Seattle in the ’90s has reached mythological status. A time when the world focused its collective attention on a tiny scene of bands that had nothing in common other than a love of distortion, riffs and authenticity.

It gave birth to household names – chiefly the ‘big four’ of grunge: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden – but it also snuffed out the candle for some of its most iconic musicians.

Drugs and depression were an undercurrent that swept through the city like the Duwamish River. Kurt Cobain, Andy Wood, Layne Staley were all claimed by addiction. Chris Cornell and Mark Lanegan left longer legacies, but were still taken too soon.

For Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, they were friends and bandmates. People he misses dearly. And the grief hit him all over again during the Covid lockdown.

“I was sitting around thinking about the singers that had died in our scene,” he tells me from his studio over Zoom. “I’ve had dreams about some of them and they haunt me sometimes. I was thinking, ‘Was it worth it for all these guys and women?’”

He didn’t know how to answer that question. He sought solace the only way he knew how: through art. Writing it all down seemed the best place to start.

“I could only write what I know. But I wanted to do it in the context of a historical fiction of the Seattle music scene. And I wanted to change the names and create its own world within it.”

McCready’s name is intertwined more than most. He got his first break when Cornell invited him to play on Temple of the Dog, the Soundgarden frontman’s tribute to his departed friend and roommate Andy Wood. Pearl Jam formed at the same time. A later stint in rehab sparked Mad Season, his part side-project, part therapy with Layne Staley and Mark Lanegan.

This new project, however, was outside his comfort zone, so he sought advice from friend, director and lifelong Pearl Jam fan Cameron Crowe. He was convinced: this could be a rock opera.

But not just yet. A stage show is still on the cards, but Farewell to Seasons is releasing first as a graphic novel that tells the story of Seattle through four fictional bands.

It’s packaged with a soundtrack album that features all-new songs from McCready, who is also singing for the first time, alongside a band of Seattle music vets including Duff McKagan, Dave Matthews bassist Stefan Lessard, Fastbacks drummer Mike Mussburger, Chris Friel, Nate Yaccino and Thunderpussy’s Molly Sides.

While it was challenging on both practical and emotional levels, McCready ultimately found the project cathartic. In a candid interview, he revisits his favorite musical eureka moments, the Seattle guitarists who most inspired him, and just what’s next for Pearl Jam.

You said you’re haunted by these ghosts. It must have been challenging to dig into the history of the Seattle scene and your part in it, given how many friends and fellow musicians you’ve lost along the way.

It was. It’s hard to think about the whole scene and how young and naive everyone was, and how much this explosion happened in this relatively provincial small city of Seattle, Washington, where everybody knew each other.

I was playing in a band prior to all that called Shadow, and I wanted to put that in the story as well. That’s one of the bands that’s actually named after the real band.

I felt like we never really got the props that we should have over the years, because we were 16 and playing all around the Northwest and doing shows. We broke up when everything started happening. I spent my 10,000 hours with that band, and I’m very proud of that era.

But later, getting to play with Layne or Chris or Lanegan, all these incredible singers, and now they’re gone. Kurt, for that matter – I didn’t know him at all really, other than him being an incredible singer-songwriter. Even Hendrix. What would they be doing now? Would they be blues artists? Would they be painters? That’s what haunts me to this day.

You moved to L.A. with Shadow to try and make it. When did you realize it hadn’t panned out?

About a year in, I got really sick with Crohn’s. We played a bunch of shows down there. Rick Friel, our bass player at the time, booked all the shows and made it all happen. We opened up for Andy Taylor. I got to see some cool stuff – I saw Jane’s Addiction at a club; I saw the Welcome to the Jungle video shoot.

The reason we moved down there was that Duff McKagan stopped by the Shadow house in ’84, and said he was moving to Los Angeles. And we were like, “There’s something to that.” And then a year later, they put out that EP [Live ?!★꩜ Like a Suicide].

It was a year of me working at Aaron’s Records, drinking too much, getting Crohn’s, going, “I can’t do this anymore.” So I moved back and I gave up. I quit playing music for two years from ’88, ’89. I was done. And then I got a call out of the blue from Stone.

What do you remember about that moment when you first played together with Stone? That must have been pivotal for you as a guitar player, to come back to the instrument after almost giving up.

When I got the call from Stone, I was working at a pizza place and I had given up. I was depressed and probably drinking too much. I was at my friend Tim DiJulio’s house, playing to a Stevie Ray Vaughan record – so I was still playing a little bit. And [Stone] saw that – I remember him walking in when Love Bone was still happening. But I had known him since seventh grade – Seattle was very small in the ’80s and in the early ’90s before it blew up. We all knew each other, we all went to the same parties.

When we started playing together, selfishly, I was like, “’Okay, this seems to be my door. I better walk through it.” I always think of this Paul Westerberg quote: “Opportunity knocks once and the door slams shut.” After me going through LA and not making it and being depressed, all of a sudden this thing happens when I’m not looking for it. And out of a death – Andy Wood dies. That was an interesting musical paradox early on for me.

It was exciting. It was new. Who knew what was going to happen? But I felt like we connected first through humor. And then, he just had a ton of riffs and when we started playing, I wanted to do something opposite of what he was doing. Kind of like Aerosmith did stuff – early Aerosmith was in my mind back then – and I was going to be the lead guy, I guess, was his thought.

Farewell to Seasons starts with a young teenager, David Williams – who is based on you – jamming in his bedroom. Can you remember the moment you got your first guitar and started jamming in your bedroom?

It was late 1978, early ’79. Мy dear friend Danny Newcomb, who was the guitar player for Shadow, lived on my block and we were both 11. And I met Rick and Chris Friel. I’m a Cub Scout playing soccer, and all of a sudden I see this Kiss lunchbox that my friend Rick has. Those guys are playing and then I join them within six months.

We’re playing shows at 12 years old – our drummer’s eight. We started playing right away at talent shows in junior high. We rented a church out called the Unitarian Church. I just found a ticket for it the other day – it was a dollar. The Friel house is where everybody went and we would rehearse there all the time, three hours a day, five days a week for five or six years.

What was that first guitar?

It was a $100 Matao Les Paul, black. It was pretty good. It had a good neck on it. I smashed it and then I fixed it. I was doing that early and I kind of regretted it. I was 12 and I threw it in the air at this talent show – there’s a picture of me chucking it in the air in one of the Pearl Jam books. Yeah, I was way into The Who. [laughs]

Another thing that really struck me is how the novel depicts your life with Crohn’s disease. David’s parents say, “All he does is use the bathroom and play guitar.” Did playing guitar help you deal with Crohn’s?

[Laughs] I think it’s a little harsh on my parents because they were really supportive, actually. But for story’s sake, we kept it in there.

The pain that comes with Crohn’s disease – which feels unbearably bad in your gut, and it’s embarrassing and you shit yourself, and all sorts of stuff I’ve had happen to me over the years – I believe my playing got better because of that.

And it also got me back to Seattle from L.A. – so I look at it as a catalyst. This is with perspective; when I had it, it sucked and I thought my life was over. And it turns out it wasn’t. Luckily there’s a lot more medications and diets now than when I got it. I continue to work with the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation because of that.

But yes, I think it helped – it made me play deeper, hopefully. It was an antidote. Guitar is an antidote to many things for me.

And of course, you had your own addiction problems, but guitar was always there. You even formed Mad Season out of rehab.

As I was spiraling in my addiction and alcoholism in the early ’90s, I luckily got into rehab. I got out and I was kind of naive – like, “I want to get everybody sober along with me.”

Layne was my friend, I saw him struggling and I wanted to help him out, but also wanted to create music with him because I was sober for the first time. It gave me confidence, whereas I didn’t really have the confidence as much with Pearl Jam because everybody was such great writers for those first three records.

Mad Season allowed me to explore my writing abilities with Layne and my friend Baker [Saunders], and then I always wanted to play with Barrett [Martin] because he was this great drummer for the Screaming Trees.

The premise of it was to help Layne or help all of us… but everybody’s got to help themselves. I had to find out the hard way.

Collaboration was such an important part of the Seattle scene. What are the jams and recording sessions that really stick in your mind?

We did a cover of Hey Baby (New Rising Sun) by Hendrix with myself, Chris Cornell, Matt Cameron, and Jeff Ament [as M.A.C.C.]. Those guys [Soundgarden] were in recording one of their records and I just came by and said, “Hey, I’ve got an opportunity to do a Hendrix song. Do you want to do this?” And they were all up for it. We got to do that song during their session. Watching Chris sing on that one…

I had seen him obviously when we did Temple of the Dog. Temple was probably the first life-changing experience for me in terms of, “Okay, now I’m playing on this thing that’s very important.” This was a tribute to Andy Wood that Chris had written and I wanted to be very conscious of that but also play my ass off.

Prior to that, it was a big learning experience for me to let go, and Chris allowed me to let go and play all over that record. He was always super-cool to me and super-cool to Ed [Vedder]. So I’ll love him dearly forever for that situation.

Playing with Layne was great – the thing about Layne was that he would never talk shit about anybody. We’re all shit-talkers in Seattle, very passive[-aggressive]. Layne wouldn’t. He was funny and had a good heart. So when I got to play with him and I was trying to get sober, it was a mixed bag of emotions. I felt very proud of the project, but I was worried at the same time: am I getting too close to this? Could this be bad for me?

Playing with Ed for the first time [in 1990] was amazing. We were listening to some old tapes when he first got here – he recorded stuff on a boombox, and I went, “Fuck, this guy is good.” It was the first time I was in a situation where everybody was really firing on all cylinders when Pearl Jam first got together. And that was going on at the same time as Temple. A lot was happening very quickly.

Who were the guitarists that had the biggest impact on you from the Seattle scene?

Clearly the most obvious would be Hendrix, which is the scene before, but he made it in England and we all know the history of all that. I love to hear Kim [Thayil] play – he’s got an interesting style. He hits a chord differently than I hit; that allows him to move his fingers in that way in those Soundgarden songs.

I like Jerry’s style – he’s a great writer. Getting to see all those guys play was really fun, and getting to tour and open up for Alice in Chains when we were Mookie Blaylock was a fun time. Steve Turner and Mark Arm just beat the hell out of the guitars and there’s a relentless punk energy there, so that’s fun to watch.

The thing that surprised me about the Seattle scene is everybody’s so different, and this very small scene turned out to be huge. Kurt, of course, was a great guitar player in his way, as a songwriter – getting to see that live was incredible, too.

I’ve got to get to the inevitable Pearl Jam questions: what’s next and when are we going to find out who the drummer is?

We’re on a holding pattern right now because I’m working on this and Ed’s going to Japan. We’re going to find somebody. We don’t have anybody right this second to announce. I wish I did. I’m dying to play. We’ll make it happen – I’m excited to see where our future is. Everybody still wants to do it.

Were you surprised when Matt Cameron announced he was leaving?

I was kind of surprised. I think Matt was getting tired of being on the road; he’s paid his dues over the years and I wish him the best. It just wasn’t working for him anymore going on the road, and that’s OK.

We’ve been around a long time, and Matt was a huge reason we are still around; we were lucky to have him for 27 years. I was a little surprised and sad, but I also love him and I wish him the best.

Lastly, is there any new guitar gear that’s impressing you? Last time we spoke you were raving about Fender’s digital Tone Master amps, and lately you’ve been running FRFR cabs.

My guitar tech, Josh Schreibeis, has designed an amp modeling system and I think it’s made me play better. I used it on the Dark Matter tour. I love the consistency of it. [McCready’s live system is based around the Fractal Axe-Fx III – Ed]

I love the Tone Master [Pro] – I have it right here and I play on it every day [at home]. I can pick up any kind of pedal on that thing and it sounds pretty great.

I know there’s purists that probably aren’t into that, but I felt like my amp modeling system along with the old analog stuff has made me a better guitar player.

I can say, “Hey, I want this to sound heavier,” and he’ll go, “Okay, bam, it’s heavier.” He knows the technical stuff, and I know the verbiage – like, “Make it sound like The Byrds in 1966.”

I think it was the consistency of the amps over the Dark Matter tour that pushed me to play better than I have ever done. I just felt more confident.

• Farewell to Seasons is released on October 6 2026 via Z2 Comics.

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready has made the switch to a digital guitar rig – and he says it’s made him a better guitar player.

In a new interview with Guitar World, McCready revealed that he brought out Fractal’s Axe-Fx on Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter tour, while the Fender Tone Master Pro is a mainstay in his home setup.

“I love the Tone Master [Pro] – I have it right here and I play on it every day,” he says. “I can pick up any kind of pedal on that thing and it sounds pretty great.”

McCready’s tech Josh Schreibeis is the man behind his new live Axe-Fx rig and has been integral in matching his previous tube rig while conjuring up new tones.

“I can say, ‘Hey, I want this to sound heavier,’ and he'll go, ‘OK, bam, it's heavier.’ He knows the technical stuff, and I know the verbiage – like, ‘Make it sound kind of like The Byrds in 1966.’”

McCready has gradually shifted to digital amps over the course of the past few years. He was first spotted playing Fender’s Tone Master Deluxe Reverb and Blonde Twin Reverb combos in 2022, alongside a Lead Custom tube head from Seattle amp builder Rola.

But from 2024’s Dark Matter tour onwards, McCready switched the combos out for the Axe-Fx III, employing Fender’s Tone Master FRFR cabs for monitoring onstage (the Marshall 4x12s underneath are used solely to raise the Fender FR-12s).

In his current setup, the Axe-Fx is controlled via an RJM 10-footswitch MIDI unit – although McCready does bring the Tone Master Pro out for non-Pearl Jam shows, such as his gig with Thunderpussy at Seattle’s Showbox in December.

Traditional physical pedals still in rotation on his pedalboard include the Line 6 DL4, Boss VB-2W, MXR Uni-Vibe, MXR Phase 90, Electro-Harmonix Stereo Electric Mistress, MXR Carbon Copy and J Rockett Archer.

What’s impressed McCready most about his new rig is the consistency of tone night to night. So much so that it has sharpened his skills on the instrument.

“I know there’s purists that probably aren’t into that, but I felt like my amp modeling system along with the old analog stuff has made me a better guitar player.

“It was the consistency of the amps over the Dark Matter tour that pushed me to play better than I have ever done. I just felt more confident.”

McCready is readying the release of Farewell to Seasons, his rock opera that is seeing release as a graphic novel and accompanying soundtrack in October.

Read Guitar World’s full interview with Mike McCready.

UPDATE (04.09.26): This article was amended to update details of McCready’s rig with information supplied by Pearl Jam’s equipment manager, in particular that McCready used an Axe-Fx III for the Dark Matter tour.

Mike McCready is currently prepping the release of rock opera Farewell to Seasons. In its initial graphic novel form, it tells the story of the Pearl Jam guitarist and Seattle itself through four fictional bands. But there’s one group that shares its name with a real band: McCready’s first project, Shadow.

The hard-rock outfit was formed when the guitarist was in ninth grade at Seattle’s Roosevelt High School, and he feels they deserve more credit for what they were achieving at a young age.

“I felt like we never really got the props that we should have gotten over the years, because we were young and 16 and playing all around the Northwest and doing shows,” McCready tells Guitar World. “We broke up when everything started happening. I spent my 10,000 hours with that band.”

In the mid-’80s, Seattle was not the place to be; but LA most definitely was. So when McCready’s contemporaries started moving to the West Coast to make it, he made sure that Shadow – whose sound owed more to Iron Maiden and Van Halen than anything foreshadowing grunge – followed.

“Duff McKagan stopped by the Shadow house in ’84, and said he was moving to Los Angeles. And we were like, ‘There’s something to that.’”

By the tail end of 1986, McKagan and his band Guns N’ Roses had built a reputation on the Sunset Strip and released their first EP, Live ?!★꩜ Like a Suicide. Things never quite took off for Shadow, however – and it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

“We played a bunch of places. We opened up for Andy Taylor. I got to see some cool stuff – I saw Jane’s Addiction at a club; I saw the Welcome to the Jungle video shoot.”

One year into the move, McCready got sick with Crohn’s disease which, combined with a lack of record label interest, sealed Shadow’s fate.

“It was a year of me working at Aron’s Records, drinking too much, getting Crohn’s, and going, ‘I can't do this anymore.’ So I moved back and I gave up. I quit playing music for two years from ’88, ’89. I was done. And then I got a call out of the blue from Stone.”

Guitarist Stone Gossard had recently lost singer Andrew Wood to a heroin overdose, bringing his own dreams of rock success to a tragic close. He was seeking a new musical sparring partner, and hit up McCready after seeing him playing along to a Stevie Ray Vaughan record at a party.

“I had known him since seventh grade. And when we started playing together, selfishly, I was like, ‘Okay, this seems to be my door. I better walk through it.’ After going through LA and not making it and being depressed, all of a sudden this thing happens when I'm not looking for it.”

From there, history was made. Pearl Jam would go on to make Ten and become one of the greatest success stories to emerge from the Seattle scene. But McCready never forgot about Shadow, the band who kickstarted his path to lead guitar stardom.

Farewell to Seasons is released on October 6 2026 via Z2 Comics. Guitar World’s full interview with Mike McCready will be published in the coming weeks.

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready has announced details of his grunge-inspired rock opera, which has been 20 years in the making.

The record, Farewell to Seasons, which has been given an October 7 release date, arrives with a companion graphic novel and weaves through an alternate history of grunge in early ‘90s Seattle.

The main character is a fictional musician called David Williams, and he’s expected to be put in the heart of a scene that defined a generation with bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains – alongside Pearl Jam, of course.

“It's a story I've been developing for many years, inspired by the creativity, community, and chaos of the Seattle music scene,” McCready explains. “Farewell to Seasons is a historical fantasy set in that world, and alongside the graphic novel, there will also be a ‘lost’ rock opera connected to the story, featuring original music written from the perspective of David Williams, one of the main characters.

“I've had a great time bringing this project to life with Z2 Comics, and I hope people enjoy the journey as much as I did creating it.”

The title may also be a nod to the Chris Cornell acoustic track Seasons, which grunge supergroup Temple of the Dog – formed as a tribute to Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone – performed during their 2016 reunion tour. This is just speculation, but it could be viewed as a partial tribute to the Seattle musicians who we’ve sadly lost over the years.

It's currently unconfirmed who else features on the record, but it wouldn't be outrageous to expect a fellow grunge alumnus or two.

After moving to Seattle from Washington, the Fender signature artist would find his permanent home in Pearl Jam, with Ten going down as one of the greatest rock albums of all time.

Yet, while he wishes he could re-record the Even Flow solo all these years later, Gene Simmons has revealed the hilarious theft triangle that his Alive solo put him in. Meanwhile, Pearl Jam's recent tours have been strewn with some epic guest solos, including impressive displays from super-producer Andrew Watt and rock legend Peter Frampton.

One of Fender Custom Shop’s leading Masterbuilders has shared his theory as to why some of the most legendary Fender guitars of all time are so heavily worn.

In guitardom, there are few sights more iconic than a battered and bruised Fender. Rory Gallagher’s legendary 1961 Stratocaster – which sold earlier this year for more than $1,000,000 – was stripped bare through wear. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Number One was equally relic’d. Mike McCready’s Strat can also be added to that list.

There have been a few theories as to why these guitars ended up so heavily weathered, from natural wear and tear caused by spiky jewellery and belt buckles, all the way to the acidity of a player’s sweat.

Custom Shop Masterbuilder Dale Wilson – who’s mastered the art of artificial aging through his relic builds – has a different theory, though, and it doesn’t have anything to do with acidic sweat. But it does involve sweat in general.

“I have a theory. People always say Rory Gallagher had an acidic sweat, right? Or Steve Ray Vaughan. [But] this is what I think,” he says in a new interview with The Music Zoo.

“It's probably wrong but I think they put their guitars in the cases wet, and then they closed the cases and went to the next show. Then it just stewed in that wetness, in that sweat – because they both perspired quite a bit – until the next gig.

“I mean, Mike Campbell's guitar. You've seen the fretboard on that. It just is globbed with [dirt], and he doesn't want that cleaned off. I think it’s the same with heavy touring musicians that are just going from one place to another.

“They put it away wet. So it's not necessarily buckle rash or them hitting it on something – which it is, of course – but on top of that, it's just the paint getting loosened over time, sitting in a case.”

Andy Hicks – another legend of the Fender Custom Shop – agreed with Wilson’s theory, pointing out that vintage guitars are especially susceptible to such aging.

“The sweat gets through the natural checking,” he adds. “We’re talking about vintage guitars, so it’s lacquer paint. It checks, the sweat seeps in through that, and then kind of festers underneath.

“It’s not that your belt is a particularly spiky belt, it’s just more abrasive than jeans or whatever. And the paint is now hanging on for dear life because it’s had this water underneath the finish. Something like that is just going to take it off.”

“And if you like at some of the checking, there’s the bleed through,” Wilson agrees. “It almost looks like there’s oil in the checking running under the finish. I think that’s exactly what it is.”

Mystery solved? Well, Hicks and Wilson are leading experts when it comes to all things Fender, so they might have just hit the nail on the head.

Though Hicks is known for ultra-relic’d builds, he also has a few more out-there Fenders in his portfolio. Last month, he unveiled his latest Custom Shop design: a Godzilla Stratocaster with a built-in Roar button.

Less than a week after Eddie Vedder donned Jack White’s signature Acoustasonic for a rampaging deep cut, Pearl Jam welcomed Peter Frampton to the stage for a fresh rendition of Black.

The band's Nashville stop on May 8 provided the ideal opportunity to link up with one of their earliest guitar heroes, with Frampton and Mike McCready trading licks as Eddie Vedder teased Frampton's mega-hit, Do You Feel Like We Do.

“This gentleman was someone we looked up to before the Ramones,” Vedder told the crowd prior to Frampton’s arrival. “Some of our first guitar heroes, [like] Jimmy Page and Pete Townshend, he was right up there.

“It was one of [the] reasons why we loved live records, and later we decided to release bootlegs because of his influence,” he adds, alluding to Frampton’s celebrated live LP, Frampton Comes Alive!

“He’s such an incredible human being on top of it. It is our honor because at this point he’s become a good friend to the group. He’s recorded with Mike [McCready] and [drummer] Matt Cameron [the pair guested on Frampton's 2006 album, Fingerprints, covering Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun] and we get to play with him tonight.”

The Les Paul-loving guitarist, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, is having to adapt his playing as he battles a degenerative disease, but he has said he will continue to play guitar for the rest of his life – and as this spot shows, he’s still got oodles of class.

Frampton takes the first solo, delivering soulful licks with a tender sprinkling of overdrive before McCready – wielding an all-white Stratocaster for the occasion – weaves the song's motif around his improvised playing. And Frampton looks to be loving every second of it, with the Nashville crowd in full voice throughout.

The guitarist will embark on one final tour later this year, having made a surprise appearance at NAMM 2025. In March, he played a Beatles classic with Grace Bowers and Trey Anastasio and there were guitar solos galore.

“Every note I play now is so much more important because I know one of the notes will be the last I play,” he commented of his playing.

His diagnosis of inclusion body myositis (IBM) – a degenerative condition that affects the legs, arms, wrists, and fingers – has already forced him to perform seated, and prompted him to announce a farewell tour in 2019. But the pull of the stage is strong, and Frampton is proving defiant in the face of adversity.

It’s a quality Andy Timmons has been quick to acknowledge – “Even in the face of adversity he still plays with complete joy,” he has said – and, after penning a song in tribute to him, Frampton ended up guesting on it.

Gene Simmons has told the story of a guitar solo merry-go-round, after revealing that Pearl Jam’s iconic Alive lead effort closely followed in the footsteps of a Kiss solo – which Ace Frehley had previously lifted “note-for-note” from another classic rock heavyweight.

Guesting on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast, the Kiss bassist pointed out Frehley’s plagiarism.

The track in question is Kiss' 1975 cut She, which found Frehley apparently so enamored with Robby Krieger's lead playing on The Doors' Five to One, from 1968's Waiting for the Sun, that he lovingly copied and pasted it onto the Kiss song.

Unaware of this, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready then followed a similar tact when piecing together the solo for Alive, only for Simmons to drop a truth bomb later down the line.

“I said, ‘Mike, I don’t know how to tell you this, but that’s a note-for-note guitar solo from the Doors,” Simmons tells Corgan. “Ace liked it so much, he just reproduced it. He goes, ‘No!’”

Discussing the genesis of some of his biggest hits with Guitar World, McCready now doesn't hide from this fact. All he has to say of the song is, “I copied Ace Frehley’s solo from Kiss’ She, which was copied from Robby Krieger’s solo in the Doors’ Five to One.”

Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2014, McCready waxed lyrical about Kiss and the impact they had on him during his formative years.

“I remember being on a school bus in sixth grade in 1976, with my friend Rick Friel, who eventually played in my high school band, Shadow,” he said. “He had a lunchbox that had Kiss on it. ‘What is that?’

“Then he played me some music and I was hooked immediately.” So it's no surprise there's more than a little Kiss style sprinkled across Pearl Jam's discography.

Going off his comments on the podcast, Simmons seemingly picked up on She’s likeness to Five to One at the time. But he doesn’t see the solo-swapping saga as much of an issue.

“My point is, it’s always very appreciated when somebody says, ‘Loved your stuff,’” Simmons says. “Everybody’s got bits and pieces of stuff. Listen to Zeppelin songs, you’ll hear lots of blues, very recognizable, blues songs.”

McCready has also downplayed the drama to be drawn from their similarities, telling Chris Shiflett’s Shred With Shifty podcast, “I don't do the solo the same live all the time.”

Think of the quintessential Seattle band and you might, understandably, reach for the grunge icon of your choice, but from Hendrix to Heart, the city is steeped in guitar playing history.

Now KEXP DJ and frontwoman of the Black Tones, Eva Walker, alongside her music journalist husband, Jake Uitti, have penned a love letter to the music history of the Seattle-area, The Sound of Seattle.

From Thunderpussy to Ayron Jones, Kurt Cobain to Ben Gibbard and The Sonics to Sleater-Kinney, the book, which is out on August 20, chronicles some 80 years of songs and innovations in the Emerald City.

Included are also a number of interviews with Seattle luminaries, from Jack Endino to Sir Mix a Lot, alongside a healthy chunk of guitarist talent.

Below the authors have shared an excerpt from one of the city’s most iconic players – and a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer – Nancy Wilson, of Heart.

For the guitarist who co-wrote songs like Barracuda and Magic Man, her hometown of Seattle – and its place as one of rock ’n’ roll’s foundational cities – is reflected in another bastion of music, the UK...

The Liverpool of the States

For Nancy Wilson, the guitar dynamo for the Pacific Northwest–born rock band Heart, Seattle has often reminded her of another cloudy port town that helped spawn a musical movement.

Wilson, who rose to fame co-writing and performing songs like Barracuda and Crazy On You, believes Seattle is a lot like the birthplace of the Beatles, Liverpool. But Seattle, notes Wilson, also has its own Fab Four: grunge icons Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, and Soundgarden. Coincidence? Likely not.

“I always called Seattle the Liverpool of the States,” says Wilson. “They are sister cities. Seattle is such a rich and storied seaport town with ferries crossing the Sound under gray rainy skies.”

Heart, in which Wilson starred along with her big-voiced sister, lead singer Ann, released its seminal debut album, Dreamboat Annie, in 1975. With it, the band helped bolster the 1970s rock landscape, along with groups like Led Zeppelin and the Who.

Of course, Heart was also different from these groups. They were American and were led by women. In this way, Heart inspired a generation (and beyond) of rockers, from Kathleen Hanna to Brandi Carlile.

But, says Wilson, while rock thrived in the 1970s and later in the 1990s, the genre may have been searching for itself a bit in the 1980s. Indeed, she says, the ’70s and the ’90s were high points in the guitar-based music – thanks in large part to Seattle.

Northwest rock pioneers

“The musical story of Seattle was never more fashionable than in the ’90s,” says Wilson. “The music was a much-needed break from the corporate ’80s sound and literally put electric guitar rock back on the map. Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden became the pillars of the new sound that took over the world like a cultural flash mob.”

While Wilson celebrates the grunge movement of the ’90s, she knows it would not have happened without those who came before, including her skeleton-shaking rock group and the many others who preceded her, locally and beyond.

“Jimi Hendrix hailed from Seattle as well as great Northwest rock pioneers like the Wailers, Merrilee Rush and the Turnabouts, the Kingsmen, the Sonics, to name a few,” says Wilson. “And then there was Ray Charles.”

In Seattle, the question often arises, as it must also in pubs and music clubs in Liverpool today: Why here? What makes this place special and conducive to so much music?

For Wilson, who has lived in the city for decades, including with her former husband of nearly 25 years, movie director Cameron Crowe, it has to do with location and weather as much as talent and drive.

“I think the moody weather of the great Northwest – like Liverpool – plus the infusion of sailors and travelers from around the world help bring forth a creative haven for players sheltering indoors out of the elements and banging away in garage bands,” offers Wilson.

“To me, all of these players through the eras are what makes ‘The Seattle Sound.’ The ’50s bands informed the bands of the ’60s and so forth.”

The Seattle sound

Specifically, Wilson says, the ’70s were a time of experimentation and achievement on the West Coast, thanks to open-minded cities like those in the Bay Area, as well as the Emerald City, and to musicians from Hendrix and Santana at Woodstock in 1969 to Heart and the second wave of the British Invasion a handful of years later.

“In the ’70s, Heart became part of the Seattle Sound although so much was also still being born out of the Bay Area, too,” Wilson says. “The mind-expanded sounds of the ’60s folded easily into the’70s where you’d hear more epic and longer songs like In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.

“Also, the genius of Led Zeppelin entered the story like the ultimate rock muses they were, and it was at a small venue called the Green Lake Aqua Theater where we witnessed their opening set for a youth festival. It was as mind-bending and life-altering as having seen the Beatles live at the Seattle Coliseum in 1966.”

And what effect, exactly, did all of this have on her in real time? “Being in Heart in the mid-’70s was pure adrenaline and excitement,” says Wilson.

“We had the intuition that music was a wide-open playing field for a band as unique as we were and that it was going to work. Apparently, our instincts were right when the first Heart album went big region by region in 1975.”

What about the region itself? “All around the whole Northwest [in the ’70s], that was a magical time for the Seattle Sound, even if you were from Vancouver or Portland or Olympia. Bands were thriving and creating greatness in their own right and in their own style. Later, the ’80s decade was almost like rock had to get over its corporate tantrum to return to the real deal.”

• The Sound of Seattle is published on August 20 and available to preorder now.

Pearl Jam recently let a fan live out their dream of playing guitar on Yellow Ledbetter onstage with the band.

Superfan Carlos had traveled from his native Chile to Barcelona for the band’s July 8 show – a 7,000-mile trip.

He brought some Chilean wine with him, which he gifted to the band, along with a handmade sign that read: “Pls let me play Y.Ledbetter on guitar. PS: Hope u liked the Chilean wine.”

Video footage shows Carlos handing Eddie Vedder his sign during the concert.

Later, Vedder can be seen pointing into the audience, asking, “you really know how to play guitar?” before signaling to a guitar tech to ready a six-string for the Chilean.

The band, perhaps touched by the gift, happily obliged and both Vedder and bassist Jeff Ament can be seen watching with suitably impressed looks across their faces as Carlos (who is not phased by the occasion), smoothly weaves through the clean open passages of the song.

Watching Carlos – on a black Telecaster – trading chords with Mike McCready makes for heart-warming viewing and no doubt proved a ‘pinch me’ moment for the fan.

One man who might relate to Carlos’ dream is Andrew Watt, who produced Pearl Jam's latest album, Dark Matter.

As Watt's recent Guitar World interview details, he went from being a 12-year-old holding a sign at a show asking to play Alive’s guitar solo to being his favorite band's producer.

Pearl Jam producer Andrew Watt has gone from being a 12-year-old holding a sign at a show asking to play Alive’s guitar solo to being his favorite band's producer. Now, he can tick something else off his bucket list after dueling with Mike McCready on the iconic Alive lead last week.

So far, Pearl Jam's debut single Alive has appeared on all setlists of their current tour. On May 16, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, fans were treated to a special rendition when Andrew Watt joined the band on stage, brandishing his Gibson Les Paul. He joined forces with McCready to deliver the solo Total Guitar named the 29th best solo of all time.

Elsewhere on the setlist, Pearl Jam included more surprises, including tour debuts of Sometimes and Hail Hail from No Code (1996), plus Eddie Vedder's take on Jason Isbell's Maybe It's Time and Corduroy (1994) with U2's Bad intro.

During their second show at MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 18, the band performed deep cut You Are (2002) for the first time since 2018. Eddie Vedder also covered Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down, with a Hunters & Collectors' Throw Your Arms Around Me tease – notably, he played a Fender Robbie Robertson Stratocaster for the tracks.

In an interview with SPIN, Watt expressed his admiration for Pearl Jam's music and how producing Dark Matter served as his full circle moment: “[It felt like going] back to being 12 years old, going to a show and holding a sign that said, ‘Can I play the guitar solo for Alive?’ I’ve been ready for this gig my whole life. There was no prep needed.”

In a recent interview with Bass Player, bassist Jeff Ament revealed how working with a genuine Pearl Jam fan like Watt helped energize the band. “Andrew’s a huge fan, and the Pearl Jam that he likes is the stuff that hits hard. So we leaned into that part of the sound a little more.”

The recording process also entailed using the gear available at Watt's studio, including four custom Dumble amps.

Pearl Jam are currently on the US leg of their Dark Matter tour. The setlist is unique for every show, as the tour not only celebrates their latest album, but 30 years of live performances, 12 studio albums, and over 85 million albums sold worldwide.

Pearl Jam kicked off their US tour on Saturday, and for guitarist Mike McCready, things got off to a rough start as he tumbled off stage during his solo in Porch. But only a fool would think that would stop him from shredding. 

Playing at Rogers Arena, Vancouver, the Seattle heavyweights were heading towards the home straight mishap-free – with Porch the final song before their encore – when the incident happened. 

Armed with a sunburst Les Paul, McCready had already set his fretboard alight several times throughout the track, from 1991’s iconic Ten, when he decided to venture towards the corner of the stage. 

Suddenly, McCready vanishes out of sight amid a whir of feedback, with only the headstock of his guitar in sight. Then, a quick-off-the-mark roadie pulls him back onto the stage, with McCready soling through the entire affair, much to the jubilation of the arena. 

Though he had screaming feedback to contend with, there was a steely determination to carry on shredding, and it doesn't sound like he missed a note while gravity got one over him. 

Despite the fall, it was a fierce performance from McCready, peppering the song with shred, leaving one YouTube commenter to ask “Dude, did Mike get possessed by Eddie Van Halen? He went off there!”

Skip to 3:23 on the video below to witness McCready falling with style. 

McCready, who was recently bestowed a gorgeous signature Stratocaster, channeled Van Halen on his recent appearance on the Howard Stern Show as he shredded EVH’s Eruption.

He also recounted the story of how Van Halen told him that he hated the sound of their debut record during a chance meeting at an LA recording studio as the band ramped up the promo for their 12th album, Dark Matter.

The tour continues in Portland and Sacramento this week before two dates in Las Vegas next week. Now fully acquainted with the stage’s geography, Guitar World expects McCready to tear through those shows on both feet. 

St. Vincent may not be the first guitarist to come to mind when coming up with names of Fender Stratocaster players. However, that might have to change: on her new album All Born Screaming, St. Vincent played one of Mike McCready's signature Strats – an experience that lead to something of an epiphany.

“Mike McCready from Pearl Jam gave me one of his amazing signature Strats,” St. Vincent reveals in the new issue of Total Guitar. “And I played that on the record a bit. I’ve typically been afraid of Strats just because they carry so much baggage, but there were certain songs on this record that was like, ‘A Strat is exactly what needs to happen here, so a Strat it shall be!’

“The end of the big riff on Broken Man was that Strat. I was just playing it as aggressively as possible. I play with my fingers most of the time, but I think I played that with a pick.”

With a Fender Strat, St. Vincent had to experiment with what pedals she could use on the record. On Broken Man, for example, she opted for a pedal-less setup and achieved the dirty tone by plugging straight into a reissue Marshall amp.

“Using pedals on a Strat, you just have to be conscientious of avoiding unpleasant brightness, so that’s all from the amp. That’s it. An amp cranked up in a room. Not to be corny, but that’s a real sound.”

In 2023, an Instagram post by Willow Smith hinted that St. Vincent might be using a Strat on her then-unannounced album. Indeed, the Strat captured in the photo is the Fender Custom Shop Mike McCready 1960 Stratocaster, which St. Vincent has now revealed was one of her main guitars when recording her latest album.

All Born Screaming, St. Vincent's newest album, dropped on April 26. She kicks off her album tour at The Majestic Ventura Theater in Ventura, California, on May 22.

For more St. Vincent, plus new interviews with Slash and Kerry King, pick up issue 384 of Total Guitar at Magazines Direct.

Mike McCready has described Eddie Van Halen's guitar playing as “music from another planet” in a recent conversation with SiriusXM, which saw the Pearl Jam icon try his hand at the late guitar legend's iconic instrumental, Eruption.

As part of the promo trail for the Seattle outfit’s 12th album, Dark Matter, the band recently guested on the Howard Stern Show. During the interview, McCready was asked about his long-standing love for Eddie Van Halen. 

“It's music from another planet to me,” he says. “I started playing guitar right when Van Halen [1978] came out, so it didn't really make any sense to me but I thought it was the greatest sound I'd ever heard.” 

Asked if he’d ever met Van Halen personally, McCready responded: “Only when we were doing our Lightning Bolt [album, released in 2013] in Los Angeles. He happened to be in the hall one day, and I happened to be listening to the first Van Halen album on the way to the studio.” 

He admits that he began to fumble his words, starstruck even with nine Pearl Jam albums and a Grammy win under his belt.  

He told Eddie that he’d “been listening to the first record, it's incredible.” Van Halen's reply? “Nah, I never really liked the sound of that record.” 

It’s a surprising but humble admission about a record that included Eruption, a song hailed as one of the greatest guitar solos of all time. Wolfgang Van Halen, however, recalls the exchange slightly differently – and with a few more expletives. 

McCready then treated Howard Stern viewers to his take of the incendiary track, sheepishly saying, “It’s really early Howard, so I don’t know it as well as I want to!” 

McCready previously burned through a cover of the track back in 2022, and has spoken to Guitar World about how important Van Halen – and Eruption – have been to his own guitar playing.

“Eddie Van Halen to me was a huge deal,” he said at the time. “I started playing when I was 12 years old and that’s right when his first record came out, and it was unlike anything I had ever heard.

“Eddie was another version of a guitar hero that felt like he came from outer space or something. Like, ’What is this? What is this Eruption thing?’”

A shining beacon in a sea of riff-heavy, punk-inspired grunge guitarists, Mike McCready’s impeccable blues feel, Hendrix-esque chord work, and earworm hooks have helped Pearl Jam stay afloat for over three decades – all while most of their contemporaries have sunk without a trace. 

Inspired by the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Van Halen and Ace Frehley, McCready’s classic rock approach to guitar helped define the Seattle band’s sound – a sound players have been chasing since the early ’90s. 

Now, if there’s one guitar heavily associated with the grunge icon, it’s his battle-worn Fender Stratocaster. A fresh-faced McCready purchased his beloved Strat immediately after the success of the band’s monumental debut album and he’s used it on every record and tour since. 

He originally bought the beat-up six-string, believing it to be a 1959 model – and he even got a “'59” tattoo to commemorate his favourite guitar. We can only imagine his surprise when Fender’s Custom Shop informed him it was actually made one year later, in 1960. 

Having already celebrated the guitar with a limited Custom Shop run, Fender has shifted to making a more affordable option. Now, if there was one word to describe the new McCready and Fender collaboration, it’s ambitious. Not only has Fender set out to make a wallet-friendly rendition of a Custom Shop smash hit, but they’ve also committed to imitating the wear and tear of the original guitar – no small feat, for sure. 

Let’s start by addressing the rather distressed and battered elephant in the room. At first glance, it really does look like an elderly guitar behind a counter in a small town, and from a distance, it appears unmistakably to be McCready’s beloved Fender. 

All the large scratches, dings and scuffs are accounted for. However, once you remove the guitar from its appropriately retro case, you’ll start to notice the slight limitations of the Mexican facility compared to the efforts of the Custom Shop. 

The ageing is a courageous attempt and mostly on the money. However, we can’t help but feel the relic’ing looks almost too precise in places. The scalpel-sharp lines and surgically removed sections of finish serve as reminders that you’re playing an artificially aged instrument. 

If anything, the bare alder showing through the sparse sunburst patches is a little too clean. The guitar is missing the thousands of hours of sweat, blood and tears the original wears with pride. Perhaps that’s your job! 

Playability is where this guitar shines. This Strat is a player. The neck here is very slim – slimmer than you’d expect – and remarkably easy to navigate. Couple the slight profile with the heavily relic’d nature of its finish and you get a lightning-fast guitar that is addictive to play. Throw in the perfectly aged dots and flawless fretwork, and it might be the best Fender neck we’ve played in years – thanks, Mike! 

Being a grunge legend’s signature axe, you may expect hotter pickups onboard. However, McCready is a vintage gear hound and a massive fan of his guitar’s original pickups. That’s why Fender developed a custom set of ’60s single-coil pickups specially designed to reproduce the tone of their golden-age instruments. 

These pickups sound superb and very convincing – one strum and we were transported to the swinging ’60s. The tone is bright and responsive, all without sounding spikey or thin. These pickups have a retro charm that will surely put a smile on any vintage guitar fan’s face. That said, it’s not only throwback jangle this guitar can do – it distorts beautifully, taking maxed-out fuzz and face-melting gain in its stride. 

It’s fair to say heavily relic’d guitars always start a debate among guitarists, but what’s not up for discussion is how good this particular guitar plays and sounds. This is a serious guitar that not only delivers a full-bodied tone but also has a neck that makes short work of anything you throw at it. It’s no wonder McCready has the confidence to play this guitar on stage night after night on tour – perhaps it’s a state of love and trust.

Specs

• PRICE: $1,899 / £1,649
• BODY: Alder 
• BODY FINISH: Road Worn Nitrocellulose Lacquer
• NECK SHAPE: Slim “C”
• SCALE LENGTH: 25.5” (64.77 cm) 
• FINGERBOARD: Slab Rosewood
• FINGERBOARD RADIUS: 9.5” (241 mm) 
• FRETS: 21 Jescar Medium Vintage 
• PICKUPS: Custom Mike McCready ’60s Single-Coil 
• SPECIAL ELECTRONICS: Treble Bleed Circuit 
• BRIDGE: 6-Saddle Vintage-Style Synchronized Tremolo with Bent Steel Saddles 
• CASE: Deluxe Brown Hardshell
• CONTACT: Fender
  

Mike McCready has said that it wasn’t until he saw Stevie Ray Vaughan that he truly understood the trademark thumb technique of his first guitar hero, Jimi Hendrix.

The new issue of Guitarist is on sale today and features a cover interview with McCready, in which the Pearl Jam guitarist discusses his new signature Fender Stratocaster – alongside the influence of another Strat legend, SRV.

Indeed, in the interview, McCready credits the guitarist as a huge influence on many aspects of his musical career, from unraveling the mystery of Hendrix’s playing style, to his love of the Stratocaster and even his own shot at greatness – joining Pearl Jam. 

“I know exactly why,” McCready tells Guitarist, when asked why he fell for the Strat in the first place.

“I was lucky enough to see Stevie Ray Vaughan play four times before he died. I loved Hendrix: he was my first guitar hero, growing up in Seattle. But seeing Stevie was transcendent. He made me understand Hendrix better.”

Obviously, McCready was learning to play in the late-’70s and early ’80s – sadly, not the era of endless, pausable YouTube clips. As such, the benefit of Hendrix’s unusual grip on the neck – in which the electric guitar icon would fret the root notes of chords with his thumb – had eluded him.

“I could watch Hendrix play Monterey, but I still didn’t really know what he was doing,” notes McCready. 

“I saw he had his thumb over the fretboard, but it still didn’t make any sense to me. But when I saw Stevie live, it was like, ‘Oh! That’s what he’s doing.’ Stevie somehow taught me through osmosis. He was so bluesy and so real, and he’d sit on the side of the stage at the end of the show and do Lenny, y’know, that little mellow piece. 

“When he did Voodoo Child, it was so bad-ass. He changed how I wanted to play, and if you listen to Even Flow, you can hear me trying to emulate his stuff.”

It’s previously been reported that McCready got the Pearl Jam gig after Stone Gossard heard him perform SRV’s Couldn’t Stand The Weather, but McCready clarifies that this didn't occur at a show, but rather a house party – and came a good while before he was invited to join the Seattle legends.

“I was at a party at my friend’s house,” says McCready. “I was in his bedroom and I put on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Couldn’t Stand The Weather and was playing along to it. I remember Stone Gossard walked in. I had known Stone since sixth grade, but he had Mother Love Bone happening already. 

“Cut to about a year later when Andy [Wood] passed, I got a call out of the blue from Stone and I think it was because he saw me playing Couldn’t Stand The Weather to the record… he said he couldn’t do that stuff – and I could kind of do it.”

To read the full interview, alongside the magazine's annual gear of the year round-up and a special celebration of 50 years of Boss, pick up the latest issue of Guitarist at Magazines Direct.

Guns N’ Roses hit Seattle on Friday night (October 14) and were joined onstage by local rock royalty, in the form of Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready.

The LA sleaze gods always had enough punk edge to get a pass from the grunge scene – and, indeed, it’s rumored that GN'R even tried to arrange a package tour with Pearl Jam and U2 in 1993.

Instead fans got a small taster of what could have been, as the Pearl Jam man joined the group for traditional closer Paradise City. 

Since then fan footage has emerged that shows him giving the song all the energy it requires, going toe to toe with Slash on the song’s frantic final lead runs. 

Seattle Times music writer Michael Rietmulder was there in person to review the gig and sums it up nicely. 

“It’s not every day, even in Seattle, you get the chance to watch two of rock’s elite guitar soloists like Slash and McCready go lick for lick,” says Rietmulder. 

“That’s exactly what they did during the song’s closing blitz, the two locking in as McCready unleashed a rapid-fire screamer before Slash answered right back.”

In the footage, you can see Slash armed, as you would expect, with a Gibson Les Paul, while the Pearl Jam guitarist appeared to be using his long-favored (and heavily worn) 1960 Fender Strat, which served as the basis for the recent Fender Mike McCready signature Stratocaster.

The result of the two player’s contrasting tones and techniques – Slash’s feel, and McCready’s buttery speed – is a sort of hybrid monster of the GN’R and Pearl Jam sounds. 1993 aside, it makes you wonder what would have happened, had McCready been born and raised a few states south.

It's a typically animated performance form McCready, who is known for his energy onstage, but then perhaps he’s still riding the wave of motivation provided by Pearl Jam’s recent album sessions with producer Andrew Watt. 

“He kind of kicked us in our asses a little bit,” McCready told Guitar World, in September. “Like, ‘Okay, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go go go!’ He's the most hyper guy I've ever met besides myself. But he's a giant fan of our band, and he's a really smoking guitar player in his own right.”

In the same chat, McCready also revealed he’s working on a rock opera about the Seattle scene. Who knows? Maybe he’ll be able to arrange a few celebrity cameos on that one, too.

Of all the guitarists to emerge from the Seattle fog in the early ’90s, Mike McCready is perhaps the closest thing the scene had to a ‘conventional’ guitar hero. Inspired by everyone from Kiss to Stevie Ray Vaughan and Van Halen, his chops combined blues feel with just a dash of hair-metal flair from the outset.

But it wasn’t just his playing that positioned McCready firmly in the guitar hero camp. Pearl Jam’s meteoric rise to fame allowed the guitarist to live his gear fantasies, too. Shortly after the unprecedented success of debut album Ten, McCready was able to invest in his ultimate prize: a Fender Stratocaster, built in 1959… or so he thought.

In 2021, Fender built a Custom Shop replica of McCready’s Stratocaster, with all the wear and tear inflicted by the guitarist over three decades of touring with Pearl Jam – not least the epic headstock chip inflicted while performing with Neil Young in the ’90s.

But during Fender’s examination of the guitar, Master Builder Vincent Van Trigt discovered the Stratocaster was actually built in 1960, rather than 1959 – news that came as something of a surprise to McCready, who also owns a ’59 Les Paul.

“Thinking that guitar was 1959 for almost 30 years was very much of a shock,” he tells Guitar World from his hotel room in Texas, where Pearl Jam are due to perform the following night. “And I’ve got a ’59 tattoo, so I’ll have to get that changed to a ’+1’!”

With the original run of 60 guitars long since sold – at $15,000 a pop, no less – Fender has seen fit to launch a considerably more attainable version for fans seeking the Pearl Jam icon’s snappy single-coil tone and his Strat’s innumerous battle scars.

The new made-in-Mexico Mike McCready Stratocaster isn’t hand-made by Van Trigt like the original, but it does capture the style and substance of the Custom Shop version for a snip under $2,000. McCready did try to get the $1,899 price tag lower, but the increase in material and shipping costs over Covid meant it was impossible to achieve. But, as the guitarist notes of his latest guitars, “They’re cheaper – not in terms of quality but in terms of price.”

Although the band have opened up in recent years, interviews with members of Pearl Jam are still few and far between. But if there is any topic that will get Mike McCready talking, it’s guitars.

With a tight 20-minute slot under the watchful eye of Fender, we sought to dig into as many of the big talking points as we could: the switch to digital amps, those Eruption covers, his greatest Strat moment.

But it wasn’t until we asked about Chris Cornell’s influence on his guitar playing that we got more than we bargained for. Suffice to say, McCready has big plans for the future, and they’re not just with Pearl Jam – although the Seattle veterans’ new album is also shaping up to be one of their most vital in the hands of Ozzy Osbourne and Iggy Pop super-producer Andrew Watt.

Congratulations on your new signature Stratocaster! How does the new model compare with the previous Custom Shop version?

“They play great. I’ve just started playing it on the tour. So I’ve used it on Indifference, I’ve used it on Daughter. I’ve used it on Porch once, I’ve used it on a bunch of our songs. Because I knew I was going to talk to you, I wanted to make sure I was playing this thing that I’m endorsing right now. I want to make sure it’s a legitimately great guitar, and Fender did a fantastic job of it, but I gotta play it live to make sure before talking to you about it. And it plays and sounds like my original one. You know, my original one is the best and that will always sound the best. This one is right next to the best.”

Were you road-testing models prior to the release of this guitar? 

“I was. I was working with [Head of Signature Artists] Michael Schultz and Fender and their team, and [Pearl Jam equipment manager] George Webb on our side. On the last European tour, we had a bunch of these models come out and we tweaked things – maybe the pickups sounded too high-endy at one time and then we got that fixed. Some of the colors were maybe not [right].

“You had a lot of back and forth, but dealing with Fender was relatively quick and easy. They’re very good at sending me stuff, so they’d send me different models. And what eventually happened was, I took two models and put them together: the neck of one, the body of another they were working on, and that’s the one that we have now. But I did play it on the European tour last year.”

What do you consider to be your finest recorded moment with your original Strat?

“Oh my gosh, that’s a good question. I’ve played it on almost every single record. I didn’t play it on [Temple of the Dog epic] Reach Down – I love that thing, but that’s not with that guitar. I would say Daughter is one of the finer ones. I used it on In My Tree in the studio – that’s cool. That’s a really hard question because it’s been on so many songs. Let me get back to you on that. I’ll remember. [pause] Oh, Nothing as It Seems.”

I was going to bring that up if you didn’t mention it, because that is a fantastic solo.

“Thank you for suggesting it. That solo was some dark times for me when I went through that thing. I was using some sort of a Fender pedal that they made in the ’60s – I forget what it’s called [most likely a Fender Blender – Ed]. I’ve only been able to get that sound on that song – I’ve never been able to get it live. I think it was because Tchad Blake, our producer, was helping with it.”

Great pick. Now that you know your Strat is a 1960 model rather than a 1959, have you been looking to buy a real ’59?

“[Laughs] The ’60 neck is thinner than a ’59, and I should have known that playing other ’59s over the years, but I never put the things together. I might get an original one someday, but I’m kind of good on guitars right now, so I have to slow down on that!

“Originally the reason I wanted to get a 1959 was because I love Stevie Ray Vaughan. I’m actually in Texas right now, where he was from, and he played a 1959. And maybe it was a ’59 with a ’60 body, I can’t remember. [Editor’s note: Although Vaughan often claimed he played a ’59, it was actually a ’63 body, ’62 neck and ’59 pickups, according to his tech René Martinez – so McCready’s ’60 Strat may feel closer to SRV’s than he first thought.]

“But I love that 1960, now that that’s what it is. I’ve played it more than any other guitar, in the history of [the band]. The first time I ever played it was on a song called Going Down with Keith Richards when we opened up for him on New Year’s Eve 1992. So that was a dream.”

Have other players played your Fender model and offered their opinions on it?

“I sent Annie Clark of St. Vincent the more spendy model, and she seems to really like it a lot. She’s been recording with it, which is a great honor for me. She’s a good friend of mine. She has her [Ernie Ball Music Man] guitar that she plays all the time, but she took the time to play this one, so I’m happy that she likes it. I haven’t given the new model to anybody yet, but I’ll be getting them out there for sure.”

It looked like Stone was playing one of your models live for a bit.

“Stone has my model of the more expensive one and he loves it. He plays it a whole bunch – on this tour, actually.”

You bring a wide array of instruments with you on tour, but you often switch up which guitar you use for specific songs – you’ve played Alive on Strats, Les Pauls and even Flying Vs, for example. What prompts that decision each night?

“It’s the immediacy of how I’m feeling. I’ll talk with my tech about a half-hour before the show, and we’ll go through the list and go, ’Okay, Strat here, Les Paul here, Strat here, tuned-down Les Paul here.’ There’s a lot of intricacies that go on with Pearl Jam now, because we have so many songs, and we tune some of them down, and they’re in weird tunings.

“I just have to say I’m feeling more of a Les Paul moment, or I’m feeling more of a Strat moment. I’ll make a quick decision. I’ll change what I wrote the hour before. Usually I’ll stick to what we do, but sometimes I feel like, ’Ah, I wanna just try something different.’ Just to throw myself a curve a little bit.”

Is that a tough gig for your tech?

“Probably a little bit, but I don’t do that that much – we usually work out a good thing because we want to have the set as tight as possible. So usually I stick to what I’m doing. Sometimes I’ll mix it up.”

You’ve also been spotted playing Fender’s digital Tone Master amps over the past year or so – what prompted the switch?

“My inclination is to always go tube amps, but these Fender digital amps, back to back against tube amps, sound exactly like tube amps. They’re phenomenal. They’re some of the best amps I’ve ever played. And they’re consistent in that, and maybe that’s the digital part of it.

“Again, I’m all about ‘not digital’; I love tube stuff. But our crew and everyone and myself, we’d A/B’d them back and forth with regular Fenders and Twins and things like that, and they were identical. So it made sense to play the newer ones, just in terms of going on the road and making sure they don’t fall apart or whatever.

“They’re fantastic. They break up really well, I can get a great punk sound out of them if I need to or I can get a good clean sound. It seems to be able to handle whatever I throw it in terms of wah pedal or a delay or whatever I use in there – octaver or something, they work cool. And Phase 90s work cool through them, so I love ’em. I’m sold.”

You’ve paid tribute to Eddie Van Halen on tour by covering Eruption. It’s perhaps the ultimate lead guitar showcase, so what inspired you to perform that song – and what did Eddie mean to you?

“Eddie Van Halen to me was a huge deal. I started playing when I was 12 years old and that’s right when his first record came out, and it was unlike anything I had ever heard.

“I heard Hendrix and he always was my hero and still is to this day, and then Eddie was another version of a guitar hero that felt like he came from outer space or something. Like, ’What is this? What is this Eruption thing?’

“You know, I’m just starting to play Smoke on the Water [at that time]. And I’m very young – I’d just started playing in bands when I was 12. So, when Eddie came out, he blew everybody’s mind. I always thought that this was something that was completely out of reach, that I would never be able to do Eruption.

“And thank God for YouTube, because there’s guys that have picked out every single note. Other people figured it out for me, so I didn’t have to try to figure it out. And I just made myself [go]: ’Okay, I’m gonna do this.’ This is my test to myself to see if I can actually do it.

“And I’m almost there. I’m still struggling with a few parts of it. You know, I’ll never truly get it. But it’s a masterpiece to try to do, so I want to do it the best I can.

“Oh man, I love him. I saw him four times live with David Lee Roth back in the day and it was unreal, seeing him live.”

How’s the new Pearl Jam record coming along, and what’s Andrew Watt bringing to the table?

“It’s just about finished. I think there’s a few tweaks here and there that have to happen and we’re probably not going to have anything out this year. But Andrew Watt brought an energy and a youthfulness and a great ear to us that I think we needed.

“He kicked us in our asses a little bit. Like, ’Okay, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go go go!’ He’s the most hyper guy I’ve ever met besides myself. But he’s a giant fan of our band, and he’s a really great guitar player himself. He’s more known for the pop world in terms of his stuff. But he’s a really smoking guitar player in his own right.

“Andrew Watt got us into a room and just pushed us as hard as we could be pushed. You know, it’s hard for a quote-unquote outsider to come into our world because we’ve done things a certain way. We’re open to new things, but we are also in our own world. We’ve done things for 30 years, so we know the dynamics of our band very well. But sometimes we need to get pushed and questioned, and Andrew did a great job of that.”

Andrew Watt has a serious guitar collection. Did you use any of his gear?

“He had a ’59 Strat that I played while we were in the studio. We used all of his equipment, which is different for us, too. I think Matt used his own drums, but I just went, ’Hey man, this guy’s got great equipment, and I’m just gonna play on whatever he says.’”

Is there any era of Pearl Jam’s career you can compare the new music to?

“It’s hard to do that. I hate trying to describe music. But there’s elements of the first three records in the energy that is there, but not things derivative of it. Also, Matt Cameron’s playing better than I’ve ever heard him in a long time. I mean, of course I’ve heard him with Soundgarden, and of course he’s incredible and always has been. But he’s playing more like that now – he’s kinda loose. Andrew pushed him to play however he wanted to play. How Matt’s playing on this record has made it amazing in my mind.”

Speaking of Soundgarden, you recently shared a performance of a new original song, Crying Moon, in tribute to Chris Cornell. What did you take from Chris as a guitarist and musician?

“Chris is someone who I think about every day, and I’m still in loss and sad, but proud that I got to know him at one time. I look at it in a very sentimental way that he allowed me to play on that Temple of the Dog record – it was my first big thing I was ever part of, and it was a dream come true. And I’ll always love him for that.

“He didn’t have to let me play on that record – they could have done anything. We were talking about Reach Down earlier, and he was very encouraging, like, ’Hey, just go crazy and solo.’ I was very nervous and didn’t want to do that, and when he encouraged me to do that, to go crazy, I went for it.

“And of course, I look at him as one of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time, aside from being a friend. So I look at him as a fan, too – I would go to Soundgarden rehearsals and I’d bring them pizza just so I could watch them rehearse. I really did! I was kind of their fanboy. So I probably irritated them a lot, I’m sure.

“I love Chris. I’m working on a little project about the Seattle scene and a musical rock opera thing. He’s part of it. [Crying Moon] is one of the songs that’s maybe going to be part of it, just an acoustic version of it.”

That’s a serious undertaking. Is there anything else you can reveal about that project at this time?

“I can’t right now because I’m just in the middle of it. I’m working on a script and I’ve got about 18 songs that I’m working on, and I’m singing on it. It’s been a long journey.

Is that a record or something for the theater?

“I hope so. A record and maybe some sort of stage/play thing, I’m not sure. It’s just from my experience in the Seattle music scene.”

Who are the new guitarists inspiring you today?

“There’s a band called Thunderpussy – I love Whitney Petty, the guitar player. She’s really phenomenal and new and exciting. I love Annie Clark. She has a few records out, obviously, but she’s got an interesting angular feeling to her playing I like a lot.

“Also, Jessica Dobson from Deep Sea Diver who’s out with us right now. She’s got a really cool style of delay, and she was showing me her pedalboard. She has a great voice to go along with it.

“Those three are the top three that come to mind right now. I’m stuck in the ’80s and ’70s – you have to drag me out!”

• For more information on the Mike McCready Stratocaster, head to Fender.com.

Throughout Pearl Jam’s three-decade-plus career, there have been two constants in Mike McCready’s guitar rig: an array of desirable vintage guitars (not least his ’59 Les Paul and ’60 Strat), and a backline rammed with multiple tube amps – usually at least a couple to handle clean and dirty duties.

But the Seattle greats’ lead guitarist made a surprising change to his setup for Pearl Jam’s US tour in May last year, swapping out his traditional Fender tube combos for the company’s new digital Tone Master equivalents – in this case, the series’ Deluxe Reverb and Blonde Twin Reverb.

In a new interview with Guitar World, McCready explains that the switch was not taken lightly – in fact, he put the amps through rigorous testing with the Pearl Jam crew.

“My inclination is to always go tube amps, but these Fender digital amps, back to back against tube amps, sound exactly like tube amps,” he says. “They’re phenomenal. They’re some of the best amps I’ve ever played. And they’re consistent in that, and maybe that’s the digital part of it.

“Again, I’m all about ‘not digital’; I love tube stuff. But our crew and myself, we’d A/B’d them back and forth with regular Fenders and Twins and things like that, and they were identical. So it made sense to play the newer ones, just in terms of going on the road and making sure they don’t fall apart or whatever.”

McCready still employs some tubes in his rig, however: a Lead Custom from Seattle amp builder Rola runs into a Marshall 4x12, alongside his Fenders. But he notes that the Tone Masters respond well to the rest of his gear, not least his well-stocked pedalboard.

“They break up really well,” he says. “I can get a great punk sound out of them if I need to or I can get a good clean sound. It seems to be able to handle whatever I throw it in terms of wah pedal or a delay or whatever I use in there – octaver or something, they work cool. And Phase 90s work cool through them, so I love ’em. I’m sold.”

Of course, outside of his beloved vintage guitars, it’s not like McCready has ever been averse to changing up his tone – although this is the first time his amps haven’t had that telltale red glow emanating from the rear.

But even with his guitars, he’s not loyal song to song – you might see Alive, for example, performed on a Strat one night, a Les Paul the next, and even a Flying V after that. As McCready tells it, it’s a feel thing.

“It’s the immediacy of how I’m feeling,” he explains. “I’ll talk with my tech about a half-hour before the show, and we’ll go through the list and go, ’Okay, Strat here, Les Paul here, Strat here, tuned-down Les Paul here.’ There’s a lot of intricacies that go on with Pearl Jam now, because we have so many songs, and we tune some of them down, and they’re in weird tunings.

“I just have to say I’m feeling more of a Les Paul moment, or I’m feeling more of a Strat moment. I’ll make a quick decision. I’ll change what I wrote the hour before. Usually I’ll stick to what we do, but sometimes I feel like, ’Ah, I wanna just try something different.’ Just to throw myself a curve a little bit.”

Speaking of curveballs, McCready also revealed to Guitar World that he’s working on a rock opera about the Seattle music scene – and that Pearl Jam’s next Andrew Watt-produced album is “just about finished”.

For more from the Pearl Jam guitarist, including his reflections on working with Chris Cornell and covering Van Halen's Eruption, check out Guitar World's full interview with Mike McCready.

This week, Mike McCready unveiled his second signature Stratocaster with Fender, but the Pearl Jam guitarist has a heck of a lot more in the works – and we’re not just talking about the Seattle rock icons’ hotly anticipated new  album.

But let’s start there. In an interview with Guitar World yesterday (September 12), McCready was enthusiastic about the band’s new material and the input of Andrew Watt – the super-producer who initially found fame in the pop world with Post Malone, Dua Lipa and Justin Bieber, but more recently established himself as the rock collaborator du jour after working with Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.

“It’s just about finished,” McCready says of the new effort. “I think there's a few tweaks here and there that have to happen, and we’re probably not going to have anything out this year. But Andrew Watt brought an energy and a youthfulness and a great ear to us that I think we needed.

“He kind of kicked us in our asses a little bit. Like, ‘Okay, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go go go!’ He's the most hyper guy I've ever met besides myself. But he's a giant fan of our band, and he's a really smoking guitar player in his own right.”

Watt’s enthusiasm galvanized the band’s performances, McCready says, noting that there are “elements of the first three records in the energy that is there, but not things derivative of it”.

“He got us into a room and just pushed us as hard as we could be pushed,” he explains. “You know, it’s hard for a quote-unquote outsider to come into our world because we've done things a certain way. We're open to new things, but we are also in our own world. We've done things for 30 years. So we know the dynamics of our band very well. But sometimes we need to get pushed and questioned, and Andrew did a great job of that.”

In particular, McCready nods towards drummer Matt Cameron’s performances on the record as a highlight, noting that in leans more towards his work with Soundgarden than Pearl Jam.

“Matt Cameron's playing better than I’ve ever heard him in a long time. I mean, of course I've heard him with Soundgarden and of course he's incredible and always has been. But he's playing more like that now – he's kinda loose. Andrew pushed him to play however he wanted to play. How Matt’s playing on this record has made it amazing in my mind.”

But while Cameron used his own drum set, the rest of the band opted to record using Watt’s enviable gear collection – which includes a ’64 Gibson SG, ’65 Telecaster and ’59 Les Paul Junior gifted by Ozzy Osbourne – rather than bring their own rigs to the sessions.

“Andrew had a ’59 Strat that I played while we were in the studio,” McCready reveals. “We used all of his equipment, which is different for us, too. I think Matt used his own drums, but I just went, ‘Hey man, this guy’s got great equipment, and I'm just gonna play on whatever he says.’”

But McCready has one more musical project in the works: a rock opera inspired by his experiences as part of the Seattle music scene.

Last month, the guitarist shared a performance of an acoustic composition called Crying Moon, written as a tribute to his friend and Temple of the Dog bandmate Chris Cornell. The late Soundgarden frontman is part of the inspiration behind the new project.

“I look at him as one of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time, aside from being a friend,” McCready says of Cornell. “I love Chris and I'm working on a little project about the Seattle scene and a musical kind of rock opera thing. It's just from my experience in the Seattle music scene, and he's part of it.”

McCready notes that Crying Moon will appear in the rock opera, but as for what form the musical will take, that remains to be seen – he’s currently weighing up “a record and maybe some sort of stage/play thing”.

“I'm just in the middle of it,” he says. “I’m working on a script and I've got about 18 songs that I'm working on, and I'm singing on it. It's been a long journey.”

For more from the Pearl Jam guitarist, including his thoughts on digital amps and covering Van Halen's Eruption, check out Guitar World's full interview with Mike McCready.

Fender has rekindled its partnership with Mike McCready for a second signature guitar based on the Pearl Jam legend’s iconic 1960 Fender Stratocaster.

The two first teamed up back in 2021 to produce a meticulous Custom Shop recreation of McCready’s heavily worn Strat, which – until quite recently – was believed to be a ‘59 example, when in actual fact it heralded from 1960.

For all its uber-desirable Custom Shop beauty, that limited-edition model (which McCready says he mistook for the real deal) was vastly unobtainable for many Pearl Jam fans, weighing in at $15,000.

Now, the Big F has sought to rectify this and make McCready’s fabled sunburst Stratocaster more accessible to a wider pool of players, once again constructing what is dubbed “a faithful recreation” of the six-string – this time with a $1,899 price tag.

The guitar itself doesn’t come as a surprise. After all, McCready confirmed its existence well over a year ago, previously telling Guitar Player that “we’re working on a more affordable signature model now, because obviously this limited-run Custom Shop model is a relatively expensive guitar”.

With accurate Road Worn relicing that pays close attention to the original ‘60 model, this Mexican-made McCready Strat recruits an alder body, slim C maple neck and 9.5”-radius rosewood fingerboard, the latter of which is complemented by 21 frets and dot inlays.

As for hardware and electronics, vintage-style tuners and a vintage-style tremolo line up alongside a trio of custom Mike McCready single coils that have been voiced to those found on the original guitar.

On the face of it, owing to its more accessible price and impressive authenticity, we imagine McCready’s second signature Strat will be just as (if not more) popular than the Custom Shop predecessor.

And that’s saying something, given that the Custom Shop guitar proved popular among many of the Pearl Jam player’s peers, finding its way into the hands of his bandmate Stone Gossard, as well as St. Vincent and Willow. 

For McCready, this latest Strat, which hails from Fender’s Ensenada factory, marks a key milestone for him.

As he notes, “With the release of my artist signature, I’m deeply honored to not only further solidify my partnership with the brand, but to deliver a more approachable guitar to the hands of the next generation of guitar players featuring the state-of-the-art craftsmanship Fender is known for and a distinct tone that holds a special place in my heart.”

The Mike McCready Stratocaster is available now for $1,899.

Head over to Fender to find out more.

Last Wednesday (July 5), Jason Isbell took to the stage in Seattle, Washington with his band the 400 Unit, and called upon Pearl Jam legend Mike McCready to help close the set out in stunning fashion.

McCready joined Isbell for a set-closing rendition of This Ain’t It, which played host to a no-holds-barred guitar solo duel of the highest order that (fortunately for us) was captured by YouTube user Jesse Cornett.

And, while McCready was playing a 1960 Fender Stratocaster for the occasion, he wasn’t playing the 1960 Strat – instead, he borrowed one of Isbell’s, who in turn opted to play both a blackguard ‘50s-era Fender Telecaster and a 1961 Gibson SG on the track.

The nine minute performance (spotted by MusicRadar) began as a faithful version of Isbell’s 2023 cut, though it soon turned into a full-throttle fretboard throwdown when Isbell swapped Fender for Gibson (visible at around the 4:10 mark in the video below) as McCready and 400 Unit guitarist Sadler Vaden noodled away.

Vaden, wielding an SG of his own, completed the trifecta of onstage guitarists, who locked fretboards in the middle of the stage for a three-strong solo that saw each player layer up, counterpoint, and harmonize each motif.

Notably, each guitarist seemed satisfied sharing the spotlight with their fellow six-stringers, and, rather than taking turns dazzling the audience with their own expertise, instead opted to concoct a soundscape solo that swelled to a blistering finale.

“Tonight in Seattle Mike McCready played MY 1960 Strat,” Isbell wrote on Instagram after the gig. “That was cool as hell.”

The fact Isbell opted for a Tele for at least part of the song comes as no real surprise, given that the country guitar hero once told Total Guitar he believed the Telecaster to be “probably the best guitar design, ever.”

“I think about Albert Collins and that ice pick tone, and then Muddy Waters playing slide on a Telecaster,” Isbell said. “Then there’s the thicker Tele tones, like Danny Gatton. Definitely with Keith Richards there’s a tradition of that guitar, but it doesn’t really apply to anybody else. 

“Without a doubt it’s the best rhythm guitar. I think it’s probably the best guitar design overall, ever.”

As for McCready, his allegiance to the Stratocaster is well-documented, thanks to a legendary connection to a fabled 1960 Strat that was first believed to be a ‘59 iteration.

It’s not the first time the Telecaster and Stratocaster masters have teamed up on stage: last year, the pair performed Little Wing together.

Stone Gossard may be playing his first shows with new Mason Jennings-fronted side-project Painted Shield, but he’s taking his Pearl Jam bandmate Mike McCready along in spirit, as he’s been sighted playing the lead man’s Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster.

Footage taken from the third night of Painted Shield’s debut gigs at Seattle’s Clock-Out Lounge shows Gossard giving the Fender Custom Shop Limited Edition Mike McCready 1960 Stratocaster a runout on eerie electro-rocker I Am Your Country, its bridge single coil accentuating his edgy fingerpicking.

Launched in 2021, McCready’s Custom Shop model recreates the PJ soloist’s iconic ’60 Stratocaster, right down to custom hand-wound pickups, a Callaham bridge block and, of course, every scratch and ding it has endured throughout Pearl Jam’s career. A more affordable version is apparently in the works.

It’s likely McCready – who tracked a number of solos on Painted Shield’s debut album – hooked his longtime rhythm partner up with the guitar, as he did St. Vincent, who brought the Strat into the studio with Willow earlier this year.

Gossard, who was running through a Deluxe Reverb guitar amp for the show, employed a few other surprise guitars throughout the set, including his rarely seen Bigsby-equipped Strat, which got an outing for Aerosmith-vibed riff rocker Evil Winds, while he switched over to Hofner Club-style bass on Knife Fight.

It’s not the first time Gossard has been sighted with an unlikely guitar choice. On Pearl Jam’s US tour last year, his go-to model was a Gibson Les Paul Signature Semi Hollow Gold Top – notable for its ES cutaway up top and Les Paul cutaway on the lower bout.

A mashup of ’70s glam, new wave, punk and trip-hop, Painted Shield has been an active concern since the release of their self-titled debut in 2020.

Besides Gossard and singer-songwriter Jennings, the band’s lineup also includes drummer Matt Chamberlain and keyboard player/vocalist Brittany Davis, while Seattle session vet Jeff Fielder handles the lion’s share of bass duties during live performances. Their second record, Painted Shield 2, landed in May 2022.

“I write a lot of songs, so there’s only so much real estate on a Pearl Jam record for my indulgences,” Gossard told us of the band’s origins back in 2020. “Luckily, Mason is still appreciative of some of my songwriting efforts! It’s so easy to do, because we just send songs back to each other.”

Grunge legends Pearl Jam formed in the now legendary music city of Seattle, Washington in 1990. Along with Nirvana and Soundgarden, they are probably among the most famous of all the grunge bands and have enjoyed a career that has spanned over 30 years and gone on to influence thousands of other rock and pop bands.

The group’s long-running, best-known line-up consists of guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, bass player Jeff Ament, vocalist Eddie Vedder and drummer Matt Cameron (formerly of Soundgarden.) Pearl Jam have never been particularly visible as rock stars, and have often shied away from making music videos or doing interviews. 

Their 1991 debut album, Ten, has become one of the most legendary rock albums of all time, having sold over 13 million units in the US alone. Although not perhaps viewed as quite so instrumental as Nirvana in taking grunge into the mainstream, it should be noted that Pearl Jam’s Ten album has actually sold more copies than Nirvana’s seminal Nevermind in the US. Pearl Jam have since gone on to sell over 85 million records worldwide and become one of the biggest selling rock outfits of all time.

Although often associated with the other grunge bands of the early 1990s, Pearl Jam’s sound is noticeably less heavy than some of their peers, and leans more towards the classic rock of the 1970s. Mike McCready was influenced by Jimi Hendrix, while Stone Gossard’s style has influences from funk intertwined with rock. Other artists that influenced Pearl Jam include Led Zeppelin and Neil Young.

Our track this month features blues-rock influenced riffs, grungy chords and pentatonic scale soloing. The initial guitar part is more in keeping with Stone Gossard’s funk influences, while the McCready-style solo is more akin to the Hendrix-inspired style that has been around since the 1960s. 

Our piece this month is in the key of A Minor (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), and the solo and many of the chords are built from the notes of that scale. However, there are a number of non-diatonic chords in the rhythm guitar part – notice that the A chord each time is actually an A Major (A-C#-E), and you’ll also spot a D Major chord (D-F#-A), also from outside the key of A Minor. 

Get the tone

Amp settings: Gain 7, Bass 5, Middle 6, Treble 7, Reverb 3

Stone Gossard and Mike McCready use classic guitars such as the Gibson Les Paul and Fender Stratocaster, and it would be good to aim for a humbucking pickup sound if possible. If you are using single-coil pickups, roll the treble down a touch if you find the sound too bright. For guitar amps, it's classic Marshall style gain, but not too overdriven. Add a hint of reverb.

Example 1. Rhythm

There’s much lively 16th-note funk style strumming in the rhythm guitar track. While some of the muted strums haven’t been written in the notation, it would be good to practise the part adding percussive strumming and keeping 1-e-&-a, 2-e-&-a, 3-e-&-a, 4-e-&-a movement going. 

You’ll find it makes rhythmic sense to play the longer dotted eighth-note rhythms with a ‘down’ stroke and the shorter 16th-note rhythms with an ‘up’ stroke.

Example 2. Solo

There’s nothing too taxing here, as it’s mostly pentatonic classic rock-style vocabulary. However, you might find it best to play the fast section in the third bar using strict alternate picking. But feel free to experiment, as grunge was never an absolute science and much more about youthful angst and attitude. 

This feature was first published in Guitar World magazine in 1995.

“I’m so ignorant of this technical stuff,” says Mike McCready when asked to explain the intricacies of Pearl Jam’s hit-making writing process. “I’ve always done it by ear. Honestly, I’d rather do regular interviews. It’s more interesting to talk about whatever… anything other than guitars. I’m not into being a tech-head.”

He’s just being modest, of course. A guitarist doesn’t reach the top of the rock and roll heap without having a solid acquaintance with his instrument and gear. But then again, that’s what high-paid roadies are for. McCready, an accomplished musician, is not ashamed about being technically challenged. He prefers to concentrate on the more visceral aspects of rock guitar. Like stealing riffs.

“Everything I know, I stole directly from Ace Frehley, Angus Young and Keith Richards,” admits McCready. “That’s how you learn. I used to sit for hours and copy every lick on those early AC/DC and Kiss records. From there I went on to Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. After a while, you kind of develop your own style.”

Here are a few examples of McCready’s best thievery.

1. Reach Down (Temple of the Dog, 1990)

“That was my first lead on an album, and I was so excited. I’d been in a studio before, but never to record an album or anything. I did that in one take! I soloed through the whole thing and ended up with the headphones wrapped around my face. I was totally flushed. The guitar work on that track represents one of my proudest moments.”

2. Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog)

“I remember thinking that this was a really beautiful song when I heard it. Chris Cornell showed me the riff. I had a ’62 reissue Strat and I wanted to use the fourth-position tone setting – between the bridge and the middle pickups – for the beginning of the song because I like that softer sound. Then I kicked it to the front pickup for the heavier part of the song. This is one of many amazing songs written by Chris.”

3. Even Flow (Ten, 1991)

“That’s me pretending to be Stevie Ray Vaughan, and a feeble attempt at that. Stone [Gossard, guitarist] wrote the riff and song; I think it’s a D tuning. I just followed him in a regular pattern. I tried to steal everything I know from Stevie Ray Vaughan and put it into that song. A blatant rip-off. A tribute rip-off, if you will.”

4. Alive (Ten)

“I copied Ace Frehley’s solo from Kiss’s She, which was copied from Robby Krieger’s solo in the Doors’ Five to One.”

5. Why Go (Ten)

“The thing I remember most about this song is how thunderous Jeff Ament’s huge 12-string bass was, and me getting to noodle over it. He had just gotten the Hamer Tom Petersson model, and Why Go was the first song he used it on. It sounded like a piano in your face. It was pretty intense.”

6. Black (Ten)

“That’s more of a Stevie rip-off, with me playing little flowing things. I was way into that trip – I still am, actually, but it was probably more obvious back then. I really thought the song was beautiful. Stone wrote it and he just let me do what I wanted.”

7. Dirty Frank (single, 1992)

“This is a song about our illustrious first bus driver, who we were convinced was a serial killer. [Laughs] It came out of a jam we had at a soundcheck when we were touring with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. We were influenced by their funky jamming; maybe it’s an homage. Eddie [Vedder, vocals] came up with the lyrics.

“We’ve tried to play it live a couple of times since, but it never works. I’ve heard it on bootlegs and it’s really bad. The recorded version is cool, but we never did it right again.”

8. Breath (Singles soundtrack, 1992)

“That was a really old song of Stone’s from his days in Mother Love Bone. It was just another chance for me to do a lot of leads. The song was kind of cool at the time because it reminded me of performing. For me, it was about playing live.”

9. Animal (Vs., 1993)

“I like the lead on that. George Webb, a guy who takes care of all our guitars and amps, was sitting there and I told him I’d do a solo for him. It ended up being the one we used on the record. I did it on a Gibson 335. That’s a fun song to play.”

10. Glorified G (Vs.)

“I wrote part of that one. I had this Gretsch Country Gentleman and I started jamming on this little thing in D [sings riff]; the riff just came out of that. Stone came up with his weird part. There were all these strange, disjointed parts that kind of turned into a song. Stone’s doing something weird, Jeff’s doing something weird and offbeat, but for some reason it works. I really don’t know why.”

11. Spin the Black Circle (Vitalogy, 1994)

“That’s me trying to do Johnny Thunder leads. I actually overdubbed those leads, but when I do it live, that riff is so hectic and frantic, I have to be warmed up or it sounds really shitty.”

12. Not for You (Vitalogy)

“Tom Petty sent me this amazing 12-string Rickenbacker, and Not for You was the first time I used it. It was like a Christmas present. One day it just showed up at my door. I called him up and thanked him. But it’s a cool song – an Eddie song.”

13. Tremor Christ (Vitalogy)

“I wrote part of that one. It’s kind of an odd, marching Beatles tune. It’s just a strange song. It was written in New Orleans. The groove reconciles itself after you get into it.”

14. Satan’s Bed (Vitalogy)

“That’s another Stone song. The solo is definitely my tribute to Angus Young; I was trying to do my Angus thing. I’m sure Eddie won’t like reading that.” [Laughs]

15. Catholic Boy (Basketball Diaries soundtrack, 1995)

“Jeff and I did that song with Jim Carroll, who wrote the song and the book the movie is based on. Jim came out to Seattle and Chris Friel, a friend of mine [from McCready’s high school band, Shadow], played drums. Eddie plays guitar, Jim sings, I play guitar, Jeff plays bass – Stone was off doing something else. We cut it at Bad Animals Studio in a day. We got to hang out with Jim Carroll all day. He’s so cool.”

Heart icon Nancy Wilson invited Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready onstage to jam a few songs at her recent Seattle show (October 2), with spectacular results – and now fan footage has emerged capturing their performance.

McCready joined Wilson and band for the close of the set to perform Heart hit Barracuda, before finishing on a barreling cover of Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll.

In what seems to have been a moment of rock fantasy wish-fulfilment, McCready appears to be using Wilson’s own 1963 Telecaster in Lake Placid Blue. 

The distinctive electric guitar has been a favourite of Wilson’s for over 20 years and features a PAF humbucker in the neck position with a single-coil bridge pickup. Wilson, meanwhile, brandished her Bigbsy-equipped Gibson SG throughout the songs.

Watch the video above to see fan-shot footage of both songs, including some fine fretwork from McCready on Rock and Roll’s solo section. 

“Well, how ‘bout that?” comments Wilson at the close of events. “I think you can safely call that rock and roll.”

It’s not the first time McCready and Wilson have shared a stage, though. The pair jammed (alongside Chris Cornell), when Wilson and her sister, Heart vocalist Ann Wilson, were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2013.  

McCready then dropped in to play with Heart at Seattle’s Bumbershoot festival later that year, before they reunited again – this time alongside Duff McKagan – to perform at MusiCare’s 2018 Concert For Recovery – again, in Seattle.

Wilson is currently on tour throughout the US with Styx, but she also found time to pay her respects at the Foo Fighters’ second Taylor Hawkins tribute show. In the process, she helped deliver one of the night’s best performances when she played Barracuda with Pink and the Foo Fighters.

Mike McCready has paid tribute to Eddie Van Halen at a recent Pearl Jam show by performing EVH’s classic electric guitar workout, Eruption.

During the Seattle rock vets’ set in Glendale, Arizona on May 9, frontman Eddie Vedder gave a short speech on musicians and friends the band had lost in recent years, noting, “I don’t think we’ve played a show since Eddie Van Halen passed away, and he was another legend that we miss. And so we’ve been wanting to play one for him.”

McCready then kicks on his MXR Phase 90 and dives into the EVH classic – on a vintage Strat, no less. It’s a looser interpretation than some covers – with a somewhat shaky start – but soon settles into the Van Halen cut’s trademark pyrotechnics, including the palm-muted runs and marathon two-hand-tapping outro, with a cheeky tease of the You Really Got Me riff to close.

The guitarist has tackled Eruption several times over the years – his debut rendition of the track with Pearl Jam was back in 2012 – but the Glendale performance marked the first time McCready had played the song live since Van Halen’s passing in October 2020.

You can watch the performance below (Eruption starts at 1:38).

During his speech, Vedder also paid homage to Taylor Hawkins, revealing he only got to know the Foo Fighters drummer over the past year, but noted drummer Matt Cameron’s closeness with the late musician. The band had paid tribute to Hawkins two days previously at LA’s Forum, performing Foo Fighters’ Cold Day in the Sun with Cameron on guitar and vocals.

Pearl Jam’s long-awaited trek in support of 2020’s Gigaton has served up a number of surprises so far, not least a revolving cast of drummers following Matt Cameron’s positive Covid diagnosis on May 12, leaving touring member Josh Klinghoffer and fans as young as 18 years old to handle drum duties.

The tour has also seen a gear shake-up or two, with McCready tapping up Fender’s digital Tone Master amps for his clean backline, while Vedder and Stone Gossard have been employing two rare and unusual Gibson guitars throughout the sets.

After a long wait, Pearl Jam are finally out on tour in support of 2020’s Gigaton album, and eagle-eyed fans have already spotted some substantial changes to their onstage rigs.

Most notably, tube connoisseur Mike McCready has a pair of fresh Fender guitar amps stacked behind him, both of which bear a telltale Tone Master badge in the bottom right-hand corner, confirming them as combos from the Big F’s foray into digital versions of its classic amps.

The series’ Deluxe Reverb and Blonde Twin Reverb feature in McCready’s rig alongside a Lead Custom from Seattle amp builder Rola, which runs into a Marshall 4x12. Presumably, the Fenders handle clean tones, while the Rola gets switched in for dirtier sounds.

McCready’s live endorsement is one of the biggest seals of approval for the digital amp series yet. Of course, Fender no doubt hooked the Seattle soloist up with a combo or two when working on the Custom Shop replica of his ’60 Strat, which is set to be released as a more affordable production-line model in the near-future.

The tour has served up a few other surprises on the gear front, too, not least from co-guitarists Stone Gossard and Eddie Vedder, who have dug deep into their collections to pull out two rarely seen Gibsons for the run.

Gossard has been sighted with a Gibson Les Paul Signature Semi Hollow Gold Top – notable for its ES cutaway up top and Les Paul cutaway on the lower bout.

Launched in the early ’70s, the Signature Semi Hollow was the fourth and final guitar designed by Les Paul as part of a late-’60s reunion with Gibson, and features a pair of low-impedance pickups that excel at clean tones.

Judging from footage of recent shows, the rare semi-hollow has become one of Gossard’s main guitars on the trek, seeing use during standard-tuned tracks including Glorified G, Not For You and Seven O’Clock, as well as setlist staples Black and Alive.

Eddie Vedder, meanwhile, has further indulged his love of Pete Townshend and added the Who guitarist’s signature Gibson Les Paul Deluxe to his onstage arsenal.

A 2005 replica of Townshend’s heavily customized 1976 Cherry Sunburst #9 Les Paul, the guitar boasts a pair of mini-humbuckers and a DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker – just 75 were made and came with a #9 decal, not displayed on Vedder’s model.

The guitar is currently employed for standard-tuned tracks including Corduroy, Not For You and Lightning Bolt.

Both guitarists are still playing their regular squeezes alongside the new additions – so, for Gossard, that’s a Bigsby-equipped Les Paul Sunburst, while Vedder uses his target-sticker-adorned Telecaster for tracks that require a cleaner tone, such as Better Man. McCready, of course, sticks to his ’60 Stratocaster, but a Les Paul with uncovered humbuckers and a P-90-equipped Firebird have also seen some action.

Pearl Jam kicked off their 2022 tour in San Diego on May 3, with the run set to conclude on May 20 in Las Vegas, after which the band head over to Europe for a series of summer dates, before returning to the US and Canada in September.

The treks mark the touring debut of former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, who officially joined the live liveup last year.

Last week, the band paid tribute to Taylor Hawkins with a cover of Foo Fighters’ Cold Day in the Sun, led by PJ drummer Matt Cameron on guitar and vocals.

Last November, eagle-eyed Ozzy Osbourne fans noticed that an official document published by Sony Group Corporation – the over-arching parent company of Sony Music Entertainment and Osbourne’s label, Epic Records – listed a new album from Osbourne under a category titled "Selected upcoming releases anticipated over the next six months."

To that end, Osbourne announced on social media this past Saturday (April 9) that he had completed a new album, and delivered it to Epic. 

"I’m so happy to let everyone know that I finished my new album this week and delivered it to my label @EpicRecords," wrote on Instagram. "I’ll be sharing all the information about the album and its upcoming release with you in the next several weeks."

The as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2020's acclaimed Ordinary Man (which itself was Osbourne's first solo effort in a decade) is set to be a doozy, packed to the brim with guest appearances from a who's who of electric guitar legends.

Osbourne's former Black Sabbath bandmate, Tony Iommi, wrote an entire song for the album, which is also set to feature appearances from Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Osbourne's longtime six-string sidekick, Zakk Wylde.

As if that wasn't enough, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith – who serves as the drummer on both the new album and Ordinary Man – revealed earlier this month that Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready and Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Josh Homme will also make appearances on the album.

Reportedly, Wylde will handle rhythm guitar duties on many of the album's cuts, with the other guest stars focusing mainly on lead work.

“It [the album] definitely sounds slamming," Wylde revealed to MusicRadar in an interview last October. "The same goes for all the guys – what Tony Iommi played, and then Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, it’s all killer for sure.

“On those tracks I’m playing rhythm guitar for my heroes… it’s crazy! It sounds awesome and I’m beyond honored to be doing it.”

Ozzy Osbourne’s next album will feature appearances from Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready and Queens of the Stone Age man Josh Homme, according to Chad Smith.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer was involved in previous Ozzy album Ordinary Man and was called back to play on metal icon’s (still untitled) follow-up, thought to be due this Spring.

We already know that the new Osbourne album will feature an astonishing lineup of guitar players, including Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Tony Iommi and the return of Zakk Wylde, but in an interview on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, Smith revealed some additional names.

“Mike McCready’s on a track, Josh Homme, my neighbor from Queens [of the Stone Age] solos on a track,” says Smith. “And then Zakk Wylde is on the record as well, all over it, so it’s like if you’re a guitar player, it’s pretty fucking good.”

Smith has handled the lion’s share of the drums on the album, though our 2021 interview with Andrew Watt reported that the late Taylor Hawkins was also involved in early sessions. Meanwhile, producer Andrew Watt, Duff McKagan and Metallica’s Robert Trujillo have contributed bass tracks.

In the same interview, the RHCP man also expanded on the contributions of the other guitar talent and even mentions the one name on their wishlist that proved a holdout.

“Tony [Iommi] sent us some riffs on some files – he’s in England and we played to it,” explains Smith. “It’s got everything. It’s got all the stuff that you would want and Ozzy loves it, and so he’s on that track. And then Eric Clapton plays a wah-wah fucking Cream type solo.

“We’re like, ‘Eric can you solo on this song? Wah-wah please! Eric, what do you think about this with the wah-wah?’ And that’s his fucking thing, so he’s soloing all over this other track. And then Jeff Beck is on two songs. We tried to get Jimmy Page – we wanted the holy trinity – but I don’t think Jimmy plays too much anymore.”

Despite all the leaks and reports of big names involved in the record, there is still no word on an official release date. In October 2021, Sony’s financial statement listed it among the company’s selected upcoming releases for the next six months, suggesting a spring 2022 release. That has not yet been confirmed, though.

Indeed, in the podcast interview, Smith tells host Chris Jericho that songs are still in production, “We did another one and it’s getting mastered tomorrow,” he says. “And oh shit, I’m in trouble again…”

Listen to Smith's full interview on the Talk Is Jericho podcast above and stay tuned to Ozzy Osbourne’s official site for more information on the album.

One of 2021’s most drool-worthy gear releases was Fender Custom Shop’s Mike McCready Stratocaster, a recreation of the Pearl Jam great’s heavily used ’59 ’60 Strat.

However, with a price tag of $15,000, the hand-built replica was out of reach for the vast majority of guitarists. Thankfully, however, it seems a more affordable version will be available before long, according to a new Guitar Player interview with McCready.

“They did such a great job that I’ve actually confused the new model with the original at times,” he says of the Custom Shop replica.

“I did wonder for a moment if my original might feel a little different once they’d taken it apart and reassembled it, but it was in the hands of Master Builders, so the mojo was still there when I got it back. I guess I’ve done maybe a thousand shows with it, so it’s a part of me.

“We’re working on a more affordable signature model now, because obviously this limited-run Custom Shop model is a relatively expensive guitar.”

Elsewhere in the interview, McCready reveals Pearl Jam fans shouldn’t have to endure the same agonizing seven-year gap between albums, as experienced with 2013’s Lightning Bolt and 2020’s Gigaton.

“Assuming all goes according to plan, we’ll be touring the States and Europe in 2022, and then we should be looking at making an album after that,” he tells GP. “So I don’t expect there to be anywhere near as long an interval before the next record comes out.”

Indeed, McCready spent much of the pandemic working on ideas for the upcoming record, so writing is already well underway.

“Just as lockdown kicked in, we were all rehearsed and ready to go on tour,” he says. “I learned to use GarageBand, and since I had a lot of time on my hands, I got pretty good at using it and worked on a lot of song ideas. It helped me keep my sanity. I’m always learning, working on improving my songwriting ability and staying in gratitude. I try to keep learning new things all the time.”

Given Pearl Jam are touring from May through to late-September, it could be a little while before the Seattle vets hit the studio proper, but fellow guitarist Stone Gossard has confirmed the group have already laid down some riffs with Andrew Watt, who is lined up to produce the record following his collaboration with frontman Eddie Vedder on recent solo effort, Earthling.

The production gig is yet another dream come true for Ozzy Osbourne producer Watt, who has been living his wildest Mike McCready fantasies onstage with Vedder, tearing through Pearl Jam classics and deep cuts on the singer’s recent tour.

For the rest of the interview with McCready, in which he shares five guitar highlights from his storied career, pick up a copy of the new issue of Guitar Player from Magazines Direct.

On January 7, Seattle, Washington-based guitar stalwart Danny Newcomb revealed that a previously lost LP from his band The Rockfords, which features Pearl Jam guitar royalty Mike McCready, was set for re-release. Now, the self-titled debut LP, which had been long forgotten after its release on Epic Records around the turn of the millennium, is prepping for its proper unveiling on all digital platforms. 

Last week, band released the lead single from the unearthed LP, Silver Lining. And another is set to drop soon ahead of the full LP release in late February or early March (the group and its team are still working out the details). Also featured on the album is Heart icon Nancy Wilson (one of the greatest rhythm players ever, according to McCready). 

The Rockfords formed in 1999. The band comprises Newcomb, McCready, vocalist Carrie Akre and rhythm section, brothers Rick and Chris Friel. Newcomb and the Friel brothers have known McCready for decades and played in early bands, including Shadow, with the guitarist pre-Pearl Jam. 

We caught up with McCready 22 years since The Rockfords broke musical ground on their debut LP. The guitarist detailed his six-string approach on the album, what the recording process taught him, what might be next for The Rockfords – who also have a live album and an EP out there in the world waiting for new attention – and what’s next for Pearl Jam in 2022.

How did you approach The Rockfords' debut guitar-wise in 1999?

“I think we just fell back into the old patterns of, like, 'Okay, here’s a riff and then let’s rock on it.' Danny [Newcomb] has structured ideas on stuff and it’s more visceral and it comes off the cuff for me.

“It’s funny to play with Danny because he likes to rehearse. He analyzes music a bit, I think. He feels it, too – I’m not saying that [he doesn’t] – but mine is less of that. And I think those two things work together well. I think we push each other to play better leads, in a way. It certainly does feel that way for me. Because I love his style. 

“Writing with Carrie [Akre], you know you want to write a song that she’s interested in singing, and I feel like a lot of those she gravitated towards. She’s a super-professional and gets the job done, and she has a beautiful emotional voice that comes through on The Rockfords record. When we were recording this, John Goodmanson, who I’ve been working with a bit lately and is a great producer, he just let us do what we wanted to do. 

“He had some suggestions here and there, but he just knows how to get great sounds, too. So, John Goodmanson and all of our collective history and Carrie coming in, and her and Danny and Chris’s collective history, it all made this cool record that we didn’t overthink. I think we had fun with it, and I always feel like I’m pushed in a guitar way when I’m playing with Danny.

“He’s such a good guitar player that I want to play symbiotically with him. I feel like I do that with Stone [Gossard of Pearl Jam], too. Stone is a groover by nature and he can be somewhat analytical, too, in terms of his playing, and I mean that in the best sense of the word. And I’m more the fiery off-the-cuff player. So, Danny and I and Stone and I, there are similarities in all that, I think. 

“I think I learned how to play with Stone because I played with Danny for a long time. They’re very similar in how they write songs.”

How do you approach playing with a new singer? How does the vocalist impact the way you approach your instrument on a given project?

“The vocalist has always impacted how I play guitar. In terms of the earliest Pearl Jam records, I always want to play around and emphasize the vocal. I want to not play over it. I want to maybe even do the vocal part on guitar just to emphasize it behind the vocal. I never want to go over the top of it. So, I’m very conscious of it. 

“In terms of working with Carrie, it’s the same thing. I want her vocals to shine and they’re the main important part of the song, as it is with Pearl Jam, as it is with Temple [of the Dog] or when I played In the Name of Love with Eva and Cedric [Walker, of The Black Tones]. The vocal is so important – you don’t ever want to overplay. And I can overplay, for sure, because I am hyper like that! But I am consciously thinking about writing around the singer and, if not around, emphasizing their importance in the song. So, that is something I’ve always thought of.”

What pedals, guitars and amps did you use with The Rockfords?

“I’m sure I used a JCM800 Marshall with those guys on The Rockfords. I used my 1960 – which I thought was a ’59 Strat forever – on that record, for sure. I know I used a Les Paul on a few of those songs, probably a Fender Bassman for sure for the cleaner tone. But again that was 22 years ago. So, it probably isn’t anything that’s too extravagant and different than I would use with Pearl Jam. It’s probably the exact same thing, almost. 

“But in working with different guitar players, I want to be the opposite. A lot of times if Danny is playing a Les Paul, I want to play a Strat. And if Stone is playing a Les Paul, I want to play a Strat or a Telecaster. Or if he’s playing a Strat, I want to play a Les Paul. I don’t want to double the sound. It’s the old Aerosmith factor that I always loved that those guys did. Joe Perry had whatever he had, a B.C. Rich. And Brad Whitford would have had a Strat, or something like that. 

“I always liked the combination of two different sounds. So, I would have been thinking about that, too. I would have been thinking about, 'Well, what guitar is Danny playing on? What tone is he going to get and what tone should I get so we don’t sound the same?' Being in a two guitar band, you want to be different as possible, if you can.”

Does the band scratch a particular guitar itch that you needed to attack?

“Oh yeah. It brings me back to when Danny and I were playing Love is Like Oxygen by Sweet through our Fender Champs when we were 11 or 12 years old irritating our parents. That and the newness and the excitement of what guitar was like when I first discovered it. But it also since we’ve gotten better at guitar players – yeah, we speak that same language. I’ll watch Danny do a lead and go, 'Cool, he’s bending it this way.' And I’ll think about that. 

“I’ll also just love it because it sounds good. I don’t want to sound like I’m analyzing everything so much! I want it to sound good. And I want the two of us to sound good. But it’s something that just happens. Like, 'Oh yeah, we’re rocking out and I feel like I’m learning.' All the time when I’m playing with other guitar players.”

There’s a great solo on the opening song Adelaide. There’s also great acoustic work and some tasty licks on Distress. Spiral has an awesome riff. But do you have any favorite leads or moments from your playing on The Rockfords?

“I like the riff on Spiral a lot. I was happy and proud when I came up with that one. To me, it reminded me of an Aerosmith thing, and that’s how I approached it in my mind. With Distress, I think that was an early example of me actually writing lyrics for that song. I wrote lyrics for that song, which I’m forgetting right now! It’s been a long time!

“But I did use an acoustic on Distress, probably some sort of Martin at the time. And it was just a pretty but dark lyrically song. I’m proud of that song. So, those two songs are fun. And they’re totally different. One’s sort of mellow and one’s more of a rocker. I like the fact that they’re both different, you know?”

Do you sing on the record?

“I don’t sing on that record, no. Maybe I did some backups. In working with such great singers over the years, you know, Carrie, Chris [Cornell], Layne [Staley], Ed [Vedder], it’s hard to want to sing! And I do sing and I like doing it. But I did not on The Rockfords.”

Did this album influence how you thought about the guitar on later projects? 

“I think that any time I play with anybody else rather than my band – even in my band – I learn something. So, yeah, for sure. I would watch Danny and say, 'Oh, wow, he’s doing it this way.' Or he hits a power chord in a different way than I do. He does it in a way that I’ve only seen two people do it, him and Kim Thayil. They hit this chord and their fingering is different and it adds to their sound. 

“So, I feel like I probably took some melodic stuff from The Rockfords sessions. Ideas of some pop-sounding things. But I’m sure I took some of that. It also added to my confidence in writing with Pearl Jam and with other projects. Every little step doing music with somebody else, I feel like I learn something. And I want to learn something. Even if I’m not trying, I feel like through osmosis I learn things.”

Do you have any other side projects in the works at the moment, and what might be next for Pearl Jam?

“I’m working with a director named Thomas Zimny right now, who I worked with on a Johnny Cash documentary and an Elvis documentary already. We’re doing a Beach Boys one. So, I’m working on music for that right now. I’m working on music for a movie called Daft State with my friend Chris Bacchus, who’s the star of it. And I’m doing some music for that. So, I’m doing music for some movies this second. 

“I’m working on a little project myself that I’m not sure what it’s going to be yet, but it’s something that I’ve been working on for a long time and it’s going to have something to do with Seattle and my role in it and coming up.

“And Pearl Jam, we hopefully will be touring in Europe in the summer and maybe in the States before that. With Omicron, who knows what’s going to go on? I hope we can release some music, because we have a lot of music that we haven’t put out.”

The first instalment of Eddie Vedder’s Ohana Festival 2021 took place last weekend, and the star-studded event saw Brandi Carlile join forces with Mike McCready and Matt Cameron for a live cover of Soundgarden’s Searching With My Good Eye Closed.

Appearing on the bill on Saturday 26, Carlile called upon the electric guitar titan and drumming icon for the cover, which saw McCready – who later dubbed the track his “favorite Soundgarden song” – faithfully conjure up the overdriven lead lines using his Fender Stratocaster.

McCready’s Strat also played host to a rip-roaring guitar solo – which explodes into action around the four minute mark in the video below – suited to boot rapid-fire pentatonic licks and raucous bend-heavy passages.

Soundgarden alumni Cameron, who of course had originally recorded the track for 1991 studio album Badmotorfinger, was as commanding as ever behind the kit, with bassist Phil Hanseroth and guitarist Tim Hanseroth completing the rendition’s lineup.

Carlile is already well-versed in the ways of Searching With My Good Eye Closed, having previously performed the track alongside the surviving Soundgarden members Cameron, Kim Thayil and Ben Shepherd.

“Had a great time rocking my favorite Soundgarden song Searching With My Good Eye Closed live with Brandi Carlile, who sings that song beautifully!” McCready said in a social media post after the event.

In a post of her own, Carlile commented, “Ohana Fest! Thank you for an unforgettable night. Grateful I was able to share it with some of my incredibly talented friends Yola, Celisse and Mike McCready and Matt Cameron.

“Thank you to my friend and hero Eddie Vedder and the rest of the almighty Pearl Jam for letting this power bitch share the stage with you power bitches.”

Carlile and co’s cover of Soundgarden was one of a number of standout performances from the festival, which also saw the singer-songwriter join Pearl Jam to perform Better Man during their headline set, while Vedder took the stage alongside Chad Smith, Andrew Watt and Josh Klinghoffer for a last-minute headline slot on Friday (September 24).

The second instalment of the Ohana Festival, dubbed the Ohana Encore, is scheduled to take place on October 1 and 2, and will feature performances from Pearl Jam, Brandi Carlile, Beck, Sleater-Kinney and more.

To find out more, visit Ohana Festival.

Pearl Jam aren't exactly a band prone to nostalgia. That said, lead guitarist Mike McCready does acknowledge, when asked about the origins of the band’s debut album, Ten – which, given the incredible speed at which they moved in the early days also dovetails with the origin of Pearl Jam itself – that he looks back at that time and marvels at how it all went down. 

“I go, ‘How did that all happen? And why did it happen?,’ ” he tells Guitar World. “And I still don’t have answers for that, other than, you know, fate or time or luck or talent.”

Likely, it’s a combination of all those things. But however it came together, the fact remains that Ten, released August 27, 1991, and celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, was not only an unequivocal smash – 13 million copies sold in the U.S., and counting – but is also one of the defining pillars of '90s rock, with a reach and influence that has loomed large for decades. 

Indeed, you’d be hard pressed to find a rock fan, um, alive today that isn’t intimately familiar with the record. From the slippery riffs and deep-in-the-pocket groove of Even Flow, to the chest-beating lick that opens Alive and the explosive, extended McCready solo that closes it, to Eddie’s Vedder’s commanding bellow in Jeremy (not to mention the indelible accompanying video), the musical moments on Ten soundtracked a generation and continue to resonate today. 

Thirty years on, they feel almost foundational. And beyond these grand sonic gestures, a deeper dive into Ten uncovered more aggressive, tightly coiled fare like Why Go, Porch and the wah-drenched Deep, while moody, esoteric tracks like Release, Oceans and the much-beloved Black revealed a band adept at crafting subtly textured and swelling soundscapes, and working with a wider palette of sounds than the hit singles let on, or that peers and the press often acknowledged.

Given how seasoned and fully formed Ten sounds, it’s amazing to think that Pearl Jam existed for only a few months prior to its recording.

The five-piece we hear on the record – McCready, Vedder, guitarist Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament and drummer Dave Krusen – played their first show, billed as Mookie Blaylock, in October 1990. Roughly six months later, they were in Seattle’s London Bridge Studio laying down songs with producer Rick Parashar. And yet, even if the band was in its infancy, their roots ran deep.

Gossard and Ament had already logged years in the Seattle scene, first with proto-grungers Green River, and then with the more glam- and hard rock-leaning Mother Love Bone, among the first of the Seattle groups to land a major-label record deal. But when Love Bone front man Andrew Wood died in 1990 of a heroin overdose, the band split.

Ament and Gossard, devastated, went their separate ways – the former playing with local band War Babies and the latter continuing to write and demo songs. Gossard eventually drafted an old childhood friend, McCready – himself picking up the pieces from the wreckage of his own failed band, Shadow – and together they began jamming on the embryonic tunes.

“I was working at a restaurant called Julia’s, and I got a call from Stone basically out of the blue,” McCready recalls. “Stone and I started playing in his parents’ attic, and he had the riffs for stuff like Alive and [Ten opening track] Once. Mother Love Bone had just broken up, and I wanted to get Jeff in the band. And things just kind of went from there.”

The three began playing together and cut a demo that eventually made its way (via a mutual friend, one-time Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons) to a San Diego-based singer and gas station attendant named Eddie Vedder. Vedder, as the story goes, listened to the tape, came up with lyrics while surfing, recorded vocals for three of the songs – Alive, Once and the eventual non-album track Footsteps – and sent it back up north. 

Impressed with what they heard, Ament, McCready and Gossard asked Vedder to come to Seattle, and Pearl Jam – or, as it were, Mookie Blaylock – was born. (At the same time, the guitarists and bassist hooked up with Soundgarden members Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron for the Andrew Wood tribute album, Temple of the Dog; Vedder also appeared on one song, the eventual MTV hit Hunger Strike).  

Not long after, Mookie Blaylock, with Krusen on drums, played that debut October 1990 show, at the Off Ramp Café in Seattle. Two months later they supported Alice in Chains on a handful of West Coast dates. Soon after that, they signed to Epic Records and changed their name to Pearl Jam. The rest, as they say, is history.  

For the most part, it’s a history that has been oft-told. The band members themselves, however, haven’t lingered on it too much in interviews, and musically they’ve been plowing forward ever since, culminating in their most recent studio album, 2020’s expansive and rather excellent Gigaton. 

Which made it all the more special that McCready was game to hop on Zoom with Guitar World for a look back at Ten in acknowledgement of its three-decade anniversary. He also had something else up his sleeve (or, more accurately, in his lap): the 1959 (or, um, 1960) Stratocaster that has been his steady companion for the majority of Pearl Jam’s career, and that Fender recently recreated as a limited-edition Custom Shop model. 

In a wide-ranging conversation, McCready discussed the making of that new guitar, as well as reminisced about the record that started it all. Want to know what artists influenced McCready’s playing style on Ten, or why he doesn’t use any two-handed tapping in his solos? 

How about which lead he wishes he could redo, the song that Pearl Jam just couldn’t nail in the studio, or what it was like heading out on their first tour, alongside the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana? It’s all here, and more. Read on.

Let’s begin by looking at the musical makeup of Pearl Jam in the earliest days. Given that Eddie came into the band a bit later, it was you, Jeff and Stone who more or less formed the musical core of the group for Ten. And while the songs are certainly rooted in a classic rock sensibility, you each brought your own individual style and taste to the mix. Where did you differ and where did you intersect? 

“Well, I had been playing in bands since I was 11. And my band before Pearl Jam, which was called Shadow, we were kind of a punk-metal thing. So I went through a metal phase, and I lived in California for a year, from ’86 to ’87, trying to make it. And actually, I had kind of quit playing guitar about a year before Pearl Jam happened, because I was so disillusioned with trying to make it. 

“But I had known Stone since, like, sixth or seventh grade. We went to Judas Priest concerts together. We learned how to headbang at Iron Maiden shows. So there was a metal thing between us. Whereas Jeff came from more of a straight-edge, Minor Threat, Ramones, punk-rock kind of thing. Stone had a little bit of that, too, but I was more Iron Maiden and Judas Priest and Kiss. And I also liked the Rolling Stones and that stuff. So there was a classic rock thing, a metal thing and a punk thing in those three personalities right there.

“And then at the same time, I was also coming out of all that '80s stuff and getting into Stevie Ray Vaughan and B.B. King and the blues. I was into it very deeply and very earnestly. So you had that in there, too. But that being said, we all had our similar influences. We loved old Alice Cooper. We loved Aerosmith.

“I feel like Stone had a groove to him and a real kind of Aerosmith vibe. And if you look at the Mother Love Bone-era stuff, you can see how he and Jeff would groove when they wrote those songs. I also recall Stone, when we started playing together, he wanted to play something darker than what he had been doing previously. I remember him saying that, and I didn’t know exactly what that meant at the time.“

You mention that you had started to really immerse yourself in the blues around the time you joined Pearl Jam. You can certainly hear that influence in your lead work on Ten. 

“About a year prior to playing with Stone I got way into the blues. I saw The Last Waltz on TV, and I watched the part with Muddy Waters and it just blew my mind. There was something about his music that changed me from doing this stuff [grabs his Strat and plays a tapping lick], which I was pretty good at, to playing in a way that was like… less is more, I guess. 

“That got me into Stevie Ray Vaughan, and that’s when I went straight into the blues. And actually, one of the things that led Stone to call me was that he had heard me playing at a party at a friend’s house – I was playing Couldn’t Stand the Weather, just jamming along with the record in one of the rooms, having a Heineken, whatever.“

You use the phrase “less is more,” which I take to mean a shift away from the shreddy, '80s style of playing to something less focused on how many notes you could cram into a bar of music. But I’d venture to say the lead guitar approach on Ten could also be characterized as “more is more”, in the sense that there’s a lot of soloing going on. 

“You make a good point. There is a lot of lead playing on that album. But I always look at it as, I was still playing less on Ten than I was five years before that, if that makes sense. Because five years earlier I was doing a lot of pyrotechnics and Kramer dive bombs and things like that. Which is all fine. 

“But when I started to get more interested in the blues I tried to consciously or subconsciously pull it back a little bit and feel it more. But yeah, you’re still hearing a lot of playing on those songs. I was kind of given free rein, like, 'Hey, just go for it, do your thing.' But you know, something like Even Flow, there’s a lot of notes on there, but I wanted it to be like Stevie. I wanted it to be like Hendrix. There’s a note that Hendrix hits in Machine Gun…“

That high, sustained note at the beginning of his solo. 

“You know the note! Yeah. You can hear the Uni-Vibe oscillating, and it’s just the most glorious, beautiful, tension-filled, sad, disruptive, amazing, beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. I’ve been trying to hit that note my entire career. So if you hear me hold some of those notes in Alive or whatever, I’m going for that. I know I’m never going to get there, but in terms of feeling, to me that’s the height.“

You mention Alive, which, if you’re talking about a guitar solo that really elevates the mood, that’s a great example of one. And there are so many dynamic, explosive leads on the record – Once, Why Go, Even Flow. I’ve heard you say in the past that some of your solos on the record were comped, as you were more concerned with just being in the moment as opposed to making sure you were hitting all the notes. 

“Yeah. Back then I was just kind of going for it. So parts of Alive were comped. I think Even Flow was comped, too. But to this day, I’ll play one or two or three takes and then it starts getting not as good. It has to be captured as this sort of 'lightning in a bottle' thing. And it’s usually the first or second take that’s the best, because I’m not thinking about it. 

“If I start thinking about what I’m going to do, I just math it all up and it doesn’t work. But that’s just me. Stone is more… he’ll think out a part and play it over and over. Like, we have this joke that if you’re in a hotel and you’re in the room under his room, you’ll just hear him above you playing guitar for five hours straight, doing one riff. [Laughs] I can’t do that. That would make me insane. So my point is, yes, there was some comping going on with the solos, but it was also comps of just the first or second take.”

Also, you’re really ripping on a lot of those leads. But again, you’re doing it in a very bluesy, expressive sort of way. Given your background and the musical climate in Seattle at the time, did you have to consciously tamp down your shredder tendencies? 

”You know, that’s a good question. The truth is it just felt like that stuff didn’t work. And honestly, we were so sarcastic and mocking of a lot of that stuff back then, for better or for worse. But I loved Randy Rhoads. I totally loved Eddie Van Halen. I saw Eddie four times with David Lee Roth back in the day. Stone did too – we went together. But it just didn’t seem like that stuff worked. And at that time I had kind of gotten away from it anyway.”

So it wasn’t like you had some inner-dialogue going where you had to tell yourself, “If I start tapping, they’re gonna throw me out of Seattle…” 

”[Laughs] I didn’t think about it that way. But yeah, you’re probably right. It wouldn’t have been something that would have been accepted. Which is so pretentious when I think about it, this punk-rock ethic where we were not supposed to like certain things and whatever. That’s really stupid. But when you’re in your twenties, you’re just trying to make it happen. It’s a weird thing to look back on.”

Switching to the rhythm playing on the record, one thing that I’ve always felt about Ten is that while it’s a very “riffy” album, those riffs are trickier to play than you might imagine on first listen. If you look at the guitar lines in Once or Jeremy or especially Even Flow, the note patterns themselves aren’t that complicated, but the key to nailing them lies in riding the groove and staying in that tight-but-loose pocket. It’s not an easy thing to do. 

“You’re very perceptive in saying that. The pocket was always the point. In terms of Even Flow, I mean, we probably recorded that track 25 or 30 times, and we just never seemed to get it right. Jeff would fucking run outside because he was so mad about it. And Stone had these big charts… we just would make fun of the charts, [Laughs] but we were never able to record it right. 

“I think Stone heard something in it that we could never get. And I remember it wasn’t about the technique of it as much as it was about how it felt. That’s the only time we recorded a song that many times. But it was just this endless puzzle of trying to figure it out.“

Rhythmically, you and Stone would often be doing completely different things on your instruments. Ten is one of those albums where if you pan it hard left or right you sometimes get an entirely different guitar perspective. Did you guys work together on your parts, or did you come up with your accompaniments on your own?

“It was kind of both of those things. For instance, with Alive, Stone wrote the main riff and I just started doing these chords behind it. I knew I didn’t want to double what he was doing, so I was trying to do some Stevie Ray Vaughan chords, or the Hendrix thing where your thumb is on the bottom string.

“I came up with that while we were playing, he said, 'Oh, that sounds good,' and we stuck with it. Or, if you listen to the beginning of Black, Stone came up with that song and he did what he did, and then I just went underneath and did more of that Stevie/Hendrix stuff, those sort of watery chords. I was just trying to feel things out in those terms.“

What gear did you use on the record? 

“So, out of our advance, Stone and Jeff bought me a black 1962 Japanese reissue Stratocaster. It was just so cool. I was like, 'Oh my god…' Because I had always wanted one. I had a Telecaster prior to that, and before that I had an Ibanez Iceman and a Kramer. But that was my first Strat. 

“So I used that, thinking, you know, Stone plays mostly Les Paul, and I love Les Pauls too, but I always loved how in Aerosmith Joe Perry might be playing a Strat and then Brad Whitford would have a Les Paul. And then they’d switch or whatever. That’s what I grew up with, and Stone did too. So I felt I wanted a Strat to complement what Stone was doing. If we both played Les Pauls, the record might’ve sounded different.

How about your amp? 

“I had a Marshall JCM800 with a 4x12 cabinet with, I think, 25-watt speakers in it. And I had a Fender Bassman for the clean tones. You can hear that on Black. And then if you want to get really into it, that sound on Black is me using the second pickup position on the Strat, for the out-of-phase thing. I was way into that because I had heard Jimi do it. 

“That was a big thing for me with the Strat. I wanted to have the five positions so I could be out of phase.“

Ten was quite obviously a massive, massive success. But it wasn’t a hit right out of the gate. It took some time. 

“You’re right. It took about a year before it started really going. But coming from the context of my mind back then it was like, 'I dropped out of college and I just got to quit my job at Julia’s. I’m in a van with guys and we’re touring across Texas!' That to me was such a success, because I had been trying to get to something like that since I was 15, 16 years old and I was in my band Shadow. I’d wanted to do this since I was a kid, trying to make it happen but never thinking it was actually going to happen.“

Your first major tour after the album came out was supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers on their Blood Sugar Sex Magik outing, alongside Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. 

”Yeah. Before that we went out with Alice in Chains, down the West Coast. We were called Mookie Blaylock at the time, which I’ve always, like, ugh... [Laughs] But we didn’t have a name, and we had to have a name. But anyway, on that tour we played in Oakland to, like, 20 people. In Vancouver to maybe 100. But yeah, the Peppers tour was the first big one. And they were so cool to us. I’ll always remember that and love them for it. 

”It was a huge experience, an eye-opening experience. And you know, I was young and I thought our band was good. I was like, 'We’re going to play the best we can – follow that, Smashing Pumpkins!' But in a friendly competition sort of way. I just wanted to go out and tear it up as hard as we could for, you know, the 25-minute slot that we had. [Laughs] Because we only had one record’s worth of songs… and [a cover of the Beatles’ Let It Be track] I’ve Got a Feeling, which I think we used to do back then. And then maybe State of Love and Trust. That was kind of it.”

When did you start to notice things were blowing up? 

”When we got invited to do Lollapalooza – again, because of the Peppers. They asked us to be part of it. But that’s when it blew up. It’s like, we’re the second band, we’re playing at four o’clock in the afternoon, going on right after Lush, and there’s 30,000 people or whatever just running toward the stage. It was a mindfuck. But it was awesome. It was like my dream coming true in front of my face. And when that happens you just ride it, because you don’t have any control over it anyway.”

That said, you guys actually did try to control it. In the years immediately following Ten it sometimes seemed from the outside as if Pearl Jam viewed its success as a curse as much as a blessing. The band continued to record and tour, but really pulled back from the public eye and MTV and the mainstream media. 

”The decision to pull back and to not do videos and to slow down interviews, it was all about Jeff and Stone and Ed thinking it was necessary. And you know, Ed was getting way more scrutiny than anybody. It was probably overwhelming for him. It was for all of us at the time. But I remember not wanting to pull back, saying, 'This is what we’ve wanted since we were kids. Let’s keep doing this. Let’s do videos, let’s keep going, let’s embrace this.' 

”But they weren’t into it. They said, 'No, we’ve got to, because this is all gonna fall apart if we don’t.' And I think they were right. I feel like we’re still around today maybe because of that first major decision to try to do it our own way. 

”We made a lot of decisions that were counter to what the record label wanted us to do: 'You’ve got to do a video for Black or you’ll never sell any more records.' Which I remember was a thing with them. But it’s like, yeah, that didn’t happen. So we were lucky, but it was our decision – pull back, five against one, let’s huddle in our stagecoaches and try to figure out what all this is.

That’s how you responded to the record at the time. What do you think when you look back on it now? 

“I have great memories of that time. You know, going to England for the first time to mix the record at Ridge Farm Studios… these were fun things. And just in general, recording an album and feeling the songs, knowing that we were a good band. It was the first time I was in a situation where everybody was firing on all cylinders. It was creative, it was exciting. 

“And it’s like, 'Oh my god, I’m making a record for a record label!' That’s what I would dream about. That’s why I had a room full of Kiss posters when I was a kid. And now I was a part of it. And I was grateful to Jeff and Stone because they had kind of been through this process before. They knew what was going on. So I felt lucky to be in that position.“

If you could go back, is there anything you would change about Ten?

“I’ve always wanted to do a better Even Flow solo than the one that’s on there. I shouldn’t say that, because I think some people like it the way it is. [Laughs] Although when we’re playing it live I always want to do it better. But I don’t think there’s any other aspects I would have changed on that record. I mean, it was a dream come true.“

On their own respective accords, the words ‘custom’ and ‘shop’ are both very lucrative terms to any dedicated guitarist. Put them together, however, and watch the ears of any shredder with a spending problem prick up faster than a labrador at dinnertime. The Fender Custom Shop is a venerable Valhalla for gear nerds, with some of the world’s best luthiers forging monumental works of amp-ready art on the daily. And one extremely popular aspect of their craftsmanship lies in the recreation of classic guitars made iconic by some of music’s most illustrious names. Like, for example, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam.

After knocking it out of the park with his riffs on last year’s critically adored Gigaton album, McCready is continuing his six-stringed lightning streak with a (super limited) Custom Shop build of his classic 1959 Stratocaster… Or, well, so was the intention. Y’see, McCready bought the guitar in 1991, enamoured by the virtuosic playing of Stevie Ray Vaughan on his own ’59 Strat. And by all reasonable knowledge, McCready thought he was picking up the exact same model – that’s what it said on the tag, at least. But only after Fender borrowed the guitar to spec it up this year that it came to light his Strat was actually a 1960 model. 

This wouldn’t normally be a big deal, of course, but for McCready – who has the number 59 tattooed on himself in dedication of the axe… Well… Yeah.

Nevertheless, McCready’s 1960 Stratocaster is an absolute marvel, and the Fender Custom Shop have done an inhumanly kit-accurate recreation for their release. We caught up with the man behind the madness himself to discuss the origin story behind this beloved behemoth of a guitar, why certain guitars are simply more special than others, and how master builder Vincent Von Trigt made the ultimate doppelgänger of the Strat that never stops. 

Do you remember when you first got your hands on this Strat? 
All those years ago… It’s a little blurry for me. Let’s just say I was more of a partier back in my early 20s [laughs]. It was right around when we first started having some success, so just prior to 1991. I played it at our first show with Keith Richards in ’91 – we opened up for the Stones in New York, and that’s the first time I ever brought it out with me. I bought it right before that show, I believe at Danny’s Music in Everett, in Seattle, and I think it was something like $7,000 back then. 

And it was very significant – the only guitars I had prior to that were a ’62 Strat, which Jeff [Ament] and Stone [Gossard] got for me, and I had a Telecaster and an acoustic. So this was a big deal – it was my first, “Okay, I’m going to spend some money on a really nice guitar” moment. I wanted a ’59 Strat because Steve Ray Vaughn played it, and y’know, he was my guy at that time – and still is to this day. It played perfectly when I picked it up that first time, and it’s played that way ever since.

Do you find that Strats make for good workhorse guitars on the road? 
I feel like I’ve always heard Telecasters be called the workhorse – Springsteen’s got one, Joe Strummer has one, Eddy [Vedder] plays them… I’ve got a couple Teles as well, but for me personally, that ’60 Strat is my go-to. I always use it on “Even Flow”, I use it on “Star Spangled Banner… I used it on one of our new songs, “Dance Of The Clairvoyants”, and I used it specifically for that song because I knew I wanted that sound. That guitar will deliver the sound I’m thinking of 99 percent of the time.

Do you feel like certain guitars inspire creativity, or help the songwriting process more than others do? 
Yes, I do. If we go all the way back to Ten, thinking about what I was going to play underneath Stone’s riff on “Alive” – he was on a Les Paul and I had, at that time, my black Stratocaster, and the idea for my part came out of what the Strat sounded like. Because I wanted to have something that was not exactly like Stone’s riff, but rather supported it – something that was kind of mellow during the first and second verse, but when it kicks in for the chorus, would let me pick up all the volume and have my Strat duel his Les Paul. And I think guitars do that, y’know? I have a certain acoustic that I like to learn things on, too. I can think about what kind of sound I want, but I have to feel it in a guitar to get it out. 

Some guitars just have a unique character. 
Exactly – it’s the character, it’s the colour, it’s the feeling of the sound. Does it scream in a solo? Can I get feedback on it? Can I control the grunt? Can I make it really light and relaxed? And I can do all of that with my ‘60 Strat.

Have you made any customisations to that guitar since you bought it? 
It’s exactly how I got it, except that I’d broken the tremolo bar a bunch of times. I believe the pickups are all original; some of the knobs might be original, but I don’t think they are; and the tuning pegs are not original. That’s how I approach guitars in general – I’m not precious with them, y’know? I mean, I let people come over to my house and play my guitars all the time. I’m like, “Yeah, you can play that $10,000 guitar,” and they’re like, “Are you sure?” And I’m just like, “That’s what they’re for!”

So what was it like teaming up with the Fender Custom Shop to recreate it? 
I got a call and George Webb, who’s the head of our old warehouse and Jeff’s bass tech – he got a call from Michael Schulz at Fender asking if I wanted to do a model of my “1959” Strat. I was like, “F*** yeah, that sounds amazing!” He came up with another guy – I forget the name of the other gentleman, but they looked at it and looked at all the other Strats I have – a ’57 and a ’58 – and the ‘60 was the one that they were the most interested in. And I can see why – it’s a perfect guitar! 

Michael was very easy to deal with – he’s an artist relations guy, he knows about music, he plays guitar himself… And I got to go out to the Fender factory and look at how the whole operation runs. I got a tour of the factory and got to meet the master craftsmen… It’s truly unbelievable how they do everything – from the wood, to the machines, to the drying of the paint. But it was also a very easy process.

Were you very hands-on with Vincent Van Trigt and the Custom Shop team?
George and I were pretty hands on with Vincent – who really did a phenomenal, unbelievable job on this guitar. I remember when George got the first prototype in; I played it through a couple different amps, and there were a few things I wanted changed: I wanted the neck to be a little smaller and form to my hand like it does on my original Strat – and Vincent had no problem with that. There were a couple of cosmetic things, like making more dents in it and scratching it up a bit more… So it went back and forth… Actually, I think just that one time. 

That’s the thing about Fender: they’re very efficient, but it’s not like an uptight or rushed efficiency – they just get their shit done, and you get your product very quickly. And it’s perfect. And so when I got it back the second time, I had taken it and put it right next to my original one, I left the room and went and did something, and when I came back in, I grabbed it thinking it was my real one. So I’m playing it and just going, “Oh shit, wait a second!” That happened three times – three separate times, too. That should tell you how meticulous Vincent’s work is. 

Generally speaking, a signature guitar model offers fans an opportunity to learn more about an iconic instrument – from the woods to the electronics to the appointments – used by their favorite player and on some of their favorite songs.  

But in the case of Fender’s new Custom Shop replica of Mike McCready’s famed 1959 Stratocaster, it was the artist himself who learned something new – for starters, that the guitar was actually built in 1960. “I was shocked,” McCready says with a laugh. “It was like, ‘Was it all a lie? What happened?’ ”  

What happened, as we now know, is that McCready first purchased the beloved Strat in 1991, after Ten began taking off. “It was the first guitar I bought when we started making money,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to buy a vintage guitar, and I’m going to buy a ’59. Because I had read that Stevie [Ray Vaughan] had a ’59, and now I could afford one.” 

Sometime later, Pearl Jam’s longtime luthier in Seattle, Mike Lull, discovered after working on the guitar that the Strat was actually a 1960 model and notified the band’s equipment manager, George Webb.

Seeing as McCready was by that point wedded to the fact that his main axe was, indeed, a ’59 (he even has a commemorative “ ’59” tattoo on his wrist), they decided to let the guitarist go on believing as much. “George didn’t want to tell me, because I was so invested in the ’59 thing,” McCready says. “He didn’t want to break my heart.”

But when Fender got its hands on the Strat in February 2020, Custom Shop Master Builder Vincent van Trigt dissected the guitar and confirmed what some already knew: “It said it right there in the back cavity, under the springs: 1960,” van Trigt recalls.

McCready may have been mistaken about his guitar’s birth year, but there’s no denying that his Strat contains some serious mojo. “It’s probably the best-playing guitar I have,” he says. “The neck is kind of worn in, which I love, and the feel is just perfect. There’s nothing like it to me.”

As for how it sounds? Just take a listen to much of McCready’s work with Pearl Jam, reaching back to 1993’s Vs (it handles the solo to Daughter, for one) up through the new Gigaton (that’s the Strat on Dance of the Clairvoyants).

Or witness him onstage, where the vintage axe is a mainstay – “almost every time I play Even Flow, it’s this guitar,” he says.

All of which means that the new Mike McCready 1960 Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster comes complete with plenty of history and mythology, both musical and otherwise. So when it came time to replicate the instrument for the limited run (just 60 in all), both Fender and the Pearl Jam guitarist wanted to be sure they nailed it. And nail it they did.

“The guitar came to Fender and I spent a day just taking it apart – every screw, every wire,” van Trigt says. “One thing that was very important to Mike was getting the neck shape and the feel correct, so I spent a lot of time on that, recording all the measurements. I had to make sure we got it right.”

As for the actual specs on that neck? “It was a 7 ¼-inch radius at one point, and it was turned into a 9 ½-inch radius,” van Trigt says. “So it’s not super thin, but it’s on the thin side. And it has a super-silky feel.” Those characteristics are reflected in the new model’s ultra-comfy flat-sawn 1960 “oval C” profile flame maple neck, which is topped with a flat-lam rosewood fingerboard with 21 vintage frets. 

Additionally, the guitar sports an ultimate Relic lacquer finish on a two-piece select alder body, as well as a three-ply vinyl pickguard, vintage-style synchronized tremolo with Callaham bridge block, vintage-style tuning machines, a bone nut and a wing string tree with metal spacer.

As for pickups, the Strat comes loaded with a trio of custom Josefina hand-wound single-coils matched to the originals, and connected to a five-way switch and vintage wiring, including a “treble bleed” tone capacitor.

“They have a super-punchy warm sound, exactly like Mike’s guitar,” van Trigt says. And while McCready says that Fender did a “phenomenal” job in capturing the tone and feel of his original Strat, there’s another aspect of the instrument that required an extremely exacting touch – replicating the body’s heavy wear, some of which predates McCready’s ownership of the guitar.

“Some of that was already there when I bought it,” McCready says. “But a lot of it is from years and years of me playing it.” The complete absence of any finish above the pickguard, for example, “is from me just strumming like crazy. But I love how old guitars get worn and beaten up. It’s part of the soul of the instrument, and a marker of the people who have played it.”

Adds van Trigt, “This was the most involved replica I’ve done. The finish process took a lot of planning because of all the wear.”

Of course, there’s wear… and then there’s wear. In addition to nicks, scratches, dings and checking, McCready’s original Strat – as well as the replica – has a chunk of wood missing from the top and front of the headstock. As for why? Call it a rock ‘n’ roll tax.

“In the mid'-90s, Pearl Jam played as Neil Young’s backup band, which was this totally amazing thing,” McCready says. “So we’re in Europe and we’re at the end of Down by the River or something, and Neil’s doing his thing and I’m like, ‘Aahhh! I’m so into it!’ And I take the Strat and I put it into the speaker cabinet, thinking I’m just gonna hit just the speaker. But I actually hit the side where the wood is, and I chipped off a piece of the headstock.”

McCready laughs. “It was a moment of intense rock passion. So I have that memory, and sometimes I think, ‘Fuck, I wish I didn’t do that.’ But Fender recreated it perfectly.”

So perfectly, in fact, that they managed to fool even McCready himself with the final product. “The greatest thing I can say about the guitar is that after Fender sent me the prototype, I picked it up thinking it was my original,” McCready recalls. He laughs. “I sat there playing for a little bit, and then finally I was like, ‘Wait a minute…’”

• For more info on the Limited Edition Mike McCready 1960 Stratocaster, head to Fender Custom Shop.

Fender has officially launched the limited-edition Mike McCready signature Stratocaster – a faithful recreation of his original 1960 Strat, which the electric guitar legend tells Guitar World is “probably the best-playing guitar I have”.

Originally announced earlier this year, when it was revealed that McCready’s fabled ‘59 Strat was actually a ‘60 model, the stunning signature is described as faithful recreation that “accounts for every spec, detail and iconic scratch”.

Construction-wise, the guitar is composed of a two-piece select alder body, which flashes a heavy relic lacquer finish, flat-sawn flame maple neck with period-accurate ‘60 oval-C profile and a flat-lam rosewood fretboard.

Other appointments include custom pickups hand-wound by Joesfina Campos herself, a "treble bleed" tone capacitor and synchronized tremolo with Callaham bridge block.

In conversation with Guitar World for the May 2021 issue's cover story, the Pearl Jam icon reveals, “It’s probably the best-playing guitar I have. The neck is kind of worn in, which I love, and the feel is just perfect. There’s nothing like it to me.

“The greatest thing I can say about the guitar is that after Fender sent me the prototype, I picked it up thinking it was my original,” he continued. “I sat there playing for a little bit, and then finally I was like, ‘Wait a minute…’”

Of his historical relationship with the Strat, McCready recalls, “Once I could afford a quality guitar, I immediately went for a vintage Stratocaster. It was my dream guitar because of my love for Stevie Ray Vaughan, and as my musical aspirations were coming true I had to have it.

“It was the first significant guitar that I bought, never thinking I could ever own one before Pearl Jam happened,” he continues.

Vincent Van Trigt, the Master Builder behind the new model, commented, “It was an honor to deconstruct and recreate Mike’s vintage 1960 Stratocaster. He plays an esteemed model, and the unique story behind its history gives even more character to the road-worn guitar we aimed to recreate.”

"Mike McCready is a bonafide rock 'n' roll legend, and it was a privilege to recreate his all-time favorite guitar," continued Mike Lewis, VP of Product Development at Fender Custom Shop.

"Pearl Jam has been inspiring us at Fender, and not to mention audiences around the world, and we couldn't think of a better way to honor the legacy of this legendary rock guitarist."

The limited-edition Mike McCready Fender 1960 Stratocaster is available now for $15,000, and comes with a deluxe hardshell case, strap, McCready case candy kit and certificate of authenticity.

Head over to Fender Custom Shop to find out more – or pick up the latest issue of Guitar World over at Magazines Direct.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the release of Pearl Jam’s mammoth debut album, Ten, and to celebrate the milestone, PJ electric guitar player and Fender signature artist Mike McCready sat down with Guitar World for a long look back at the making of the landmark record.

Among the many nuggets of knowledge McCready revealed during the interview is that, if he could go back and change anything about the record, it would be to re-record the solo to one of the band’s most beloved tracks, Even Flow.

“I’ve always wanted to do a better Even Flow solo than the one that’s on there,” he said. “I shouldn’t say that, because I think some people like it the way it is. Although when we’re playing it live I always want to do it better. But I don’t think there’s any other aspects I would have changed on that record. I mean, it was a dream come true.”

And while he may not have loved the Even Flow solo, McCready also admits that the rhythm parts were challenging in their own way.

“In terms of Even Flow, I mean, we probably recorded that track 25 or 30 times, and we just never seemed to get it right,” he said.

“Jeff [Ament, bassist] would fucking run outside because he was so mad about it. And Stone [Gossard, guitarist] had these big charts... we just would make fun of the charts, [laughs] but we were never able to record it right. I think Stone heard something in it that we could never get. And I remember it wasn’t about the technique of it as much as it was about how it felt.

“That’s the only time we recorded a song that many times. But it was just this endless puzzle of trying to figure it out.”

For more insight into the making of Pearl Jam's landmark debut, you can grab a copy of the new Guitar World from Magazines Direct.

NAMM 2021 isn't taking place in the physical realm this year, but you'll find all the hottest January gear launches in our guide to the biggest guitar, amp and pedal releases of 2021 so far.

Alongside new 2021 signature models for Jason Isbell, Chrissie Hynde and Ben Gibbard, Fender has announced a Custom Shop replica of one of the most sought-after ’59 Strats, the heavily road-worn model owned by Mike McCready of alt-rock stalwarts Pearl Jam.

…Except it isn’t actually a ’59 at all. During the process of recreating the guitar, Fender Custom Shop’s Vincent Van Trigt discovered that the Strat had actually been constructed in 1960, not 1959 as had long been believed.

Regardless, this 60-piece run of instruments sets out to replicate the look and sound of McCready’s legendary guitar, as heard on the likes of Pearl Jam’s Yellow Ledbetter and Temple of the Dog’s Hunger Strike, right up to Dance of the Clairvoyants from last year’s Gigaton album.

The recreation uses a Relic lacquer finish on two-piece select alder body, teamed with a flat-sawn flame maple neck with 1960 ‘oval C’ profile, and flat-lam rosewood fingerboard with 21 vintage frets.

Custom Josefina hand-wound pickups have been matched to the originals, and feature vintage wiring, along with a treble bleed tone capacitor.

The Custom Shop’s attention to detail is also visible in the three-ply vinyl pickguard, vintage-style synchronized tremolo with Callaham bridge block, vintage-style tuning machines, bone nut, and wing string tree with metal spacer.

As per other Custom Shop replicas, there’s a high asking price – in this case, $15,000, including a deluxe hardshell case, strap, polishing cloth, McCready case candy kit and certificate of authenticity.

The Limited Edition Mike McCready 1960 Stratocaster is available from February 2021. Head over to our round-up of all of 2021’s big Fender releases so far for more news.

McCready isn't the only Seattle rock icon honored with a new guitar this year – Gretsch has paid tribute to Chris Cornell's Black Hole Sun Duo Jet with its 2021 lineup.

Friday night, during their performance at Seattle's Safeco Field, Pearl Jam paid tribute to Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, covering "Missing," an early Cornell solo rarity, and jamming with Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil during their encore.

"Missing" is a track taken from Cornell's obscure 1992 solo EP, Poncier, which collects his contributions to the soundtrack of the Cameron Crowe film, Singles. You can see Pearl Jam's live cover of the song above. 

During their encore, the band also welcomed Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil onstage for a trio of covers: MC5’s “Kick Out the Jams,” the Stooges’ “Search and Destroy” and Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer.” The latter two songs also featured Mark Arm and Steve Turner, of fellow Seattle grunge luminaries Mudhoney. 

You can check out fan-filmed footage of the covers below.

Pearl Jam's guitarists have never been known for their tap-heavy, Eddie Van Halen-style shredfests. But, as the nearly 5-year-old video above proves, the Seattle boys can melt some faces when the situation calls for it.

Check out this video of Pearl Jam performing a vintage Van Halen medley—"Eruption" into "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love"—November 30, 2013, in Spokane, Washington.

The band actually started playing the medley about a month earlier in the tour, back when they hit Hartford, Connecticut, on October 25. "The last time we played here, in 2010, we played a song and we said it was the only time we would ever play this song," Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder told the Hartford crowd. "And it was the only time we ever played this song. But as soon as we walked into the back room tonight, I was, like, 'This is where we played that song! And, for some reason, I just really need to play that song again!' But before we play that song, he's going to play this song."

"He," of course, is guitarist Mike McCready, who—in the November video above—nails Eddie Van Halen's calling-card guitar solo on a well-worn Fender Strat. Sure, the song has become something of a party trick, not to mention a YouTube cliche in guitar land; still, it's nice to know Pearl Jam has this sort of fire power under the hood—in case of emergencies!

During a show in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday night, Pearl Jam invited Chad Smith and Josh Klinghoffer—drummer and guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers—to the stage for a spirited rendition of Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World."

The performance of the 1989 Young classic, which you can watch via some fan-filmed footage above, is an absolute stormer and features Eddie Vedder tossing a number of tambourines into the crowd and Klinghoffer trading some scintillating solos with Pearl Jam guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready.

Just last week, Pearl Jam unveiled "Can't Deny Me," their first new song in five years. The song is from the band's as-yet-untitled upcoming album and was produced by the band with Brendan O'Brien.

You can download the track at pearljam.com.

Last week, Pearl Jam shared a new song called "Can't Deny Me" exclusively to members of their official fan club. Now, the band has released the song to everyone. According to their website, the song is from their as-yet-untitled upcoming album and was produced by Pearl Jam with Brendan O'Brien. You can hear it below.

Last year, the band released Let's Play Two, a live album and concert film documenting their two-night stand at Chicago's legendary Wrigley Field in August 2016. Their last studio album was 2013's Lightning Bolt.

The song is available for download at pearljam.com.

In recent weeks, Pearl Jam has been teasing a concert film called Let's Play Two. The footage from these teasers shows brief clips of the band's performances at Wrigley Field last August. Now, the band has confirmed the details of Let's Play Two, a concert film that indeed documents those two performances at one of baseball's most legendary venues.

The band also announced that an accompanying live album will be made available alongside the film.

The soundtrack will be available September 29, while the film will premiere in select theaters on the same date, before recieving a one-off TV airing in the United States on FS1 on October 13, and arriving on home video on November 17.

You can watch the official trailer for the film, and check out the tracklist for the accompanying soundtrack (which you can preorder here) below.

Let’s Play Two Soundtrack Tracklist

• 1. Low Light
• 2. Better Man
• 3. Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town
• 4. Last Exit
• 5. Lightning Bolt
• 6. Black Red Yellow
• 7. Black
• 8. Corduroy
• 9. Given to Fly
• 10. Jeremy
• 11. Inside Job
• 12. Go
• 13. Crazy Mary
• 14. Release
• 15. Alive
• 16. All the Way
• 17. I’ve Got a Feeling

Temple of the Dog, the grunge supergroup featuring Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready—plus Matt Cameron (who plays drums for Pearl Jam and Soundgarden)—have announced their first-ever tour.

The band, which originally was formed in 1990, will play five shows in five cities in November to mark the 25th anniversary of the band's first and onlyalbum, Temple of the Dog.

The group was formed from the ashes of Mother Love Bone, which dissolved upon the death of lead singer Andrew Wood. Chris Cornell wrote numerous songs in tribute to Wood, his longtime friend, and decided to record them with Ament, Gossard and McCready, who had formed the bulk of Mother Love Bone.

The group recorded Temple of the Dog with Cameron. It spawned a major hit in "Hunger Strike," Cornell's duet with a yet-unknown singer by the name of Eddie Vedder.

Temple of the Dog is being given the deluxe reissue treatment by UMe. The reissue, which will hit stores September 30, will be available as four-disc Super Deluxe, double LP, two CD Deluxe and single CD sets.

You can check out the group's tour dates below and pre-order the album here.

TEMPLE OF THE DOG ON TOUR

• 11/04 Philadelphia, PA Tower Theater
• 11/07 New York, NY Madison Square Garden
• 11/11 San Francisco, CA Bill Graham Civic Center
• 11/14 Los Angeles, CA The Forum
• 11/20 Seattle, WA Paramount Theater

In the video below, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready describes three of his favorite 1959-era guitars: a Les Paul 'Burst, a Fender Strat and a Les Paul TV model.

"It all started with the Strat," McCready says in the clip, which was posted to YouTube last month. "I was reading an article with Stevie Ray Vaughan a long time ago, and the number '1959' stuck out to me for some reason.

"So I started searching those out as the band got more popular and I could actually afford one. And I found this one in Los Angeles. That's what introduced me to the whole world of 1959s."

Enjoy!