http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYHByTQbK5Q

Eddie Vedder sounds like a sailor with a bad head cold complaining about the forecast. Apparently not. Mr. Vedder is Pearl Jam’s singer/songwriter/guitarist. As you might expect from an alt rock icon, Mr. Vedder has some pretty strong political opinions, which he shared with professional surfer Mark Richards in a HuffPo-enabled interview (no I didn’t make that up). To use a musical term, sample this . . .

“The fact that we’re living in a country where 90 percent of the people want further gun laws — to maybe somehow put a dent in some of this insanity that’s happening — and yet there’s no further legislation taking place, it’s very frustrating and upsetting. If I didn’t have music to kind of at least get some of the aggression out or take the edge off, you wouldn’t want me having a gun either.”

I know! Let’s pass a law outlawing guns for Eddie Vedder! The legislation won’t garner 90 percent of Americans’ support (Eddie who?) but if it saves one TV set . . .

“I get so angry that I almost wish bad things upon these people,” Vedder said. “But I don’t have to because it seems like they happen anyways. It seems like every week I’m reading about a 4-year-old either shooting their sister, their dad, their dog, their brother or themselves, because there’s fucking guns laying around. But I guess it’s ‘fun.’

Fun to shoot your sister, dad, dog, brother or yourself or fun to leave a gun laying around? This guy needs to party more. Or less.

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92 COMMENTS

  1. It’s fun to comment meaningfully on things you know nothing about. My turn:

    “Ballet makes me think dirty thoughts about willowy women in tights. As a result, I think we should ban ballet because if it stops one rape, it’s worth it. Plus, the people who write, stage, and perform ballet are bad people (probably rapists) and should get cancer. Or something.”

    Being ingorant AND opinionated kicks ass!

    • Maybe it was the drugs and alcohol.

      That seems to be a common thread among anti gun entertainment “artists”.

    • I also never wanted you to have a microphone but alas I’ve been subjected to your shit music for the better part of my life. Thanks for ruining 90s alternative. I hope your eukaleli pops a string a decapitates you you talentless douche.

      • If I had to put together a list of the most overrated bands ever, Pearl Jam would be near the top of the list. It would come in second, actually, following the Rolling Stones. Having said that, I’m going to now drape myself in fire retardant material and wait to be flamed to a crisp.

        • I am not going to flame you. The Stones are overrated but at least they have “Paint it Black” and “Gimme Shelter.” I can’t point to one good Pearl Jam song. Worst. Band. Ever.

        • Maniak, KISS is overrated. The Stones are probably second only in greatness to Zeppelin. Floyd, Who, Beatles round out the top 5 list (all British).

      • Yeah, unfortunately most musicians and actors are anti-gun. If I were to let their political opinions (which, yeah, it would be nice if they kept quiet, unless they had good political opinions) sway me, I’d have little to listen to or watch.

        First I’ve heard of someone calling Pearl Jam’s music terrible though. I’ve always loved them and thought most other people did too but to each his own.

  4. You’re right you shouldn’t have a gun. That is way there is not mandate for you to own one. But like you said if you didn’t have music and you wanted to say take out your aggression on an innocent person then it is that person’s right to be able to defend them self. Maybe that person will use martial arts, a knife, a frying pan, or even a gun. Either way there are angry people out there who mean to do harm to others and it is everyone’s right to be able to defend their life.

  5. Well, I didn’t care for him before, so this will make it even easier for me to ignore him now.

    • Couldn’t agree more that Eddie shouldn’t have a gun. I have an idea, there should be a voluntary sign up for people that know that they should not have a gun, where they can sign up to never be allowed to own a gun, in case they have a lapse and someday think they should have a gun or just forget that they shouldn’t have a gun. It makes perfect sense.

  7. “you wouldn’t want me having a gun ”
    Veder, Just because you’re a stupid irresponsible shitbag that cant control himself with a gun doesnt mean I am. Idiot and a waste of space.

    • And here’s the problem in a nutshell. Most people think that most people think the same way (or in a similar way) that they do. If person A believes he is irresponsible, he’ll be inclined to believe that most people are irresponsible.

      Ah, vanity. My favorite sin.

      • P.P.S. All of the drugs you’ve done provides the incentive for and subsidizes nearly all of the violence you lament. You are a slave owner, benefiting from a forcibly oppressed societal underclass to provide you the service of illegal drugs at a low price. This is all at their own personal risk and cost. You think sweat shops are bad? Look at the conditions of the workers in the economy you support!

  10. Whenever I click the link it says it’s now a private video. O well.

    But it does show that once again, many anti-gunner’s mindset is, I don’t trust myself, therefore everyone else should be denied because either, we’re all alike, or I’m better than you and still would do something stupid.

  11. I guess that’s one way to jump start a dead career. Every music lover gets the latest from HuffPo, right?

  12. So if he wasn’t a famous, rich, rock star then he would be going on a killing spree? If locking eddie vedder in a nuthouse potentially saves one life… “Hello, is this the future crimes unit? I’d like to report a potential mass murderer.”

  13. Every time I hear a Pearl Jam song, I want to drown a gold fish.
    I’m glad I have a car to drive to calm me down, because if ice cream didn’t have bones, you definitely wouldn’t want me to buy a gold fish.
    WTF???
    Geez, I used to like their music. What an idiot.

  14. I remember in the early 90’s when he made waves by writing “PRO-CHOICE” on his arm at a concert. I guess his opposition to violence against children only applies to guns.

  15. Eddie doesn’t want a gun. In America, Eddie doesn’t have to own or buy a gun. That’s the beauty of America, at least to some of us. We can choose (a dirty word to some I know, just don’t tell Watts or Bloomberg) to own or not own a product. Whether it is a car, keurig, guitar, gun, or pet, you only need to get those items you wish and can afford to purchase.

    Secondly, I am a only aware of 1 incident where someone was shot for fun. Something tells me Eddie isn’t going to push for harse punishment of the teens that killed Chris Lane. But he is liberal and pc, saying what the media wants to hear, so the hypocrisy isn’t hypocrisy, but a pearl of wisdom from a guy whose done how much drugs over his career?

    • I remember when Courtney Love got up on a stage with Rosie O’Donald (I believe it was a MMM event in DC) and said, “If guns were illegal, my husband would still be alive today.” Yeah, Courtney, because if drugs were illegal, you and him wouldn’t have been high as the moon on speedballs and out of your minds in the first place… oh wait.

  17. Jeezus HuffPo, are we so out of anti-gun pundits we had to go back to 1995? I’m sure that the cast of Ally McBeal is probably free, let’s get their opinion on gun control. The Jerry Maguire kid is probably old enough to buy a gun now, better get his opinion too.

  18. “…you wouldn’t want me having a gun either.” – translation: I wouldn’t want my fans to have guns either, cause I only release albums every fifteen years.

    Seriously though, this can be filed in the little blue plastic file box next to my desk entitled “what celebrities think, do I care?)

  19. Wasnt he defending himself when a bunch of Al/Tipper Gore censor types tried to pin kids killing each other on “Jeremy”?

    Funny he doesnt see a parallel.

    • It’s also funny how liberals (such as Tipper, Feinstein, and Lautenberg) have been pushing for restrictions on violent media and video games pretty much as long as these things have been on the market.

      Yet, when Wayne LaPierre makes one dumb remark about violent video games, the progressives go apeshit…

      “OMG! Evil NRA Republicans want to ban violent video games!! OMG!!”

  20. The first time my wife and saw Pearl Jam was on late night TV in the early nineties. She looked at me and said: “They’re not a real band right?” I couldn’t tell either. Thought the performance was some sort of parody. I was stunned when I found out they were real.

  21. I tuned out when Pearl Jam started going on huge anti-W rants on their tour in the early 2000’s. Any band that tries to assert their own political opinion as being correct and everyone else is an idiot stops getting my entertainment money. That goes for actors as well.

  22. Eddy Vedder, play your hits from the 90’s and leaving the grown up conversation to people not stung out on drugs.

  23. Eddie who? Hey, whatever – I don’t want idiots like him to have guns, either, so can we declare him an enemy of the people and lock him up?

  24. Mr. Vedder,
    As a self-confessed irrational person with possible violent tendencies, do you not see the irony of you telling sane, self-controlled gun owners how to live their lives?

  25. Eddie is a major league asshole, his band sucks. I have always hated him and always will. Local radio has been playing his new shit constantly and it needs to stop.

    Though I will give him this, his sound has not changed since the 90s. Still that same dying moose bellow through the whole tune. Unfortunately, liberal twits think that is music.

  26. Mr. Vedder,
    As a self-confessed, irrational person with latent violent tendencies, do you not see the irony of you telling sane, self-controlled gun owners how to live their lives?

  29. DON’T CALL ME DAWWWTERRRRRUGHH
    MY VAN SKIII
    MY PAPERCUT WILL REMIIEEYYEYYEND ME
    DON’T CALL MEEEUGHHH

    • I can hear that pompous fool’s billy-goat vibrato in my head right now…thanks a lot, dude.

      Side note: did you know there’s actually an official term for Vedder’s annoying vocal style? It’s called a “yarl.”

      • lol.

        Pearl Jam might be a listenable band if it weren’t for his absolute god-awful, false-macho vocal style.

        Same reason I can’t stand listening to Alice in Chains or many other of those grunge-era bands. Vocalists all sound the same:

        HEYYYUGHHH
        YEAAAAUGHHHHHH
        HURRRRRR

        • Out of curiosity, when were you guys born? It seems like 90s music (like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains) is really polarizing in that it’s loved by people born in the 1980s or later, and a lot of people born before can’t understand it and think it all sounds the same and is terrible. And the further back you were born the more you feel that way.

          Sort of like when rock and roll first came about and parents couldn’t stand hearing their offspring listen to that “newfangled so-called music”. 😉

        • ’83 myself.

          A little too young to be really into that music, but not old enough that I wasn’t around and listening when it was still new and really popular.

        • Comparing Alice in Chains to Pearl Jam is blasphemy. AIC actually had some talent, two MUCH better vocalists than Vedder and didn’t make the same 2 or 3 songs over and over and over again.

        • @ that’swhat

          It might have a lot to do with timing. I was born in the ’70s. Got my start on rock ‘n roll with Def Leppard and Van Halen in the mid ’80s. For those of us who were used to the pop-metal of the ’80s, grunge was quite a change.

          I hated the grunge revolution, and still despise most of the bands that rode that wave. But there were some good things that came of it.

          Alice in Chains and Soundgarden are godly. I still listen to them. They were grunge, but they weren’t countercultural poser/artistes like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, they were real by-god rock bands. I love how Soundgarden channels Black Sabbath on Louder than Love and Badmotorfinger. Staley (RIP) and Cornell are awesome vocalists. They played grunge with metal in their veins.

          Overall, grunge was a dark time for rock music, but looking back, it was a revolution that had to happen.

  30. There are a couple of good Pearl Jam songs and ‘Rise’ off the Into the Wild soundtrack got me to dust off my mandolin after years. I would have like to have seen them live when he was in that crazy climbing phase. Now he’s in the crazy preacher phase. No me gusta. But let us not forget that he was really big on getting the ‘West Memphis 3’ a …fairer… shake.

  31. Vedder is one of several celebs (Natalie Maines is another) who supported freeing the ‘West Memphis 3’ who were sentenced to life in prison for killing 3 young boys and later released on an Alford plea where they were allowed to plead guilty but maintain their innocence. The three victims weren’t killed with a gun or guns.

  32. Ever notice how these liberals always manage to see the worst in people?
    But notice how these liberals always manage to see the best in government?

    Ever notice how many of these liberal entertainers have armed body guards?
    But notice how many of these liberal entertainers are against you being armed?

    Cognitive dissonance much?

  33. “Glorified G” off of Pearl Jam’s second album VS. He’s had this opinion on guns for a long time.

  34. Again with the “90%” “statistic”? 90% of Americans couldn’t agree that the sky is often blue. It’s a lie Eddie, it’s a lie.

  35. I like he projects his own anger management issues and lack of control onto every other person in the US. If he is on such a fine thread of control, perhaps he should have his driver’s license revoke.

  36. If and when Vedder is charged with some act of violence, I hope this statement about his lack of self control is brought up.

  37. See, this kinda crap right here is why I cant see any musician as anything more than what they are..entertainers..background noise. Except maybe Lemmy cuz he’d just say something like “who gives a f**k?” C’mon, who can actually take anything any of these people say seriously? Who can forget how over hyped Kurt Cobain was as being some sort of “voice” for his generation? Dude was just another drug addled guitar player. Plus Nirvana straight up sucked. Slightly interesting Pearl Jam story. I work nights in a steel plant. Leaving the shop one morning a few years back, there were several tour busses lined up in the road outside the fence. Being a nosey bastid, I asked one of the drivers who were standing there what were they doing. Seems thst Pearl Jam, specificly Eddie Vetter, insisted that all the buses had to run on Bio Diesel. Unfortunately for the drivers, this meant spending a whole lot of extra time driving around in search of said fuel, cuz it aint exactly readily available. They were parked there because theres a small home heating oil company across the road from the shop and they happened to be able to get a few hundred gallons of Bio for them. They were waiting for the owner to get there to open up. He also said that they had 3 more buses that were stuck on the road out of fuel, and they had been spending a lot of what should have been down time for the drivers looking for fuel. I dont think he was a Pearl Jam fan. But thats typical for a holier than thou liberal asshat though isnt it? No matter how foolish an idea is or who suffers for it, as long as THEY feel good about themselves then its a great idea. Living here in Connecticut examples of this are, sadly, really easy to find. I dont listen to too much music anymore intentionally. If im in my car (Charger R/T Hemi) I listen to that sweet Amurrican gas hawg growl..and my shovelhead has straight pipes. Sorry Eddie..yer gonna hafta whine a bit louder…or better yet just shut up.

  38. Keep in mind that Vedder is by far the most libtarded guy in rock and roll, which is really saying something. Not to mention that he’s probably taken one trip too many.

  39. I was never much into Pearl Jam, and after watching a TV documentary on the band, which featured many of their “hits”, I was less than impressed. Conversely, watching a similar (but far superior) doco on Nirvana, I was most impressed, and I actually bought several Nirvana CDs, which I regularly listen to.

    “Turgid” and “Sententious” are the words which spring to mind re PJ. This guy seems to feel he has the voice of God, and compels everyone to listen to as much of his warbling as he can fit into a song. Never heard any of the lyrics, they were so muffled. Just a rambling collection of catch phrases without meaning or significance.

    What’s that old saying: better to be thought a fool than to express yourself and remove all doubt.

    PS: Any of the music of the 60’s and 70’s blows the doors off most of the Seattle grunge. The best that be said for grunge is that it gave teenagers an alternative to rap (which set back race relations a century or more).

  40. On rap: There is a reason most rap “stars” are full of bullet holes. Everyone wants to shoot them. Perhaps this should be made an Olympic sport? I could use a gold medal.

  42. 90% Where did he get that number? And 3 1/2 minutes to load 1 pellet? During the time of the constitution be written, a good rifleman could do it in under a minute. Who does this clown think he is?

  43. When the constitution was written it “took about two minutes to like load the pellet thing”
    Ask a guitarist about music, ask a shooter about guns………, please

  44. Attention Mr Vedder. I don’t give two healthy SH!TS about my congressman’s ability to play music. Guess what that means for YOU?

  46. Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley both kill themselves but this douche bag gets to keep living and spewing left wing garbage to anybody dumb enough to listen? The only reason Pearl Jam is still around is because all the good grunge bands either had members die off or broke up or both. PJ was a joke compared to Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Tool, etc.

    • Yeah PJ were just as bad if not worse than the hair metal grunge killed off. Or so the music press claims.

      A good “alternative” band that survived ’90s grunge and is still going strong? The Melvins, mostly because outside of the 3 major label albums from the height of the alt-rock craze (Houdini, Stoner Witch, Stag) they base their career on pretty much doing whatever the f–k they want. King Buzzo has even shown up on Fox a few times and has espoused some fairly libertarian viewpoints in interviews. Not sure where he is on guns but interesting guy for sure, and a pretty far cry from that scene’s usual politics.

  48. This guy sounded high during the interview. I love how the world is supposed to take advice from people that constantly break the law, are in and out of rehab, and have no clue about anything other than what’s cool.

    Vedder probably can’t even own a gun, he’s been arrested before and he’s a drug addict.

    And along those lines, Jay Z was arrested too, for guess what “gun possession”. Now he’s helping his buddy Obama in gun control.

  49. Just another sullen Seattle shoe gazing shiat fer brains in dire need of a Kurt Cobain special applied directly to the forehead.

  50. I wonder if this guy is a sociopath. I know a guy who says stuff like “I wish I could own a crossbow, but I’d probably shoot someone with it.” and he’s a total sociopath.

  52. I HOPE THAT NEXT TIME YOU WHOLE PEARL JAM BAND GET ABOARD A PLANE, THIS ONE GOES STRAIGHT DOWN FROM 35,000 FEET AND MAKES A BIG BALL OF FIRE ON GROUNDS NEAR THE DESERT WHERE THERE ARE NOT INNOCENT GUN OWNERS ANF THEN I WILL THROW A PARTY IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. I DO NOT OWN ANY CDs FROM YOU AND NEVER WILL. YOUR MUSIC IS ANY WAY A BIG SHIT AND HAVE NO INTEREST IN BUYING MUSIC THAT I DON’T LIKE ANY WAY.

  53. I GUESS BIG MANIACS DRUG USERS LIKE THIS SHITTY PEARL JAM GUYS DO COMMENTS LIKES THIS, BECAUSE THEY , AS DANGEROUS DRUG USERS DO NOT BE ALLOW TO OWN GUNS.

  54. AND TO FINISH WITH YOU ASSHOLES…BE CAREFUL BECAUSE ONE OF THIS DAYS IN ONE OF YOUR CONCERTS, PEOPLE WILL THROW ROTTEN EGGS AT YOUR FACE AT THE STAGE.

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