Music legend Eddie Vedder is still going strong. As the frontman of Pearl Jam, he's become
one of the most prominent rock icons of his era. And while he's never fallen into the
throes of addiction, he's nevertheless faced numerous challenges in his life.
Vedder was born Edward Louis Severson III on December 23rd, 1964. His life got off to
a rough start, as his parents, Karen and Edward, divorced in 1965, and his mother remarried
a man named Peter Mueller. For much of Vedder's early years, he was led to believe that his
stepfather was his real dad, and he went by the name "Eddie Mueller." When he finally
found out that he'd been lied to, the truth hit him hard.
Vedder later told the Los Angeles Times that his childhood wasn't particularly happy. The
environment was tense, and by age 15, he'd already moved out into his own apartment.
He worked at a drugstore and struggled to keep up in school. He resented his peers for
the privileges they took for granted, such as going to prom or having parents who could
give them a car as a gift. For the most part, he felt alone. As he put it,
"I'd fall asleep in class and they'd lecture me about the reality of their classroom. I
said one day, 'You want to see my reality?' I opened up my backpack to where you usually
keep your pencils. That's where I kept my bills [...] electric bills, rent. [...] That
was my reality."
Soon enough, it was too much to balance, and he dropped out of school.
"By the time adolescence came along, you know, I didn't, I didn't really trust any, any adults."
Throughout all his early struggles, the one thing that consistently kept Vedder going
was his passion for music. A pivotal influence was The Who's 1971 album Who's Next, which
was introduced to him by a babysitter. By age 12, he talked his family into giving him
a guitar, and from then on, music became his number one hobby.
In 1984, Vedder landed in California, guitar in hand, and decided to make a go at a music
career. He paid the bills by working as a hotel security guard while he fostered his
talent by joining local bands. Getting past shyness was something of a struggle on stage.
He actually wore a mask to his early performances that consisted of goggles that had been painted
over to block out the audience. Eventually, though, he grew more confident.
Soon enough, Vedder connected to some former members of the band Mother Love Bone, who
were so impressed with his song "Alive" that they wanted him to form a band with them to
form a band with him. He followed them to Seattle, and Pearl Jam was born.
Pearl Jam originally called themselves Mookie Blaylock, after their favorite NBA player.
That might be a cool name for a person, but it's a terrible name for a band, unless all
their songs are about hoops. In any case, they soon rechristened themselves Pearl Jam.
In 1991, Vedder told Rolling Stone a rather fascinating origin story behind the name.
Evidently, his great-grandmother was named Pearl, and she used hallucinogenic ingredients
like peyote to produce the world's trippiest preserves. In other words, it was "Pearl's
jam."
That's a pretty cool story, but it also turns out that it's a rather tall tale. In 2006,
Vedder admitted to Rolling Stone that while his great-grandmother was indeed named Pearl,
the whole hallucinogenic jam thing was, in his words, "total bulls---." The truth is
that "pearl" was something that Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament randomly came up with at
a restaurant, and "jam" refers to musical jams.
Throughout his career, Vedder has been an outspoken advocate for social causes, both
on and off the stage. He often railed against the George W. Bush administration, and causes
like the rights of death row inmates, the treatment of animals, and a woman's right
to choose are all close to his heart. In 2006, Pearl Jam founded the Vitalogy Foundation,
a nonprofit organization that supports community health, education, and more. Vedder is also
the co-founder of the EB Research Partnership, which helps fund treatments for childhood
skin disorders. In fact, Pearl Jam has stated that they donate $2 from every ticket sold
at all their shows to causes supported by their foundation.
"Adversity, you know, that's where heroes come from and they come in all shapes and
sizes obviously."
Even relatively small matters don't escape Vedder's attention, as demonstrated in 2016,
when he donated $10,000 to a poor Maryland family facing eviction. Vedder seems like
someone who always puts his money where his mouth is. If he believes in a cause, he dedicates
himself to it. One of his biggest success stories was his support of the West Memphis
Three, a trio of teenagers who were wrongly convicted of killing three other boys in West
Memphis, Arkansas. As a fierce critic of the United States prison system, Vedder discovered
that they'd been imprisoned after a poorly run investigation in 1993.
"We are in a good spot now, and we've got evidence that even in the last two, three
years that we believe will exonerate these kids."
He performed benefit concerts for them, which helped raise awareness for their plight. When
new forensic evidence was brought to light in 2011, they were released.
One of the biggest ways that Vedder has struggled with fame is the conflict between his desire
to connect with his fans and his need to maintain a safe distance. In the beginning of Pearl
Jam's explosion into the mainstream, he devoted himself to his followers. Remembering his
own loneliness as a youth, he would spend hours talking to fans after shows. He would
converse with hundreds of people, or even give out his own personal telephone number
so that they could talk to him if they needed help. When fans wrote him letters asking what
his lyrics meant, he always wrote back. His dedication was sincere and kind, but it could
also lead to him being overwhelmed by his need to not let anyone down.
The problems escalated when one fan turned into a stalker. This particular woman held
the delusional belief that Vedder was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and that he'd
also fathered her two sons. She eventually drove her car through the wall of Vedder's
house, almost killing herself. Because of this incident, Beth Liebling, Vedder's wife
at the time, had new fences put up around their house and ordered Pearl Jam's record
company to help pay for round-the-clock security.
Vedder and Beth Liebling first met up and started dating when they were teenagers. They
stayed together as Vedder became the frontman of Pearl Jam and Liebling, who went by the
stage name Sadie 7, co-founded the experimental band Hovercraft. They got married in 1994,
but in 2000, their relationship ended in divorce. As Vedder told Rolling Stone, the split left
him in a bad place emotionally.
Liebling disappeared from the public eye for a while, but in 2019, she announced a comeback
with a new band named Teleportal. As for Vedder, he was lucky enough to discover new and lasting
love right around the corner, as he eventually met a model named Jill McCormick. They got
married in Hawaii in 2010, and they've remained together ever since. Wedding attendees included
Sean Penn and Jack Johnson. Vedder and McCormick's family has grown over the years, as they've
raised two daughters, named Olivia and Harper.
Vedder's reputation as a nice guy is fairly widespread, even among those who aren't fans
of Pearl Jam. And surely enough, he's proven to be someone who remembers those who have
helped him out in the past. One notable incident happened in 2001 when Vedder and five other
people went sailing in Hawaii, only to have their canoe get overturned. While half of
the group were able to get back aboard after a broken mast righted the boat, their paddles
were lost. Before Vedder and two others could climb back on, a powerful wind pushed the
boat too far away. Luckily, a local man named Keith Baxter and his daughter Ashley happened
to be nearby. Ashley heard the stranded group's voices, and the Baxters were able to save
their lives.
Vedder never forgot this. In 2013, he told the story at a concert, dedicated "Future
Days" to Ashley, and brought her out before the crowd. Three years later, he found out
that Keith Baxter had been in a terrible boating accident that left his leg nearly severed.
He was unable to afford the medical treatments needed to save him from infection. The Baxters
had already raised $70,000 on GoFundMe, so Pearl Jam matched that number with an additional
$70,000.
Much of nineties grunge music came from a place of deep personal pain. For many artists,
the combination of depression and sudden, overwhelming fame led to drug abuse. Kurt
Cobain's struggle with heroin remains one of the most notable, tragic examples. His
death hit Vedder particularly hard, who said at the time,
"When I first found out, I was in a hotel room in Washington, D.C., and I just tore
the place to shreds. Then I just kind of sat in the rubble, which somehow felt right [...] like
my world at the moment."
But Vedder himself never really fit into this scene that so many of his peers were a part
of. That isn't to say that he had an easier time than others, as he has struggled with
depression. But hard drugs simply weren't something he ever really turned to. Though
heroin use was rampant among the music community at the time, Pearl Jam stopped doing drugs
pretty early on. As for Vedder specifically, he swore off these substances when he was
a teenager. That doesn't mean he's a total straight edge, as he's admitted to drinking
about as much as the average person does. But beyond that, he's never really had any
notable problems with addiction or substance abuse.
It's not easy keeping a band together. Music groups tend to be chaotic. Keeping harmony
in the average group of people can get stressful, and those stresses only escalate when the
members are passionate artists who each have their own idea about what the band's meaning
is. It's no wonder that just about so many major bands in music history have had tragic
breakup stories, whether it's the Beatles parting ways, Sting leaving The Police, or
the Gallagher brothers of Oasis constantly feuding.
"We don't like each other, man."
"Did you watch him on here?"
"No." "Oh, so, but he watches you?"
"Oh, he's obsessed."
Pearl Jam, though, are different, and this was demonstrated when the band was inducted
into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017. Longtime drummer Matt Cameron was included
in the induction alongside Vedder, Jeff Ament, lead guitarist Mike McCready, and rhythm guitarist
Stone Gossard. So was drummer Dave Krusen, who worked on the band's debut album Ten.
Vedder and his bandmates didn't want any other former drummers to feel left out. So they
made it a point to publicly invite to the induction ceremony Dave Abbruzzese, Matt Chamberlain,
and Jack Irons, the other three drummers from the band's history,.
If there's one thing that Eddie Vedder is, besides a musician and an activist, it's a
thrill-seeker. He's been known to do things like climb up girders and jump off cliffs
into the sea, which earned him the nickname of "Crazy Eddie" from the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Perhaps his favorite thrill of all, though, is to be out in the ocean, beneath the sun,
riding a nice wave.
That's right, Eddie Vedder is a surfing fanatic. That obsession becomes increasingly clear
the more you study Pearl Jam's song titles and lyrics, which often involve water metaphors.
"Even Flow" and "Amongst the Waves" are a couple of unmissable examples. Surfing references
also frequently pepper Vedder's dialogue, as in a 1991 Billboard interview in which
he said things like,
"I'm riding the wave of this music into the shoreline, which is the audience."
Vedder describes this hobby as a, quote, "amazing bond with nature." In fact, his surfing enthusiasm
goes so far that in 2019, it was announced that he would appear on Surfing Rockers, a
new show featuring musicians whose careers and music were influenced by the board. After
all the struggles he's been through in his life, we're glad he's found a way to be at
peace.
"My life's been really quite full. I think of it as like, the best life I've ever lived."
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