Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder did his first live interview in years over the weekend in Arizona at the Innings Festival. It was the first live interview Vedder has done since since Chris Cornell tragically died in May 2017, though Cornell wasn’t discussed, though the interview did touch a bit on music but primarily focused on Vedder’s love of baseball and the Chicago Cubs, as he was interviewed by Ryan Dempster and Sean Casey. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments.
Vedder said about his love of baseball, “It probably started because my grandpa took me to Wrigley Field. Back in the day, we were trying to do the timeline. Now color TV existed, however we did not have a color TV.”
He later said, “The first day I was about 4 and a half or 5, we came and saw the Pirates play the Cubs. When we came up the bleachers, first you walk up that back bleacher thing in the old days, and you could smell the stench of one of those white capsules in the piss thing. That was the smell, mix it with hot dog, and walking up the ramp and I could hear the pop of the gloves, it was a Wizard of Oz moment to see that field for the first time.
It was the greenest green I ever, the whitest white, Jose Cardenal, the coolest afro. That moment I feel something inside changed, and a fire was lit. The great thing about Wrigley, Tom has done such a great job, I still get that feeling when I go back there. It works every time, and I’m grateful it’s still there.
