Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament discussed drugs in a new Kerrang interview.
Jeff Ament was born in nearby Havre, but raised in Big Sandy. He may have long since pursued a life of globetrotting, but the working-class values and spiritual inquisitiveness fostered by his Catholic upbringing still define him. At one point his dad hoped he would become a priest. Today, Jeff says he is “not necessarily a believer” but recognises a “deep-seated Catholicism” and spiritual curiosity tugging away in his music. Back in the ’90s, he visited Turkey and Egypt to learn about other religions and try to understand what it is that possesses people to believe so deeply.
It’s a fascination expressed in his album’s title.
“Growing up Catholic, heaven and hell is at the core of the entire belief system,” he explains. “I’m curious about one person’s heaven being another person’s hell.”
When it comes to that divide, the album’s thrilling stand-out song, Drugs, points to the idea that hell is perhaps not so much a place as it is a time: the present. He outlines recent days where he’s been so inundated with horrible news he’s been left feeling like he’s “walking in drying concrete”. One day he wrote a note to himself: “Clearly, I didn’t do enough drugs.”
“The reality is that I’m pretty happy I didn’t too many drugs,” says Jeff of the title, before pointing out its real meaning. “Lyrically, it was saying that maybe if I’d done more drugs I’d be able to handle the apocalypse better…”
