Eddie Vedder was born as Edward Louis Severson on December 23, 1964. He is the lead singer, singer and one of the three guitarists of Pearl Jam. He is known for his unusual stage shows, such as headbanging, crowd surfing, and occasionally smashing the microphone and ending the show. His mother is a Native American.
When Eddie, the only child of Karen Lee Vedder and Edward Louis Severson, was only 1 year old, his family decided to divorce and his mother married Peter Mueller for the second time.
Eddie was raised being told that his biological father was Mueller.
That's why Eddie used the name Edward Mueller for years and lived unaware of his real father.
During those years when they lived in the small city of Evanston, Eddie's family cared for seven young children.
In the mid-70s, the family (including Eddie's three half-brothers) decided to move to San Diego, California. At this time, Eddie's mother gave him a guitar as a gift for his 12th birthday, and Eddie was introduced to music. At the same time, he started surfing because the city they moved to was convenient.
Eddie Vedder uses the following statements in a statement he made about those periods:
'When I was 15-16 years old, I felt very lonely. 'I was so lonely... I only had music with me'
In the following years, Eddie's mother and Mueller decided to divorce and the family returned to Evanston.
But Eddie did not return. Although his mother and siblings left the city, Eddie stayed with his stepfather as he adjusted to school in San Diego.
And not long after this divorce, Eddie learned the truth about his family.
Mueller was actually his stepfather. Eddie was introduced to his biological father when he was a child but was told Severson was an old family friend.
But just as he learned this truth, his own father, Severson, died of multiple sclerosis.
After learning the whole truth, Eddie left his stepfather's house and in his senior year of high school, he rented a house and started working at a pharmacy at night to make ends meet.
After a while, he realized that he could not handle work and school together and dropped out of high school in his senior year.
After leaving school, he returned to his family in Evanston and upon his return, he took his mother's maiden name and changed his name to Eddie Vedder.
Eddie, who was trying to make a living by working as a waiter in the early 80s, passed the necessary exams and enrolled in university.
In 1984, he returned to San Diego, taking his then-girlfriend Beth Liebling with him. During this period, he worked many different jobs and recorded demos at home in his spare time. He also performed vocals for San Diego bands such as Surf and Destroy and The Butts for a short time.
After leaving all the bands he was in, he worked as a pumper at a local gas station until the late 80s.
Thanks to his music circles, he met Jack Irons, the former drummer of Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Irons showed him the demos of a Seattle band that was looking for lead vocals.
Eddie wrote lyrics based on the three songs he listened to, telling the story of a young man who was lied to about his real father.
He then recorded these vocals over the songs and mailed them to Seattle, and these three songs would later become some of Pearl Jam's most famous songs: 'Alive', 'Once', and 'Footsteps'.
Thereupon, members of the Mother Love Bone group invited Eddie to Seattle to audition.
In 1990, he formed a band with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, who invited him to Seattle. They first thought the name Mookie Blaylock was appropriate for the band, but they changed their name to Pearl Jam upon the request of Epic Records, with whom they signed a contract in 1991.
Ten, the first album recorded by the group, made them famous immediately and became one of the best-selling albums of the 90s.
The attention of the music industry suddenly turned to Pearl Jam. Their song Jeremy was nominated for a Grammy award in the 'Best Rock Song' category in 1993. The video clip shot for the same song was deemed worthy of 4 different awards at the MTV Video Music Awards. Their album Ten was ranked 207th on Rolling Stone magazine's '500 Best Albums of All Time' list.
The group, uncomfortable with the pressure of their fame, began to reduce the promotion of their albums and refused to shoot music videos.
And after Ten, he has recorded 9 more studio albums to date. These albums are as follows:
Skin (1991)
Etc. (1993)
Vitalogy (1994)
No Code (1996)
Yield (1998)
Binaural (2000)
Riot Act (2002)
Pearl Jam (2006)
Backspacer (2009)
Lightning Bolt (2013)
I was introduced to the Grunge movement in the '90s, during middle school and high school, when I discovered and became a fan of rock music. Unlike most of my peers, I was introduced to Grunge after listening to metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Def Lepard, etc., and could not really get comfortable with it except for 3-5 songs. Then one day I heard a voice and it took me away and carried me to completely different places. It is such a voice, like velvet, that it is unlikely to be human. Happy, sad, depressed, or joyful; It seemed to give a different excitement to every mood.
“Hey, I, oh I'm still alive
Yeah, I, oh I'm still alive
Yeah, I
Ooh, I'm still alive!
*Alive
That voice shouting enthusiastically was Eddie Vedder. And that day I discovered a band called Pearl Jam.
While the music world was moving away from the crazy, overly colorful, chaotic synth, disco, pop music, and lifestyle of the 80s towards more sloppy and dark music genres, the rock and metal concerts that left their mark on the 90s and whose audience numbers reached tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands, The increasing number of rock and metal bars was giving these music genres their golden age.
In such an atmosphere, the Grunge movement that emerged from Seattle was like an expression of the depression of those who could not keep up with a uniform order.
The most important themes of grunge music style are; It consisted of dark details such as depression, feelings of helplessness, sadness, and anger. The effects of Grunge, which paints an irregular image in terms of both image, music, and life, were not limited to music only; Especially in the early 90s, it spread to different areas from clothing to accessories, from literature to cinema.
While Converse shoes, ripped jeans, loose sweaters and cardigans, plaid shirts, long hair, and thick bracelets were in fashion, the cinematic representatives of those years were Trainspotting, Singles, and Kids, while in literary terms, they were Chuck Palahniuk, Neal Cassady, and Philippe Djian.
Although Grunge is mostly known around the world as Nirvana, it comes from the same place, just like Nirvana; There were many Grunge bands from Seattle and the same period, such as Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, and Soundgarden.
However, Kurt Cobain's suicide at a time when he was at his peak caused a rupture in the Grunge music world. The music movement that rose with his presence suffered a huge blow with his absence. The history of Grunge, which lost its popularity after Cobain's death, was shaken by other unfortunate events in its more than 30-year history, such as the death of Layne Staley, the lead singer of Alice In Chains.
Grunge, which suffered a great blow with the death of Cobain, continued on its way with a large and loyal audience from all over the world. Among them, the one that stood out the most and carried the flag firmly was Pearl Jam. The band, which was compared to Nirvana for years but was overshadowed by Cobain's suicide even though they were better than Nirvana, gained the recognition it deserved years later for its vocal power.
Eddie Vedder, with his divine voice that can be both innocent, vagrant, wild, romantic, and anarchist during the performance, takes the lead as one of the most unique vocalists in the world, turning this extremely noisy music genre upside down with his emotionally sensitive lyrics.
Vedder, who was born in Illinois in 1964 and is of Native American origin on his mother's side, reflects the traces of both the genes of the place he grew up in and the deep family problems he experienced in his childhood in his deep baritone voice. These reasons lie behind his writing successful lyrics.
Eddie, who joined Pearl Jam, founded by Ament, Gossard, and McCready in 1990, experienced his first musical success when his album Ten became one of the best-selling albums of 1990. While Pearl Jam increased its popularity in a short time with the album Ten, it also started to be included in the category of rock bands called Grunge, which is unique to the city of Seattle. Their song "Jeremy" was deemed worthy of two awards: "Best Rock Song" and "Best Hard Rock Performance" at the Grammy Award Ceremony in 1993. The song "Jeremy" was awarded to Pearl Jam at the MTV Music Awards Ceremony with "Clip of the Year" and "Best Rock Song". It brought 2 more awards as "Best Group Video". “Jeremy” succeeded in ranking 11th in the “Top 100 Songs List” of the 90s.
Eddie Vedder, who focused on his solo career in the 2000s and whose sound moved towards folk rock, also released several soundtrack albums such as Dead Man Walking, I Am Sam (2001), A Brokedown Melody (2004), and Body of War (2007). contributed. Vedder, who wrote two songs for the documentary Body of War (2007), also wrote the songs "No More" and "Long Nights" for the Iraq War.
In 2007, Vedder made a significant contribution to the soundtrack of the movie "Into the Wild" directed by his close friend Sean Penn, thus donating this magnificent album to humanity. He carried the film to a place that left a mark in the history of cinema, and was deemed worthy of an award at the 2008 Golden Globe Awards Ceremony with the song "Guaranteed", which was included in the soundtrack of "Into the Wild". Later, the song "Guaranteed" was awarded the "Most Compatible Composition with the Movie" at the World Music Albums Awards. At the 2009 Golden Globe Awards, the song "Rise" received the "Best Rock Performance" award.
Vedder, whose solo productions were first released as the soundtrack of the 2007 movie "Into The Wild" and released the album "Ukulele Songs" in 2011, shared his 6-song Matter of Time EP, which he created at home during the pandemic days. This was later followed by a soundtrack album he prepared for another Sean Penn movie, “Flag Day”.
Singing a song by Vedder, which is devastating with the song "Black" and exhilarating with "Alive", can change the entire character of the song and make you say "Eddie Vedder" sang it. Vedder, who is at the top of the list of the most original, most successful, most important, and most influential vocalists in the history of rock music, reflects all the intense and painful feelings he experienced in his childhood due to his father in his interpretation of "Jeremy" and makes you feel it exactly.
“And now my bitter hands
Cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures have
All been washed in black
Tattooed everything
All the love gone bad
Turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see” *
Black
The way he hugs the microphone with all his strength as if he is holding the hand of his lover, whom he does not want to lose, for the last time, and the look he gives to the applauding people when the song ends, something is rotting inside me, is very impressive.
Some hear, some listen, and some make music so they can hear and listen. Eddie Vedder brings all of these together and goes all the way from Central America to the depths of our hearts with the spirit of the humble dervish. This crazy-looking man, who wants to be remembered as a whistler, gives hope to us earthlings that good things will happen with "Long Way", the first single of his first solo album "Earthling", recorded in ten years and whose release date is not yet known, with its classic rock influences.
“And the wind keeps rollin',
And the sky keeps turning gray.
And the sun is set
The sun will rise another day.
Will I walk the long road?
We all walk the long road.”
*Long Way