In 1991, Red Hot Chili Peppers embarked on their “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” tour with support from The Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam. According to Anthony Kiedis’ autobiography, “Scar Tissue,” at some point during the tour the promoters decided to replace Pearl Jam with a more successful act, hiring Nirvana in their place. The Smashing Pumpkins, however, refused to perform alongside Nirvana as frontman Billy Corgan used to date Kurt Cobain’s wife Courtney Love. With Pumpkins having dropped out of the tour, Pearl Jam were brought back.
In an episode of his podcast “The Magnificent Others” earlier this year, Corgan claimed that during the tour he remembers seeing Eddie Vedder and co. looking “like somebody had died” because they were worried the label would “withdraw [their] tour support” if their single “Alive” didn’t catch on.
Now, in a new interview with Rick Beato, bassist Jeff Ament argued that Corgan may be misremembering some details.
“I saw something recently where Billy Corgan said that he saw us moping around on that Chili Peppers tour, saying that the label was gonna pull our funding. That never happened,” he explained. “The label knew we had something going on and was really supportive of us throughout the whole thing. But I think we were just hoping we would sell enough records; if we could sell a couple of 100,000, or 100,000 records, that would get us to the second record.”
“At that point, it was just all survival, because we knew enough bands that had made records. That was the gig. The labels threw it up against the wall, and if it stuck long enough, then they let you throw another one against the wall. And so, we were dead serious about the opportunity. I mean, we couldn’t have been more excited about getting out and playing shows when we got that Chili Pepper tour.”
“Like, we got 30 minutes. I remember the first couple of shows thinking, ‘It took me 15 minutes to get into the set!’… I remember Ed and I being on the bus for half an hour before the show; we were both playing guitar, doing push ups, and then jumping around… And so, we’d come in, and we’d be like, ‘Okay, we’re ready to go!’ And we were so excited about the opportunity.”
“The Chili Peppers, they took a chance on us getting out there and giving us a f***ing 30-minute set,” he added. “And you could feel during that tour, on the seventh or eighth show, [you’d] start seeing the crowd reacting, getting into it. We got in the middle of that tour, and it was like, ‘We’re holding up our end of the bargain here.’ We’re playing with these two great bands, and we’re bringing it.”
