Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Stone Talks Songwriting and Longevity


Last week, Keith Cameron released an interview that he conducted with Stone prior to Pearl Jam's Rock Werchter Festival show this past July.

Stone says that experimentation and exploration are the keys to maintaining excitement about recording with a band for over 20 years.
I think that for two guys like Jeff and I who don’t really have this massive musical talent but who are excited about art and the process of stumbling on and discovering things just by the nature of finding your own little voice and your own little style that grows into something, it’s still fascinates us and it still motivates us.

“Pearl Jam feels as good or better now than it’s ever felt because we’ve stayed with our original intent in terms of doing things as a band, trying to share as much as we can, believing that even if you aren’t at your peak of songwriting prowess that you can get better and you can find your style over time. All those things are still holding true.
He explains how persistence pays off in the long run.
I think in the long run our persistence and stubbornness paid off in the sense that now I think we’re better at challenging ourselves internally. Going back in time and thinking about songs that I hated – ‘Oh, this song’s not a Pearl Jam song’ – and then just loving it 10 years later and going, ‘God, I was just in a shit mood, because I wasn’t in charge of some particular track or it wasn’t going the way I wanted it to’.
... and how the Pearl Jam touring/recording cycle works.
Our tours are three to four weeks maximum and maybe we do at the most three of those in a year. So in the grand scheme of things, if you’re touring 12, 14 weeks out of a 52 week year, compared to most situations you’re still getting a long time at home to refuel and do things. That would be a touring year. We continue to talk about how we’d wanna go about recording, how we wanna change it up… A way of approaching a record that is different. It’s been proven to us that we can take chances and it works out in the long run, even if in the short run it doesn’t feel quite like we achieved what we want it to.
Check out Cameron's full interview here for more information on the transition from Vitalogy to No Code and how the band prepares setlists and prepares for a show.