In an internal Howard Stern staff meeting video leak from February 2013, Stern discussed his frustration with being unable to book Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder for the show, and suggested how they could try to book him. Stern also said he brought back Billy Corgan after he had been ‘off the radar.’ Alternative Nation transcribed Stern’s comments, where he is giving a presentation along with a slide show that he references during his talk.
Stern: Nobody is going to forget that we exist. We need to leverage friends of the court. What do I mean by that?
[Stern points at a picture at comic Whitney Cummings]
Stern: Whitney Cummings was doing jack shit when we found her, she was doing she was in clubs and going nowhere fast.
[Stern points at a picture of Jerry Seinfeld]
Stern: Jerry Seinfeld had a show called the Seinfeld Chronicles that was about to go off the air, he used our show.
[Stern points at a picture of Kathy Griffin]
Stern: This woman was nowhere until she did our show.
[Stern points at a picture of former host of “The Daily Show” Jon Stewart]
Stern: Jon Stewart used to come on my show when the Daily Show first started and he would be a regular guest! What happened to this guy, I haven’t even seen him in years on our show?!
[Stern points at a picture of Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine]
Stern: Adam Levine owes us, man, when he was coming in and doing the show nobody was looking for him before the Voice.
[Stern points to a picture of former Late Night host David Letterman]
Stern: David Letterman man, I’ve done his show, I don’t know how many times, probably twenty-seven fucking times and he’s only been on our show fucking twice. These guys our friends of the court. This means they are gonna get emailed: “Hey you know, happy anniversary, it’s been ten years, today’s the day you’ve been on our show ten years ago and we haven’t seen you.” We were there for you when you started, we were there for you. Seinfeld? We helped you with Seinfeld. Whitney Cummings was just on Good Morning America, Today Show, she finally has something going on that we would be interested in and she’s not doing our show? She dials in occasionally but we’re not top on her list. Jon Stewart is hotter than a pistol, why is he not on our show anymore. Let’s ask him and invite him to the party.
[Stern goes to another slide entitled Friends of the Court]
Stern: Friends of the Court, we expect you to come in at least two times a year. Yeah, Jon Stewart should visit us two times a year. I don’t think that’s too much to ask because I’ve done his show. [Second point] We were once your marketing strategy and now we need you to be part of ours. Payback. Where is the list of people who did our show who we really helped and why are we not calling on these people to help us in the future?
Stern would continue later on in the meeting:
Stern: Eddie Vedder has never done my show, I talk more about Pearl Jam than Jon Stewart, David Letterman or Jimmy Kimmel. Eddie Vedder goes: “Eh we can’t go?” Why can’t you go? We know Natalie Maines, she’s a friend of the court, let’s get the materials to Natalie and say: “Will you pass these on to Eddie personally”. Play tape of me talking about Eddie and me singing along to Jeremy. Show a tape from Howard TV because I think the video is strong, of the lead singer from Soundgarden [Chris Cornell] when he was on because those guys respect each other. Someone’s gotta sit down and think this through and we are gonna be doing that in 2013.
