Pearl Jam was without a doubt one of the biggest bands in the world by the time
they released their second album Vs. The past two years had been a whirlwind for the group
going from obscurity to superstars over night. It was no secret that the band struggled to come to
terms with their success and fame. Adding to that was the media obsession with all things
from Seattle in the early 90’s. Guitarist Stone Gossard would remark to the LA Times
“There’s so much hype you could choke on it,” I wish people would forget that we come
from Seattle. It’d be nice if they thought we came from Cleveland or some place like that.”
At one point frontman Eddie Vedder contemplated leaving the group and becoming a solo artist and
selling his music directly to fans from the luxury of his own house. It was those simple times during
the early days of the band Vedder was longing for recalling in the book Pearl Jam Twenty “On
the first record, we were living in a basement. I was pissing in Gatorade bottles and putting
quarters in the parking meter so my truck wouldn’t get tickets. On the second one, I felt too far
away from the basement.” Vedder would admit in the book everybody loves our town that versus was his
least favourite record to make. Vedder would tell the LA Times what he struggled with most stating
“People think you are this grand person who has all their (expletive) together because
you are able to put your feelings into some songs,” he says softly.
“They write letters and come to the shows and even to the house, hoping we can fix everything for
them. But we can’t . . . because we don’t have all our (expletive) together either. What they
don’t understand is that you can’t save somebody from drowning if you’re treading water yourself.”
Vedder would be the only member who didn’t buy himself a new car
after the millions started pouring in telling the LA Times he still drove the
same 1990 Toyota truck he had when he was working at a service station in San Diego.
While the initial rehearsals for Vs. were done in Seattle, the band would relocate to just outside
of san francisco at a facility known as the Site, which offered peace and quiet and no distractions.
The Site had served other artists including dolly parton, huey lewis and linda ronstadt.
IT was a far cry from their days in the basement as the studio featured a basketball court,
a nearby golf course, a sauna and even it’s own personal chef. Vedder would look back at
the experience of writing the band’s follow up album at the Site recalling in Pearl Jam Twenty
It was a hard place for me at that point to write a record. Especially with lyrics.
I didn’t want to be writing about hillsides and trees among luxurious surroundings. I was more
into people and society, and chaos and confusion, and answering the question ‘What are we all doing
here?'” Those close to vedder would echo similar sentinments with bassist Jeff Ament adding in
the book everybody lvoes our town ”recording vs. was a lot more pressure on ed. I thought we were
playing well as a band that it would take care of itself. Toward the end it got fairly intense.
He was having a hard time finishing up songs, the pressure and not being comfortable in such a nice
place. We tried to make it as uncomfortable as possible. He slept in a freaking sauna.
If you’ve read any of the interviews with the band members around this time then you’d know
that drummer Dave Abbruzzese seemed like the black sheep or odd man out. It was his first
time recording with the band as Dave Krusen had recorded their first album with them
before leaving the band to deal with personal problems.
Abbruzese would refer to the recording studio the Site as and i quote “Paradise”
to rolling stone. He would tell the publication "To me, when I was younger and I heard about a
band selling a million records, I thought the band would get together and jump up
and down for at least a minute," "and just go, 'Wow, I can't believe it.'
But it doesn't happen that way [in this band]. Me, I flip out. I jump up and down by myself."
There's a lot of intensity over decisions,"] "And I think it's great. But every once in a while,
I wish everyone would just let it go. Make a bad decision!" He looks out at the same green
forest Vedder had raged at earlier. "Look at this place! It's paradise."
In some respects the members of Pearl Jam felt like they were revisiting their first
album all over again with Jeff Ament telling Rolling Stone”It
was a little bit like we were making our first record all over again,” “because it
was with a different drummer and a new producer. And Dave had really different
strengths as a drummer than Dave Krusen. The groove shifted on the second record.”
It was Abruzzese enthusiasm for the lifestyle that also created tension
within the band and eventually resulted in him being fired by the group a year later.
I’ve done a whole video on that, the link is down below. Abbruzese would end up writing
the guitar riff for the opening track Go that came from a campfire jam and he
served as inspiration for the lyrics for the song Glorified G when he told Vedder
one day he had purchased two guns remarking ‘they’re glorified versions of a pellet gun.”
While the early days at the Site appeared to go well with the band recording "Rats," "Blood,"
"Go," and "Leash." then things stopped. Vedder was struggling with lyrical ideas. IT would result in
him leaving the studio for several days driving into san francisco and sleeping in his truck.
He would eventually return to the studio with a number of lyrical ideas.
\ The band would enlist producer Brendan O’Brien,
who was 32 at the time after hearing his work on the Black Crowes debut record Shake Your Money
Maker. O’brien would tell rolling stone . “I think that my role at the time was really getting those
guys in a room and getting them in a head space to record and make records. In a lot of ways, it was
a lot more difficult [than it is now] just because they were trying to feel their way around it.”
The schedule for recording would be the same each morning. They would reassemble
in the studio kitchen at 9:30 in the morning for a quick chat, then head outside to play
softball to relax their nerves before going into the studio to record for the day.
One of the songs written and recorded for the versus album, but not released would be better
man. O’Brien took an immediate liking to the song after hearing the band rehearse it. After telling
the band he thought it would be a huge hit, Eddie seemed reluctant to use it for the album. O’Brien,
would claim in everybody loves our town that vedder wanted to give the song away as part of
a greenpeace album benefit and purposely sabotaged the recording so it couldn’t be used on versus.
The album cover shot by Jeff Ament in Montana would show a sheep trying to break lose through a
fence. According to Ament the cover was a metaphor for how the band felt at the time stating "we were
slaves". Not helping was the media attention with Vedder telling Rolling Stone Vedder
revealed that the title also dealt with the media scrutiny the band was under, stating, "They were
writing all these articles ... Our band against somebody else's band. What they hell are they
talking about? You know, don't try to separate the powers that be. We're all in this together."
The album was originally going to be titled five against one, before it was renamed versus.
Ament would tell Rolling Stone “For me, that title represented a lot of struggles that you go through
trying to make a record,” “Your own independence — your own soul — versus everybody else’s.
In this band, and I think in rock in general, the art of compromise is almost as important
as the art of individual expression. You might have five great artists in the band,
but if they can’t compromise and work together, you don’t have a great band.
It might mean something completely different to Eddie. But when I heard that lyric, it made a lot
of sense to me.” Despite the name change there were a few versions of their second album with
the title Five Against One written on the cassette tape according to Pearl Jam Collectors Online.
Released on October 19, 1993 Versus wound’t be accompanied by any music videos for MTV
as the band didn’t want to be overexposed. That did little to hurt the band’s sales as the band
set a soundscan record upon it’s release selling a whopping 950,000 copies in just it’s first week of
release. For comparison Nirvana’s In-Utero which came out a month prior moved only 180,000 copies
Epic Records, Pearl Jam’s label would put out six singles, none of which featured videos. . Their
label pushed for a video to be released for “Go,” but the band declined. Other singles of the album
included “Daughter,” “Animal,” “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” “Dissident”
and “Glorified G,” all of which charted. ” Ament would tell Rolling Stone in 1993
That American Music Club leader Mark Eitzel, told the band hel oved the song Jeremy,
but the video ruinedthe song for him with Ament remarking “Ten years from now, I don’t want
people to remember our songs as videos,” It was around the release of Versus that Eddie
Vedder would grace the cover of Time Magazine with a headline that read ‘All The Rage’ but
Vedder didn’t volunteer or ask to be put on the cover. He would remark in everybody loves our town
“I never knew that somebody could put your face on the cover of a magazine without asking you,
that they could sell magazines and make money and you don’t have the copyright on your face
or something.” He would tell the LA Times in a separate interview “I’m worried about the hype
thing . . . that if people start seeing your picture everyplace and hear all about this
‘spokesman’ stuff, they’ll get turned off,”“I didn’t see being on the cover of Time as an
accomplishment for the band,” he says. “I was afraid it might be a nail in the coffin
It was during an interview with local station KISW that Vedder reportedly told the interviewer
he wanted to wipe his butt with the time magazine cover, but Courtney Love would claim that Vedder
was being manipulative. In the same book she would allege that TIme Magazine originally was going to
put kurt cobain on the cover but he declined to be interviewed by the publication so instead they
went to vedder who offered to talk. At the end of the day he never ended up talking to the magazine
but they put his picture on the cover anyways. Love would claim kurt was upset over the move.
Pete Townshend of the Who would recall to Rolling Stone Vedder’s feelings in 1993 recalling The
first meeting [I had with Vedder], he said, ‘Help me, I don’t know whether I want this,'”
“I think I said … ‘Once you’ve been elected, you have to serve as mayor. You don’t have a choice.'”
It was nearly a month after the album came out that Vedder would find himself in prison.
Pearl Jam's assistant Colleen Combs
would talk to author mark yarm about edie vedder's struggles with fame saying