Pearl Jam Houston KLOL interview audio – 1991
Here is a real gem from the KLOL archives. In the early 1990s, just months after their debut album Ten was released (August 27th, 1991), members of Pearl Jam were in Houston and sat down with “Exposure” host David Sadof for a very early career interview.
Pearl Jam was in town opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Unicorn that night. After posting this, a KLOL fan told me he was at the show and the Smashing Pumpkins also played. He added the next night he saw Primus open for Fishbone also at the Unicorn.
Here is Sadof with more of an explanation:
“On Saturday morning, December 7, 1991, Eddie Vedder and Stone Gossard met me at the KLOL studios at 510 Lovett Blvd to record an interview for Exposure, my Sunday night radio show. They were on tour as the opening act for The Red Hot Chili Peppers and had a show that night at The Unicorn. The interview went so well and covered so much that I produced it into a “radio special” with the help of Doug Ray at Moffett Productions. That version aired twice on Exposure. The first time it aired, Pearl Jam was still relatively unknown, and the only airplay they had in Houston was during my Sunday night show. Within a few months, and with the help of MTV, the band’s popularity exploded. This is the raw version of my interview with Stone and Eddie. Just the three of us sitting in a room with the tape rolling and talking about Ten. Before the tape was rolling, Stone asked if Ricky Skaggs had ever been in the room where we were standing. Our conversation begins there.”
LISTEN HERE
The following interview was transcribed from the original interview recording. Some parts have been edited for clarity as there was some talking over each other.
David Sadof: Okay, let’s go. A few questions here. Although Pearl Jam is a new band and Ten is your first album, you, Stone and Jeff Ament have been together for about seven years and various bands. Can you just give us a quick history of the bands you’ve been in that led up to Pearl Jam where we are now?
Stone Gossard: Green River was the very first band, which was started by basically Jeff and Mark Arm and Steve Turner, who are now in Mudhoney. And we put out, I guess, three records on Sub Pop plus a couple of compilation kind of things. And I’m I guess that band broke up in 86, 87 and…
Eddie Vedder: Had a lot of Green River T-shirts out there and people that say that they’re the greatest band ever, but at the time that you were in the band, no one really liked them.
Stone Gossard: We weren’t really huge necessarily. Kind of huge in Seattle. Semi-huge, but we were sell out too.
David Sadof: What were you doing when Green River was around?
Eddie Vedder: Listening to them.
Stone Gossard: No you weren’t. He never even heard of Green River before.
David Sadof: Did you have a T-shirt?
Eddie Vedder: Actually, no. I did listen to Green River.
Stone Gossard: Did you?
Eddie Vedder: I didn’t really listen to Mother Love Bone that much. And I still wasn’t intimidated. I knew their history.
Stone Gossard: And then right after that, me and Jeff kind of hooked up with Andy Wood, who was the singer for Mother Love Bone and Bruce Fairweather, who was already in Green River at that time, who was the replacement guitar player for Steve joined, too. And we kind of…and Greg Gilmore…so Mother Love Bone was a band was a band for whatever like two and a half years or so before Andy Wood died of a heroin overdose. And after that, we just decided that it was time to to do something new and fresh. And we just went in and made a demo tape and ended up sending it out to people. And Eddie Vedder was one of the first people who got it. [from] Jack Irons, the old drummer for the Chili Peppers. And we’ve been working together ever since really…we shan’t work together again though (laughs).
Eddie Vedder: We, um. Yeah, we…actually I owe a lot…I think we all owe a lot to Jack Irons.
Stone Gossard: We do.
Eddie Vedder: The symmetry is really intense. I mean he was also in a band who, the reason he left, I think, was what had happened to Hillel, in the passing of Hillel Slovak and in the fact that we’re playing with the Chili Peppers now.
Eddie Vedder: I mean the symmetry really pretty intense.
Stone Gossard: Synchronicity really.
David Sadof: On one of the promo singles you, you in the riding’s you know, you mentioned the Stone faction and the Jeff faction. The two of you all have been through a lot together.
Stone Gossard: Yeah. There’s an interesting, we have an interesting dynamic in our relationship. It’s…for some reason we work together pretty well I think.
Eddie Vedder: Even though they don’t speak to us.
Stone Gossard: We don’t actually speak (laughs).
Eddie Vedder: It’s it’s all done through music. And then, of course, they have their people. Stone’s people, talk to Jeff’s people.
Stone Gossard: Well, it’s strange because I think generally, I don’t think me and Jeff would be two people that would just hang out together if we weren’t playing music together. I think we’d be friends and stuff, but we wouldn’t like. But it’s because I think we’re so opposite in a lot of different ways, as far as just like general personalities that something about it works. You know, I just we’ve had this relationship and it’s continued and we just like, I think we both really grown to appreciate it and really like into seeing it through.
David Sadof: How does it come about that that you and Jeff do the majority of the songwriting, yet you’re not neither one of you’re the main singer?
Stone Gossard: I don’t know. I generally that’s kind of as far as as far as my end of it goes. I’ve always been kind of just a riff arranger guy. I mean, I just like, come over the riff and come up with another part for and put them together and kind of. But as far as like lyrics, I’ve never written to consider myself a lyricist at all. And I’ve always been in bands where I was writing and or Jeff was writing the music. And generally people are coming up with lyrics after that, you know, our vocals or they’re coming up while we were doing it together in the same room or however, you know.
David Sadof: Well, did you not write a lot of lyrics for this album?
Stone Gossard: I didn’t write any lyrics. Eddie wrote all the lyrics.
David Sadof: When I saw the songs credit to different people, I assumed that that was who wrote the lyrics…
Stone Gossard: Right. No.
Eddie Vedder: I mean, I think a lot of the songs, especially now, they’re just all stemmed from like kind of organic jam sessions and sometimes the melodies, you know, are like improv stuff right over the top. But the fact of the matter is, Stone is always playing. He’s just always playing. And he’s really a great thing. And it’s really cool because it keeps like, I think my ideas for us to, just because there’s always something to work on. It’s not like there’s like one song, you know, every six months, you know, which which there are definitely bands out there, and I think we’ve been in bands before where that’s the case. I mean, even for the first you know, the first week we were together, there was 10 songs. And then the next time we hung out, there was like another 10 songs. And it’s pretty intense.
David Sadof: How did you all finally arrive at the name Pearl Jam?
Eddie Vedder: Well, we drove by a few other names, decided to keep moving until we found one we could make ourselves at home in. And it was, uh, I think the name is open to interpretation, even though the real story is the fact that my great grandma was married to an Indian chief. And, um, I don’t know if he was actually he was demoted. He was a chief for a while. And then, um, when he when he moved into like white society, they kind of, he was no longer ordained. But they also like the the ultimate combining of their cultures was the fact that like my great grandma made this jam that was like had been passed down for generations. But then she added his end of it by adding like peyote and hallucinogenics. And it was this kind of hallucinogenic jam.
Stone Gossard: It smeared all over each other really. That’s my own interpretation.
David Sadof: Isn’t there a a basketball player who originally was gonna be the moniker for the band?
Eddie Vedder: Yeah, we were called the name of the band was Mookie Blaylock.
Stone Gossard: This is the New Jersey Nets point guard.
Eddie Vedder: And he’s an amazing cult hero of ours. However, we ultimately I guess we thought it was a little bit of a goofy name and we don’t think we’re really a goofy band.
Stone Gossard: We take ourselves very seriously (laughs).
David Sadof: But he’s still made his way onto one of your t-shirt.
Stone Gossard: Oh, yeah, he’ll continue to be our mentor.
Eddie Vedder: Well, and we named the record after him. You know, his number is 10. That’s where the title of the album comes from. And we’re getting closer to maybe even making contact with Mookie. Jeff, in New York, reached over the stands and as he was running out after a game against the Knicks, handed him a Mookie Blaylock T-shirt of ours.
Stone Gossard: So Mookie thinks there’s a bunch of crazed rock musicians following him around, making t-shirts and singing his praises.
Eddie Vedder: He’s frightened sits at home saying is, why is this happen to me? What did I do?
David Sadof: There was a recent article in the L.A. Times that compared your live show to that of The Who when they were first starting out. And it said that Th Who’sactions were those of frustration. I’m sorry…the difference pointed out in the article is that were The Who’s actions onstage, smashing the guitars, that was that those were of frustration and that yours are a display of pure existential joy. How do you feel about that description?
Eddie Vedder: I just think it gets intense, it gets really intense. And I think the power of the music and none of this stuff is it doesn’t happen every night. I think we’re driven by the music to do certain things with our bodies or with our instruments, like the way we play or the way we sing or the way we like, you know, smash our heads into something or sacrifice ourselves to the audience or whatever it may be. I think maybe, that maybe the correlation lies in the fact that we just like are taken away by the power of the music, which I think they very much were. And actually we’ll see what happens. Because I know in later stages, you know, Townsend felt like a, you know, like a circus act going out there and smashing the guitar and then moving on to the next city and smashing another one and everybody waiting for that. And, you know, I don’t think that’ll happen.
Stone Gossard: When we ask ourselves to get caught up in that kind of theory.
Eddie Vedder: No, I think we’ll stop long before. You know, I’ve climbed balconies and jumped off high things and done like a few stunts here and there just to, like, get people excited and wake them up. But that’s also I think a lot of that is because we’re the first band and it’s a Chili Peppers show. And I want these people to wake up and they better wake up because in two hours it’s all gonna be over and they’re not even going to be right. They would have happened so quickly and been so intense, they wouldn’t have been able to soak it up. So I’m just kind of waking them up, getting them ready for what’s about to happen. And, um, I think in the later stages, I think when people know the songs, I think they’ll be able to just get intensity through the lyrics and the passages of the songs rather than, you know, somebody having to climb up.
Stone Gossard: Twelve story lighting rig.
David Sadof: Speaking of the songs, hey, let’s talk about some of the songs. Can tell me about the song, Jeremy?
Eddie Vedder: Yeah. Um, actually, you know, I’ve kept a lot of, um, a lot of songs like or lyrical, some of the lyrical content like shrouded in mystery, just because like the name we were mentioning before, it’s been really great to get other people’s interpretations and even inject themselves into the songs. Um, that to me has been like really fulfilling. And I think then then it becomes something bigger than just like five guys in a band and this is their song. It you know, it allows somebody who’s listening to it or has the need to listen to something intensely. It allows them to be part of it. Um, but I think Jeremy, I think I think I decided I will start talking about what that song is about. And actually, um, there’s a song there’s a place called Richardson. There’s a town called Richardson.
David Sadof: In Texas?
Eddie Vedder: Close to here, yeah.
David Sadof: Yeah. Not far from here.
Eddie Vedder: That’s what happened. It was in Richardson, Texas. I saw a small paragraph in the paper about a kid named, um, his first name was Jeremy. And, um, he took it. He shot himself in the front of his English class.
David Sadof: I remember the story.
Eddie Vedder: Do you?
David Sadof: I do, yeah.
Eddie Vedder: I think I might have to go visit Richardson. I think we have some time off, a day off in Dallas.
Stone Gossard: We have a couple of days off.
Eddie Vedder: Yeah, it was Richardson High School I think was just the name.
David Sadof: That wasn’t that long ago, was it?
Eddie Vedder: I mean I literally wrote a song that night I think. And I don’t know that much. I actually even thought about, um, maybe divulging a lot here. And and I should explain it, um, the fact that I thought of even calling up and finding out more like I wonder why that happened and I wondered why he did it. And it seemed like Richardson sounded to me like a decent suburb. Um, middle if not upper class. And the fact is, I didn’t want to. I thought that was intruding completely. And so, um, I actually knew somebody in, um, junior high school in San Diego, California, that did the same thing just about he didn’t take his life but ended up shooting up an oceanography room. I remember being the halls and hearing it. Um, and I had actually had altercations with this kid in the past. I was kind of rebellious fifth grader and I think we got into fights and stuff. So it’s, um, it’s a bit about this kid named Jeremy. And also a bit about a kid named Brian that I knew. Um, I don’t know the song. I think it says a lot. I think it goes somewhere. And a lot of people interpreted different ways. And I really it’s just been recently that I mean, like I said, I’ve been talking about the the true meaning behind it. And I hope, um, no one’s offended. And and it’s all, believe me, I think of, I think of Jeremy when I sing it.
David Sadof: I’ve been playing that song actually the past several weeks on the show I do “Exposure” and yeah, I mean to me it it well, just going by the lyrics, you know, that Jeremy spoke in class and kind of opened up to his class about what was going on with his home life. But that that’s all something that you came up with that’s not directly related to, uh. No.
Eddie Vedder: All I know is it was a one paragraph thing that said Jeremy and the rest of his name. And, uh, I don’t want to say it and how he took his life. And that’s happening like all over the place now. I mean, it’s not you know, it’s something that’s almost I’ve heard about, like a story like that almost once a month. Since then, I’ve been paying attention to it, whether it’s a kid, who shot the other kid who won honors over him for some educational scholarship.
Stone Gossard: That was happening when we were in Houston last time we were here. Wasn’t that in Houston?
Eddie Vedder: Um, I’m not sure if that was Houston. The other guy who drove into the deli that was here.
David Sadof: Here there’s the the cheerleader mom. I’m sure you’ve heard the story.
Eddie Vedder: That was here too. Yeah, absolutely insane.
Stone Gossard: So Texas has a certain history of, plus the guy that shot up the whole truck going into the deli. That was in Texas, too.
David Sadof: Yeah, exactly it was.
Eddie Vedder: Then, of course, the Chainsaw Massacre. Started it all.
David Sadof: Yeah. The tourists people are going to love this. Let’s move on to the song Alive.
Eddie Vedder: I’ve seen people sing it in front as if it were like a celebration. And I’ve also sang it at times as if it were like a burden. And I think, um, I think everyone kind of has their own interpretation. I mean, I don’t know. I certainly do. And I think it’s just really funny that we all some people think it’s about Andrew Wood or or some other paper in Seattle said it was like a tribute to Andrew Wood. And it just it just wasn’t.
Stone Gossard: It was a tribute to Temple of the Dog.
David Sadof: I took it in in a way, I guess, just looking literally at what the lyrics are of, you know, a child with a mom and dad and the father’s dad. And she’s telling the son, you know, well, your father might be dead, but I’m still here. You know, I’m still here for you. I’m alive. You know, I’m here for you. If you need something, don’t forget that I’m alive, that I’m here.
Eddie Vedder: That’s great.
David Sadof: Well, we’ve already answered this in a way, but where do you find the inspiration for your songwriting?
Eddie Vedder: Really just day to day things. I mean, even you spied on us as we were walking up and I was looking at a mother and her child. And right before we turned the corner and she kind of leaned down and just kind of moment of affection between the two and just the way that the little boy looked up. It’s pretty amazing. I mean, just something like that will just pick up on a lot of little things. It’s really overwhelming at times. Makes me wish I could get out of my head, but basically it’s just like a sponge. I just soak up a lot. And when it comes down to writing, it’s just like squeezing the sponge. And I don’t mop it up and I just let the chips fall on…big mess.
David Sadof: Do you do a lot of reading at all?
Eddie Vedder: Yeah.
David Sadof: Do you have any authors or favorite books?
Eddie Vedder: Yeah definitely. I read a lot of Bukowski and I’ve been reading a lot of plays lately. Oscar Wilde and Eugene O’Neill. Reading a lot of Eugene O’Neill. And we’re talking about Shakespeare stuff on the way in, and I think I might have to pick up a couple of things.
David Sadof: There’s a great book store near here. I’ll tell you about it later. The first promotional release that came out from Pearl Jam was a three song CD that included “Alive” and also a cover of the Beatles song “I’ve got a feeling,” is there a particular reason why you chose to cover that song?
Stone Gossard: That was I think was Jeff’s idea to cover that song. I think it was one of his favorite songs as a kid. And I think that it just felt like the right kind of song for this band to do. And I don’t think we ever actually really learned it. I think you can tell by listening. And I think I think the that’s why we like it.
Eddie Vedder: The first week we were playing to that was recorded really early in our young career as this band. And I think it was that that album Abbey Road Record felt. I mean, that’s how it felt when we were playing. It was just as loose kind of thing.
Eddie Vedder: And if you listen to that record, it’s pretty amazing the way everyone’s playing together. And that was the last time.
David Sadof: I was going to ask you, Stone, so now that you’ve been like playing in bands for over seven years now, what do you think is the most important thing, you know now, that you didn’t know when you got started in all this?
Stone Gossard: There’s a lot of things that I’ve learned from being in bands, but as far as one summed up theory, one would definitely be communication in forcing yourself to communicate with someone about different problems that always arise whenever you work in a band situation where there’s four or five members that have to work together for anything to happen that’s good. And and to stick your keep your focus on the day to day. Keep your focus on what you need to do today. You know, do you need to go down to the studio and pick up the demo tape or do you need to send out the tape or do you rehearse or you need to sit and playing guitar for three hours and not think about the future? Because I think if you concentrate on what you need to do to become a better musician and a better person as far as dealing with your band mates and just those general kinds of things, good things will happen to you. If you’re good, you know that you’re really if you’re talented and you know, I’ve never I’ve. It’s always nice to fantasize about what could happen in the future. But I think generally we’ve always this band and myself have always focused so much more on the on the on the day to day. You don’t get caught up in the whole like wanting to be a rock star more than anything in the world. And like, that’s where your priorities get really fucked up. I think our screwed up. Excuse me.
David Sadof: Was there more pressure on you as a band in Mother Love Bone than there is now in Pearl Jam?
Stone Gossard: I think a lot more pressure just because we were a younger band and I don’t think the band ever became fully comfortable with itself. I don’t think the band ever like got to the point where it could groove like together, like lot of new songs coming together and like people, you know, working on a lot of different angles and like different styles of songwriting. Whereas Pearl Jam was just been an amazing experience as far as just like how easily I’ve been writing and just like how comfortable I felt like bringing songs about how I hope everyone else has been comfortable and like just letting ideas come up and like everyone like I mean, not worrying about, you know, how many songs anyone writes or whatever, but just like allowing anyone to do what they want, you know, for the most part, especially in a studio environment where you can just go in and like do something yourself someday. And there’s a lot of weird kind of things that go along with songwriting and like trying to make a band work and like the whole ego thing. And just like it’s a difficult, really difficult thing.
Eddie Vedder: And it’s good to experiment. That’s why I’m actually gonna play drums on the next record. And Doug from King’s X is gonna sing.
David Sadof: Is he?
Eddie Vedder: Yes. It should be amazing
David Sadof: Yeah, right. Is he really? (Eddie makes sound like he is joking) Yeah. You know, I called Doug to see if he’d like to do this interview, but he never called me back.
Eddie Vedder: Oh, he’s not actually…we talked to him this morning. He hasn’t been feeling very well. He’s in the middle of making a record, so I think making a record is like carrying the world on your shoulder like “Fitzcarraldo.”
David Sadof: Because a few weeks ago I was interviewing Follow for Now and I told him about that and he was like coming up with all these great questions that I never would have even known about. And I was like, man, you should. So, you know, I thought maybe you’d like to get involved in this.
Eddie Vedder: He just has the weight of the world.
Stone Gossard: We understand that feeling now, when you make a record, you become a different person. Like I’m possessed.
Eddie Vedder: It’s the mad scientist.
Stone Gossard: Evil, you become evil. But good, evil.
Eddie Vedder: Yeah, good, evil.
David Sadof: When I heard the Temple of the Dog song “Reach Down” to me, that I mean, it sounded like like something I could hear King’s X doing, you know.
David Sadof: Over the past several years, the Seattle music scene has received a lot of attention and many of the bands from Seattle have earned national recognition. In what ways has the Seattle music scene contributed to the success of these artists?
Stone Gossard: Well, we’re moving, so it doesn’t really matter. We’re not we’re moving to Omaha, Nebraska, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
David Sadof: You’re tired of the question aren’t you?
Stone Gossard: Well it’s one of those things that you don’t. Again, I think in terms of like how we deal with that, we don’t really think about the scene that we’re in. And like I mean, we have really good friends that are the same, like bands like Alice in Chains, then our friends that we would totally respect as musicians and we love their music. But when you’re talking about the scene, it kind of degrades the individual bands. I think it’s not anything up there other than the individuals that make the music great. And I think any time you start fantasizing about the scenes right there and there’s this great thing going on up there, it’s like it takes away, I think, from what is really happening. And it’s a bunch of people are really have their priorities together and they’re great musicians that are making good music.
Eddie Vedder: Yeah, on that side of the coin, it’s really niceto have a fucking awesome posse.
Stone Gossard: My homies are up there. My homie Kim Thayil, he’ll back me up too.
David Sadof: My real reason for wanting to ask that is to to see how you feel about that. And if if it really is a scene or if it really is just the fact that there have a lot of good bands there. Exactly.
Stone Gossard: What is a scene really (says in British accent)? I think it’s a great musical community right now because people haven’t like got too caught up in the fact that it’s a scene. You know, it’s like people are friends.
Eddie Vedder: It’s really low key.
David Sadof: And there’s a bond between the bands. But I mean, it’s the impression I get.
Eddie Vedder: Certainly a few of them. I hung out with Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains in New Orleans last night. It was actually very nice to see him outside of Seattle.
Stone Gossard: It was nice. He shaved his beard Stone Gossard (says in British accent).Stone Gossard (says in British accent).
Eddie Vedder: He looks like young boy again.
Stone Gossard: Yeah.
Eddie Vedder: Still talking like a dirty old man.
David Sadof: One final question. Pearl Jam is now on the Epic record label. But in the previous bands, you know, you’ve been with other labels. So you’ve obviously had some experience now and making deals with various record labels. And what advice would you offer to a young band that’s been recording demos and is now ready to start shopping around for that record deal?
Eddie Vedder: Well, I’m going to start my own label called Butt Crack Records and they can actually just write to me and I’ll sign them. I’ll sign everybody.
David Sadof: And what’s the address they should send that to?
Eddie Vedder: Just send it right to our fan club, Ten Club, because I’m kind of undermining it through the band. They’re not going to know it, but they’re gonna be supporting this label. And I’m just out there for the kids.
Stone Gossard: He’s signing punk rock acts for like huge dough to, four or five hundred thousand dollar record contracts.
Eddie Vedder: Just so they can be superfluous and experience it at least a week in their lives. It’s $500,000. You have to spend it this week. Make a great record. Hmm.
David Sadof: Stone, since they call you the funny city rock guy with a Marshall and Jeff is a serious Montana skate punk with the basketball. And Mike is the guitar wizard and master of animal sounds. Got a name for Eddie?
Stone Gossard: The sweet one?
Eddie Vedder: Eddie is the swimmer. After last night, I think I own, like, uh, uh, the true title of crowd swimmer. I think there was 5,000 people on the floor. Another 2,000 in the rafters. And I just sat on the edge of the monitor during the last song “Porch” and took my shoes off, took my socks off. Stood up. Took my shirt off. Kind of stretched, took a running leap and swam on top of the crowd to the monitors and then they passed me back. Quite an undertow.
Stone Gossard: It was probably a total of almost 60, 70 yards total there and back.
Eddie Vedder: And then between like the minor running I did onstage, it’s almost like a triathlon,
David Sadof: That many yards you could have been like a football.
Stone Gossard: We can’t wait to we actually get to the point where we’re playing shows like that every night and people are starting to freak out. And he’s kind of scared about going in the audience. So we’ve decided we’re gonna hook him up to a fishing pole and he gets to swim in the crowd, but I get to fish for him, so he’s gonna be on this harness fighting chair and I’m gonna fight him into the crowd. It’s kind of a crazy idea. I don’t know if it’s really going over that big.
Eddie Vedder: We’re just hoping you can play guitar at the same time.
Stone Gossard: Or at all (laughing).
Eddie Vedder: It’s a fishing pole guitar. See get it? Not.
David Sadof: Thanks for coming by.
Eddie Vedder: No, it was our pleasure. It sounds like a really great show you do. It’s been talked about quite a bit and it’s very much our pleasure to be here. And, um, we hope this will actually be on after the show. So I hope everyone had an amazing time. And, um, the chili peppers I know treated you right. And, uh, and I hope I’m still alive by the time this interview comes on. I hope I survive Houston.
Stone Gossard: Be nice to him.
In the audio at this point, you will hear Eddie and Stone record IDs for KLOL’s Exposure and Linda Silk.
Eddie Vedder: The song “Why Go Home” was written about a specific girl in Chicago who was, um, I think her mom caught her smoking pot or something. She was about 13 years old and, um, she was just fine. Um, uh, I think her mom thought she had some troubles, when I think it was really maybe the parents that were having troubles. And next thing you know, uh, this young girl was in a hospital. Um, they kept her there for quite a long time. Um. She was so strong that, um, she refused to accept many of the the, um, the accusations of her doing terrible things when she really wasn’t doing anything. And next thing you know, she was in these this, um, she was she’d been hospitalized for like two years. Um, the fact is that this is going on all over the place and it’s this insurance thing that goes on with hospitals and insurance and these these, um, kind of counseling prisons, that they set up. And it’s really something that, um, I think is addressed subliminally in the song, but it has to be addressed on, uh, on a bigger level. It happens everywhere. And, uh, I just hope someday we’re able to to change the fact that it is happening everywhere.
Stone Gossard: If you’re below 18, you really have no rights in this country. Your parents can basically stick you in prison if they feel that they deem it necessary. So, uh, that’s kind of a frightening thing. And so, I mean, there’s a lot of really screwed up parents making.
Eddie Vedder: So it’s called “Why Go Home.”