that kind of rose above there you just felt so connected and you're like you look back on and go like that moment that's the one i'm gonna chase i mean it kind of happens a lot you know yeah yeah um same shut up will no eddie and i are we're artists and you're a robot have you ever um promises promises [Laughter] it was on broadway have you ever seen shawn have you promised have you ever um gotten scared because you opened your mouth and because you were getting sick nothing came out or you know you had no voice or whatever caused you to do a lesser performance than you hoped for and what did you do and how did you handle it well i used to stress out about that stuff more but um now i think it's just you know relax get through it you know there's things you can do well you would know you you can change your breathing you can do certain things to to get it out or maybe you have to sing us one certain line at a lower hour do a harmony octave or something or just talk it or or jeremy spoke up in class today point the microphone at the audience is that what you're gonna say you do the you do the yeah let them do it hey you guys do it right yeah i was in um i went to this like three four years ago i went to berlin with the with the guys from uh u2 and with bono and edge and those guys and i went to see them do a show whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa what do you mean you went to berlin with you too i i guess you're on the right you're on the plane i wasn't on the plane i met them there but i was hanging with edge and bono in the south of france they live in the south and i was working down there as you know and they were we were hanging out they're good they're great guys and um they're great are they so so we go bateman is drippiest oh are they so um anyway so you're on tour with you too go ahead no i i met them at the show but you know whatever we were all so anyway i go to the show bono loses his voice like three songs oh yeah that show i was at that show oh and you took over and i took over and i gotta give the audience what they want you know and and people didn't notice um wait what happened to bono did he was he sick they canceled the show man it was almost like he inhaled like a a chemical or a smoke thing and it just shut down his vocal cords it just that's what i heard yeah that's exactly right they had this new smoke the people who doing the whatever does that fall under pyro i guess or whatever but scary though right i mean those are those i've had that moment too like as because we all perform where you go like oh [ __ ] is this the thing yeah is this the moment you know what i mean um eddie what is the guns to your head you can only do one thing for the rest of your life between the two making music or surfing uh making music okay but you do love the surfing i've i've you know look i'm i'm at an age where i can't serve as bigger waves as i used to and so i've had my fill and and i've got a couple nice pictures of me on big waves did you get out there with laird hamilton at all i used to yeah um i haven't seen him in a while but um yeah he you know he invented so many of the things that people now do on the water you know he'd invent something you know stand up pat he'd invent toe and surfing with his friends and then move on to something else and then invent stand-up paddle and then moving on to something else now he's foiling where he's you know three feet off the water oh yeah foiling through that so we i've been lucky enough to be with him and and be taught by him um yeah what what is it if the if the waves are x amount of feet high that's too high for you to paddle out what is it well nowadays i would say you know i'm not gonna a 12-foot wave is a lot of water good god god but you know i've been on shawn and jason sean have you surfed no i'll look at me no yeah no i know jack johnson is the best surfing musician oh really i mean he grew up right there at pipeline he's he's incredible and great great person great family now have you you have you done the laird hamilton workout with him in the pool there i have yeah that stuff can you explain to our listener what that is what is that well it's just a a series of exercises that you do under water thinking that you know you're getting used to your body under duress underwater so when you you know it applies to surfing and so you if you have like a major wipeout you're used to like battling underwater and it might just be you know you have a swim mask on and you're carrying some weights and you hold your breath and then you just do laps under the pool you know you see if you can do a couple laps or be under for 90 seconds then come up and get another breath and then do more or you just you go to the deep end you push yourself up get a breath go down push yourself up your breath go down um the cool thing is the heavier the weights the faster you go down so that's kind of nice um and that's just you know they used to do it years ago that the hawaiians would go uh swim down pick up a big rock you know run for 30 yards and then come up and get a breath and then do laps just to train themselves so larry's probably the closest thing to a human fish we have today would you say that him and kelly slater yeah yeah they're kelly slater great golfer great golfer do you play do you play golf eddie i do not all right you know what eddie i don't either eddie were you doing the were you doing the cold plunge stuff too yeah did you get into that he's he's a expert at that i've got the puget sound so i can jump into that that's that's fairly cold um i i might someday i feel like i haven't needed it quite yet but i'm certainly getting it's like a cold shower i love it man i do that cold thing too i'm super into it and we will be right back this episode is brought to you in part by noom noom is driven by a singular mission ready it's to help as many people as possible of 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it's just this life and music um girl would tell you the same thing if he hasn't already it's just been such a such a huge incredible blessing and growing up loving music just about more than anything and and then knowing the music and then getting to know the people that made it and inspired you to begin with and and then when you're then when you become you know close friends that's that's just a whole another level of uh then it then it kind of changes then then you're just friends and and it right and now you don't even think that that's you have to kind of remind yourself that oh that's that's the guy that kind of raised you musically that's what jason and will think of me can you talk about your uh your your co your co-bandmate on uh on mrs mills yeah i sent i sent jason a song yesterday um it'll be out in february with the rest of the the collection of this news on earthling let's listen to a clip um but you had a special special guest star there on mrs mills well the song asked for it and and it was a song about a a piano and and um there's this uh piano and that resides at abbey road and it was interesting to hear that um paul mccartney tried to purchase it to have it because i think it was like the lady madonna piano a lot of songs were and they called it mrs mills because it was left behind by a woman uh gladys mills who used to write kind of english pub songs and sing-alongs and and her piano was left and they call it mrs mills and and it's still there because they they refused to sell it to paul and wow and we had our own mrs mills in in california the same model steinway and the guy i was working with andrew he had elton john in there playing mrs mills paul came in and played mrs mills because they recorded a song together elton we did a couple songs and he played the [ __ ] out of mrs mills and then stevie wonder came in and stevie was playing mrs mills and and i i started thinking about how this piano preferred not to be owned she just wanted to be there with all the all these fantastic men were laying her their hands all over her and she liked it that way and so that's what the song's about and um it did have kind of a a beatles fill to it i feel and and we thought speaking of phils we thought about you'd kind of go for a ringo type sound on the drums and then um were able to reach him and and he was joyfully contributed and and made it into something really really special so we got to sit and record and and play with ringo and and it was just a a real it's a great song education do you like it oh yeah all three of those you sent were just i i genuinely meant what i said i could listen to these in a loop for a week straight and not get tired no no no guys wasted on bateman babin doesn't appreciate anything yeah wait you know what um eddie i wanted to finish we started the whole thing with me recounting the time that um i worked at illinois state university yes at the concert yeah let's go back to that first no wait because i wanted to finish that because you grew up in chicago yeah i grew up in glen ellen illinois summer of chicago yeah that's west of chicago that's correct yeah yeah you were in evanston i was north yeah you were yeah about the same distance anyway i was at this concert it was again it was you it was pearl jam red hot chili peppers you got it smashing pumpkins and so and you i was i weighed i weighed like 70 pounds and i be and we they let us in the front row and i worked with the security so when you did the body surfing and jumped into the crowd i am the one how to keep everybody off the stage so they wouldn't rush it and i was like wait a second i was 19 years old at 70 pounds thinking i could hold back a crowd rushing the stage to get to eddie better and let's not forget super super gay oh my god oh yes you pointed out i wore a cape i was so gay a cape that said security oh god oh boy sean the question is did you feel safer knowing that shawn was there exactly did you feel safer [Music] uh i do remember you by you jumped into the crowd didn't you didn't you used to do that yeah yeah that would be a nightly occurrence yeah and then the chili peppers would play and then i'd do it a bunch more just for yeah are you still doing that when you guys are going out and playing those huge venues when's the last time you jumped into the pit trying to think jill would not be happy it was fun in the in the 20 movie or whatever the cameron crow uh pearl jam documentary there was a maybe a four minute thing of just all the montage of montage me jumping in and watching my young kids react was that was pretty fun did anybody just grab your junk one time i mean oh sean this isn't like the bushes jumping in the pit you dumb busted i'm just all about crunch grab i mean they had to have actually maybe that explains the calluses but yeah so maybe yes um are you close to rescheduling your your your dates that you owe us uh on the domestic tour i think i said there were two there for the forum uh in los angeles are we close to resetting those yeah yeah i think we we're going back to europe in the summer and um i think there's just too far some that's being announced for in the states hopefully before that i'm not sure if they've been announced but that's the plan okay don't make like you don't know us when those come out come on as well well we're going to be all over you when you're getting so oh my god are we all over it uh let's let's speak about your uh i'm going to body surf over are you going um band where this t-shirt says please grab here and an arrow to your junk um what uh talk to me about um uh scoring uh movies uh briefly or longley however you want um your your work with uh sean penn uh is fantastic is that something that you enjoy doing i mean it's you're mostly writing songs for those films as opposed to scoring uh to picture yes question yeah i think you know sean is is really the driving force behind all that or i feel like the ones that uh have meant the most or anything at all we're really just the sean ones and you know working with sean is great uh as you know because you know he he can be a as much as he's my older brother and and you know we're so close but uh he's still a terrifying individual and and it will really bring out the best in you and and even lyrically you know if you've ever been out with sean you know he might at three in the morning kind of recite of uh a dylan song with nine verses and do it perfectly or you know so when you write you want to give him something that's worthy of you know reciting at some point um you know he's just been a great collaborator and um this last one we did uh flag day that came out just a few months ago was just another great experience and his daughter is just incredible in it he's incredible in it yeah your daughter participated as well yeah well yeah it was uh i love this story because it was just she was just a stand-in vocalist we needed a you know we were writing songs glenn hansard and i the great um i love that guy iris singer person irish human irish earthling but um he he uh we came up with this song we really wanted shawn to hear and but we didn't have our our female vocalist for another week or so and so i just asked my daughter to come down and and give it a whirl and she doesn't spend a lot of time saying you know she's shy about it and very humble and just kind of you know enjoys it but but she came in and and i played up sean and something about her voice and the vulnerability of it and that it was just kind of perfect for the song so he said not only do i i like the song but this this version and there was also great symmetry because it was him and his daughter and then um olivia as well so it it was a great experience and then the craziest coolest thing which we could have never predicted and and even a week before had no idea would happen or three days before but olivia came up and sang on stage when we played the ohana festival with all her uncles you know in the band you know from glenn to chad smith to josh and andrew and all these great players so it was kind of like she had the perfect wave and and and she surfed the [ __ ] of it she sang great and that was a big thing to be in front of people so that's fair speak eddie speak a little bit because you just talked about glenn hansard who i'm such a fan of uh his music i'm so happy that you guys that the idea of you guys working together for whatever reason makes me really really happy tell me about your relationship with glenn and how that came to be you know i'll tell it quick the crazy thing or i mean it came from such a tragedy in a way because um he was playing in somewhere in oregon and um i read about it the next day that during the set some young man who obviously had some deep deep issues uh walked away from his girlfriend left her in the crowd next thing you know he was jumping from the back of the stage onto the stage and and killed himself it happened behind glenn glenn thought maybe an amp had fallen over um it got even more hectic because there was a one two tulane burrowed into the venue like a winery or something and and he was there with his group swell season and all the crowd had to stay put so they could get emergency vehicles in and out so everyone was kind of watching this thing happen anyways i was able to get his number and reached out that next day just to see how he was because we had gone through some stuff with um the ross gilda thing uh the concert where we had our own extra-large dose of of tragedy so um that's how we met on the phone and then i called the next day and checked back in on them and they decided to keep playing which i i think for them was a great idea and um and that's how we our friendship started and and now we're again just brothers and and i just love the guy and that's so great every day i get to see glenn is a good day let me uh let me ask you a f final question we will let you go you've been very generous with your time and this is the this is the i'm gonna miss this is the dumbest question uh of of of the morning um come and ask it uh you're gonna pretend sean texted me and asked me to ask you this question um it's really nice the and and it's it's a final pearl jam question does the title of the band mean what i think it [Music] no no don't means him online tell us what you think it means first well i'm gonna wait until he uh gives a little color on it there's a slight grin on his face listener well the thing is i don't really know what it means so you could be right i think you do okay there it is can you explain the grin it's just a ridiculous question is it ridiculous question it is we have no okay questions what do you think pearl jam means i think it means whatever it wants you know first of all how any veteran just clowned you dude you just got clowned by eddie vetter i think it mean can i say what i think it means go ahead shawn you see i think it means when a couple who is deeply in love with each other this is very nice way to start i have uh a a an intimate relationship okay and they ha they they have a leave behind oh during a an intimate encounter there's an organ scream what is there an organ scream an organ there's an organ screen and what you get is pearl jam yeah and then you write music to it yeah so you're talking about a dick barf whoa bro well i i don't know what i mean which was the other option for the band name it was the original that was brilliant kind of [ __ ] dick bark it didn't clear it was already taken oh my god did you did you guys hear about the gwar show you know guar speaking of great man did you see that they they were playing a theater and they had somebody crowd surfing and by the time he got pushed up on the stage he had lost his prosthetic leg no no so everyone had to scramble and then they stopped the show see this is the good thing any singer should be able to stop the show anybody running the show any promoter should have a kill switch and be able to stop the show it's just something you need to do and i tell you when the leg comes up from the back of the crowd it's just and gets passed up just the leg it was it's just fantastic filled with pearl jam at that point by the time it gets to the front do you think that eddie and i could play brothers do you think yeah i've had that yeah i was thinking about that yeah early on yeah that's a compliment to me by the way that's what it is yeah are you guys resisting the urge to just sing uh eddie's songs too i've been trying not to dork out for a solid hour now i keep wanting to go like keep it together no don't do it we're about to get away with it okay eddie eddie but it's on the table sorry i just can't [ __ ] man i love you eddie dude i love you you're a beast um and uh until we see you in inglewood um please be well yeah thank you thank you thank you for doing this such a pleasure and honor to meet you i got some i really really love you guys so thank you you are the man my god thank you all right be well thank you thank you thank you and uh hopefully we see you soon much love fellas all right eddie bye buddy bye you guys are welcome okay you're welcome i just walked on there's about uh a half a dozen true rock stars in this world i agree there goes one of them wait how do you know him jay what do you want i just you know he doesn't he doesn't know you know me sean he doesn't know him at all i don't but i i i i requested and he was nice enough to say yes that's so nice i met eddie i met him at snl like like 15 years ago maybe longer and um longer it was like yeah 15 16 years ago this was the photo that he remembers so clearly yeah he took it and it was like the first it wasn't whenever it was before the iphone and he had an actual camera and i was on 8-h right after the show we hung out after two but we were in the thing and i was just waiting at 8-8 talking to somebody and eddie comes over he had a briefcase with him which is funny um no joke and then he goes and they just performed on the show and then he goes hey um do you mind if we take a photo and i was like what and then he produced he's got a camera he's just been taking photo like he asked you to take a photo with him yeah good lord that and it was i i couldn't i went and then and then i went and talked to him and the rest of the guys the after at the after party um like mike uh mccready and those dudes and and uh mike mccree was a big arrested fan oh yeah yeah and um we were still on the original on air in the original fox version and you know the the the more guys that are like rockers the more because you know when i growing up you all you only see them in videos you just hear their songs you just assume they're like testosterone-filled tough guys they're gonna kick my ass and yeah then you meet them they're like the heart of gold gentle giants like the sweetest that's what i meant about eddie's music about his vulnerability to his music and the way the that made it so interesting there was power and emotion that matched the the the weight of the their musical sound too and it's okay shonda what you were saying it's okay for men to be vulnerable in that way and express themselves in that way that's what a real man is i couldn't agree more and i i don't know about you guys i mean he just said it and i said it to him and i say it to you guys all the time you know there was a why it felt like it wasn't okay for men to say i love you to their friends and i say it all the time it's really important i love you i love you too and i think it's so true because it's like oh it's too scary to say that no it's not it only makes you evolve sure and i mean it and and thank you jason well i'm just saying it passed you know it used to be like if you said i love you too to to a a a a man people would think that you're gay or or maybe even bye [Laughter] old school buddy [Applause] [Music] smartlist is 100 organic and artisanally handcrafted by bennett barbico michael grant terry and rob armjarf smart you

Channel: SmartLess

Views: 3,380

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Id: AecYalbsOqU

Length: 71min 20sec (4280 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 11 2022