Back in 1995, Pearl Jam dropped one of their most respected projects ever, Mirror Ball. The record was a collab with folk-rock icon Neil Young. One member of the legendary grunge band, however, was noticeably absent: frontman Eddie Vedder.
Turns out, Vedder had a very understandable reason for missing the recording sessions, however. According to Louder, the singer had a “pretty intense stalker problem” that made it hard for him to even leave his house at the time.
While Vedder hasn’t spoken about the situation too much, The Guardian previously explained that back in the mid-90s, Vedder had a female stalker. She believed he was the reincarnation of Jesus (or maybe Jesus himself?). She also claimed that he raped her and fathered her two sons. At one point, she drove her car through the wall of his home and nearly died.
Eddie Vedder Said his stalker situation made him feel like his “brain was a w****”
“One of the reasons you’re protecting yourself is because you’ve been forthcoming with your emotions,” Vedder told The Guardian, reflecting on that time of his life as a young musician. “So you have to build a wall. And now people are driving into the wall. That’s what f***s with your head. I felt like my brain was a w**** and I was getting mindf***ed.”
While he missed the majority of the recording sessions for the Mirror Ball album, Vedder did eventually make it in and worked on the song “Peace And Love”. He also penned two other tracks: “I Got Id” and “Long Road”.
“We listened back to ‘Peace And Love,’ and [Neil Young] liked the lyrics I’d written,” Vedder recalled in Pearl Jam Twenty, the 2011 book celebrating the band’s 20th anniversary. “At that point, I hadn’t written a song in three or four months, so I went upstairs and wrote ‘I Got Id’ in about 20 minutes.”
“All it takes is someone like Neil to point at you, and it’s on,” Vedder added. “It wasn’t until probably three years later that I realized the chorus is kind of the same as ‘Cinnamon Girl’, but I had no idea at the time.”
Ultimately, “I Got Id” and “Long Road” were left off of Mirror Ball. They were later included in the Merkin Ball EP.
The post A ‘Pretty Intense Stalker Problem’ Kept Eddie Vedder From Performing on Pearl Jam’s 1995 Collab Album With Neil Young appeared first on VICE.
