DISCORD FADES, HARMONY REIGNS FOR PEARL JAM

By STEVE MORSE

c.1998 The Boston Globe

Wait a minute. A happy Pearl Jam?

Isn't that a contradiction?

Yet that's what we're hearing as Pearl Jam continues its first large-scale tour in years. Once known for its moody bickering with record industry Philistines and corporate giant Ticketmaster, Pearl Jam has settled back into music.

''We're in a different place now,'' says bassist Jeff Ament. ''We're just trying to grow as artists and as friends. ... For us, it's all about the creative process and making records and getting into a room together and pushing ourselves. We're just trying to write great songs.''

That's what Seattle-based Pearl Jam always has tried to do since exploding on the scene with the 1992 album ''Ten,'' which sold 10 million copies. But such surreal sales (''It was just a completely different reality than any of us had ever seen,'' says Ament) eventually caused tensions within the band and with the outside world. The group pulled back and even stopped making videos (only recently did it resume with a video for ''Do the Evolution'') and generally stopped touring because it wouldn't play Ticketmaster venues, saying the service fees were too high.

Pearl Jam has since compromised and is playing some Ticketmaster venues, but the band doesn't have any regrets.

''I think we were doing what we felt was the right thing,'' Ament says from a New York tour stop. ''The fact that people are still talking about it is just something for the media to pile on top of. Every preview I've read about this tour says something about having backed down from battling the Ticketmaster giant or whatever. But, man, all we want to do is play music.

''We felt there were people out there who had nothing to do with music and felt they were bigger than music. And that's what bothered us,'' says Ament. ''I think it still bothers us when we run into people like that, whether it be an occasional promoter or someone who just doesn't know a damn thing about what's going on in the music world. But right now, we just want to play music and make records.''

What hasn't been fully understood is how much internal strife the band had to face to survive.

''At the time of the whole Ticketmaster thing, there were other things going on within the band,'' says Ament. ''We were going through personnel changes and it was probably an all-time low in terms of how we were communicating with each other. That had as much or more to do with us not touring than the Ticketmaster thing. From the outside world, people can't see what's going on within the band, so everybody just blames Ticketmaster. But I really don't think it was a time that we could have toured and survived. We were still figuring out a lot of things.''

One was a change in drummers - Dave Abbruzzee was replaced by Jack Irons, who was replaced for the new tour by former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron. According to some reports, Irons didn't want to tour because he's dealing with manic depression. ''Matt's a total pro,'' Ament says, though he admits the band will face a tough decision later on whether to invite Irons back or continue with Cameron. ''Both are great guys; both are great drummers,'' he says.

Above all, Pearl Jam's charter members (singer Eddie Vedder, guitarist Mike McCready, and rhythm guitarist Stone Gossard, and Ament) have learned to talk more openly with each other, which has fostered the harmony and optimism of the current tour.

Unlike some bands, such as Aerosmith, Pearl Jam didn't hire therapists to facilitate communication. They handled it in-house, via band meetings that have now become a staple.

''In the old days when we said, 'hey, let's have a meeting,' everybody kind of felt like, uh oh, it's like a teacher or a principal calling you into the office,'' says Ament. ''Now, it's just part of how we do things. Probably once a week when we're on the road, we'll sit down and talk about how things are going, what we need to do, what we want to do, what people's individual needs are, or what's upcoming. It just feels more natural now.''

Some group members also ventured into side projects to build confidence (Ament with the band Three Fish, McCready with Mad Season, and Gossard with Brad). And though Pearl Jam's album sales have fallen with the last two records (''No Code'' and ''Yield'' each sold one million-plus), Ament says, ''I know for a fact we're writing better songs now.''

The songwriting is also more democratic: Ament and Gossard have increased their roles, relieving the pressure on Vedder. The music has grown more complex, if less adrenalized, than on the earlier, Led Zeppelin-influenced albums ''Ten'' and ''vs.'' There remains a core of fans that wants the group to revive that early style (as heard in hits ''Jeremy'' and ''Alive''), but Ament says that was another time and place.

''Sometimes for me, it's hard to go back and listen to that stuff because it feels like something we wrote when we were kids,'' he says. ''There was a real simple purity in those songs, and that's definitely something that we try to retain to some degree, but we've had more life experiences since then. We're just trying to approach writing as honestly as we can. And we still play some of those songs on tour.''

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