Pearl Jam made their very first appearance on The Howard Stern Show on April 22, and thrilled the host with exclusive live premieres of new songs from their recently-released new album Dark Matter.
In addition to discussing the unanticipated success of the early '90s grunge scene (“It was just a tricky time,” said Eddie Vedder, “the spotlight was kind of big and it kind of burned hot”), their subsequent attempts to pull back from that spotlight (“we were trying to protect the music and our band”) and sharing anecdotes about encounters with Eddie Van Halen, Kiss and The Rolling Stones, the band discussed the making of Dark Matter and invited their host to chose their set-list for the show.
In the end, they played two classic fan favourites - Daughter and Yellow Ledbetter - and two brand new songs, Dark Matter's opening track Scared Of Fear and recent single Running. Their fully-committed performance of Running was particularly well received by the veteran broadcaster.
“Whoa, boys, this is un-fucking real!” Stern enthused. “Let’s do the whole album right now. Let’s play through the whole thing!”
Watch the band premiere Scared Of Fear and Running below:
Dark Matter entered the UK album chart at number 2 this week. Speaking about the record previously, Vedder said, “No hyperbole, I think this is our best work.”
Reviewing the album for Classic Rock, writer Emma Johnston wrote that the album “painted a portrait of a band comfortable in their own skin, knowledgeable about their own strengths, and capable of not only looking back at what was great about the work they made as young men but also recapturing some of the magic that set them on – and kept them on – their path to the top of the game.”
