Pearl Jam’s Ten was a slow starter, floundering on the U.S. sales charts before it finally exploded one day shy of its first birthday. The steady pace eventually paid off for Pearl Jam, whose debut permanently altered rock ‘n’ roll. On Tuesday, (March 24), Ten is being re-released, 18 years after it’s debut. It’s sold a remarkable 12 million copies, making it not only one of the most successful debuts in history, but also one of the biggest alternative rock albums.
There are many stories surrounding the album, including Victoria at the outset of the band’s career.
Read further to discover 10 stories behind Ten.
1. Mother Love Bone’s career is over before it even gets underway when singer Andrew Wood dies from a heroin overdose, the first of many drug-related deaths to rock Seattle’s music scene. Two of his band mates, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, continue to make music together but with no specific goal. Mother Love Bone’s debut, Apple, is released in July but the band calls it quits.
2. Down the coast in San Diego, Jack Irons from the Red Hot Chili Peppers passes his friend Eddie Vedder a demo tape of instrumentals thinking he might like some of the riffs. Vedder, with some family demons to exorcise, puts three conflict-ridden tunes to tape and sends them back to Seattle. One of those eventually becomes Alive, a catalyst in the success of Ten nearly two years later.
3. The band’s first gig with Vedder as frontman is Oct. 22, 1990, at the Off Ramp Cafe in Seattle. The band calls itself Mookie Blaylock, a reference to the real-life basketball star of the same name. At this point, the band is barely a week old, but manages to play eight songs, six of which will later appear on Ten — a record named in honour of Blaylock’s NBA jersey number.
4. The lineup that eventually goes on to make Ten — Gossard (guitar), Ament (bass), Vedder (vocals), Mike McCready (guitar) and Dave Krusen (drums) — records its 12-song jam session the very next day. Other songs rehearsed that day would appear on 1991’s Temple of the Dog, a tribute to Mother Love Bone’s Wood featuring members of Mookie Blaylock and Soundgarden.
5. Mookie Blaylock’s maiden venture to Canada includes a Jan. 19, 1991, stop in Victoria at Harpo’s Cabaret opening for Alice in Chains. The band’s fourth performance ever, and first outside of the U.S., is due to Harpo’s talent bookers Marcus Pollard and Gary Van Buskirk, who had previously booked Ament and Gossard at the club during their days in Seattle punk outfit Green River.
6. Not long after the Victoria date, the band changes its name to Pearl Jam. Vedder and Co. get some notices for their involvement with Temple of the Dog, which released its tribute to Wood a month earlier. The supergroup’s first single, Hunger Strike, with Vedder handling some vocals, introduces the shy performer to the world.
7. Pearl Jam releases Ten to little fanfare on April 23, 1991. Dave Abbruzzese takes Krusen’s place behind the drum kit, after his struggles with alcohol addiction lead to in-patient treatment. Krusen’s final show with the band is a Seattle club gig to celebrate the completion of Singles, director Cameron Crowe’s celluloid valentine to Seattle, in which Pearl Jam makes a cameo appearance.
8. Pearl Jam headlines Harpo’s Cabaret on Sept. 25, 1991. Crowe, a longtime friend of the band, writes a piece for Rolling Stone magazine two years later that pinpoints this date as the turning point in Vedder’s career. Faced with what was described as a crowd interested “in getting drunk,” Vedder supposedly throws his microphone stand at the wall to get their attention, which many locals claim is an embellishment. “I didn’t see it,” Pollard says of the toss. “But it’s like Woodstock — anybody who can remember it wasn’t there.”
9. It took a year to make an impact, but Ten eventually reaches the second spot-on the U.S. sales charts in 1992. It is kept from the peak by Billy Ray Cyrus, who disappears soon after. Pearl Jam’s chart dominance lasts for the remainder of the year, thanks to five hit singles, one of which (Jeremy) offers Vedder’s take on Jeremy Delle, a Texas teen who shot himself in front of his classmates the year before.
10. As the band’s popularity reaches critical mass, Vedder becomes increasingly manic during his live performances. Before a sweat-soaked crowd in Vancouver, the group steals Lollapalooza 1992 from Soundgarden and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Pearl Jam’s performance on this day culminates with Vedder leaping into the crowd from a two-storey scaffolding.
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