Howard Stern recently asked Eddie Vedder about risking death by jumping offstage and hanging from ceilings at Pearl Jam shows in the 90’s. Eddie Vedder also discussed being ‘in denial’ about Chris Cornell’s death. Alternative Nation transcribed Vedder and Stern’s remarks.
Eddie Vedder: I’d be at the Metro in Chicago, or one of those theaters that had the king and queen booths on either side, and curtains.
And while I’m waiting for the band in-between, I used to look at that stuff and think man, it would be fun to climb that curtain, and jump into that red velvet king and queen booth, then you could get to the middle, hang out on the light thing, do a little monkey bars, then slip into the crowd right where that sound board is. That just came from me being bored in-between shows, giving myself a mental exercise.
Howard Stern: When I would see you climbing, almost a guy without a net in a circus or something, I’d say wow, this is unfuckingbelievable. Did you ever worry about being paralyzed, or falling on your head, and then it would all be over? I was like, this guy has got too good a life to be doing that, but you didn’t see it that way.”
Eddie: Well, we were 24 or 25, the music was powerful, and I don’t think I ever did any of that crazy Evil Knievel shenanigans, outside of one song which was Porch. The whole thing about that song was celebrating that we are alive for one time, anything can happen at any moment.
The ice cream truck could hit you tomorrow. That was the whole idea of it, I think so much of our music is let’s live in the moment. So that was my version of my extracurricular expressing the meaning of the song. It’s amazing that it really did work out pretty much every time.
