Pearl Jam’s massive 1991 debut album, Ten, celebrates its 35th anniversary on Aug. 27.
“Ten to me is deep in my heart,” guitarist Mike McCready tells ABC Audio. “It’s a record that sounded like a band that was together for many years but wasn’t, in my mind.”
Indeed, the members of the original Pearl Jam lineup — McCready and guitarist Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament, vocalist Eddie Vedder and drummer Dave Krusen — had already been a part of several other bands, including Green River, Mother Love Bone and Temple of the Dog.
“It’s the combination of efforts of those five guys that had been in a bunch of bands for a long time, and then all coalesced into one,” McCready says.
In recording Ten with Pearl Jam, McCready sensed its significance pretty much from day one.
“Ten was the example of the first situation I was in when everything was firing on all cylinders,” McCready says. “From the first day Ed showed up and we worked on ‘Once,’ and the five of us were in the room, I knew this was gonna be special. I didn’t know to the extent, but we all knew it was gonna be something.”
That “something” turned into a defining and seminal record of the ’90s grunge and alternative scene on the way to earning Diamond certification by the RIAA and spawning classic singles including “Even Flow,” “Alive” and “Jeremy.”
Three-and-a-half decades later, McCready calls performing Ten songs live a “mythical,” “spiritual” experience.
“We feel that the crowd has lifted ‘Alive’ and ‘Even Flow’ and these songs to a song that’s bigger than when we first recorded it,” McCready says. “It’s more of a universe in itself.”
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