Matt Cameron quits Pearl Jam

[given2trade]

I've been out all day. Did we find out which cancer Matt has?

[dprival78]

can josh quit pearl jam now?

[Ello Sailor]

can josh quit pearl jam now?

Nah, he's locked in as tour bus driver huehuehue

[96583UP]

everyone just skipping over Josh's assorted triangles and inaudible 4th guitar accompaniment as though they have not been foundational catalysts for the band's live success the last several years

[Rangi Guy]

I listened to No Code this afternoon while throwing kettlebells around

[E.H. Ruddock]

can josh quit pearl jam now?

Nah, he's locked in as tour bus driver huehuehue

[bodysnatcher]

Does this mean we'll get an updated Funko Pop set??

[spike]

STP I feel is the creepiest of the bunch hiring a soundalike.

I mean, this is what they’ve always been.

[spike]

everyone just skipping over Josh's assorted triangles and inaudible 4th guitar accompaniment as though they have not been foundational catalysts for the band's live success the last several years

Haha, didn’t Josh also take over backing vocal duties from Matt? Perhaps another clue to his demise that we all missed.

[Ms Harmless]

i bet ms. harmless would love this kind of snare sound

Spoiler: show

lol it's true

[Ms Harmless]

Stuverud made Animal sound like it hadn't sounded in 20 years...and Stone knew it with the way he was moving and smiling during it...I'm down for him taking the reins

I absolutely need to hear this

Spoiler: show

that snare tone is really nice but it's still too fast!

Two different drummers and it's still too fast?

Blame it on Mike and Stone then, not a drummer(s)

maybe? or maybe it's just a product of live "energy" being more important than calculated feel to the guys these days

I blame the whole band, including the drummers; all they have to say is "it's not working like this"

anyway that boat sailed a long time ago and I didn't mean to start yet another "everything's too fast" debate!

[stip]

I'm not upset that he's left the band but I am a bit sad that I might have already seen him play live for the last time.

It will be good to hear more of Matt outside the confines of post-Riot Act PJ.

Not addressing this at you per se, but it's a sentiment I've seen elsewhere as well, and I struggle to see how Pearl Jam 2025, where they tour 2-3 months a year and make an album every few years, really prevents anyone from following other muses. I see how Matt might worry he is holding the bands touring aspirations back if he has health issues, and I am sure he will be a prolific session/studio drummer and maybe pop up here and there for fun little mini gigs (like Peter Buck post REM). But he couldn't do that now?

[coptheriotact]

he may only want to spend 2-3 months a year making music

[Chris_H_2]

he may only want to spend 2-3 months a year making music

Pearl Jam would be perfect for him. Someone should throw that idea out to him.

[Aunt_Claire_Foy]

I'm not upset that he's left the band but I am a bit sad that I might have already seen him play live for the last time.

It will be good to hear more of Matt outside the confines of post-Riot Act PJ.

Not addressing this at you per se, but it's a sentiment I've seen elsewhere as well, and I struggle to see how Pearl Jam 2025, where they tour 2-3 months a year and make an album every few years, really prevents anyone from following other muses. I see how Matt might worry he is holding the bands touring aspirations back if he has health issues, and I am sure he will be a prolific session/studio drummer and maybe pop up here and there for fun little mini gigs (like Peter Buck post REM). But he couldn't do that now?

He could, and has. He’s had more side projects than any other band member, and while the quality varies, these are clearly projects he made time for and enjoyed. I don’t think he left because of the schedule interfering with output… I think it was age and a waning dexterity. If you’re the guy known for Jesus Christ Pose and Spoonman, if you feel like you can’t keep up or you need more frequent breaks, that’s a scary thing. We need to think of drummers like athletes. In addition to his musicality, his physical prowess was quantifiably top tier.

[96583UP]

Matt exits the PJ group chat

enters the PJ ex-drummer group chat

[GreenMosquito1996]

I can't wait for the newsletter to arrive. At 10 a.m. ?

[lvc]

Anybody else catch that the band only says Matt Cameron will be their friend in art and music but not, you know, regular life? Very telling. Where's VH1 behind the music when you need it.

Spoiler: show

[oneway23]

We need to think of drummers like athletes.

That comparison is one of the things that struck me most when Neil Peart spoke in those terms as he retired. He was not someone who wanted to be out there performing when he was beyond his best.

[stip]

I'll also put this here

From TSIS

I panicked when Dave Abbruzzese left Pearl Jam, thanks to a deep and abiding fear that a band breakup was imminent. No one seemed to enjoy being in Pearl Jam, and I assumed he was a core part of both their sound and identity (it was a different time. We just knew what Rolling Stone and Spin told us). At the very least, for the duration of my fandom, he was the only Pearl Jam drummer I knew. I didn’t know what Pearl Jam was without him. Or what they would be for me.

I was relieved when Jack Irons joined since it meant Pearl Jam would continue. I knew next to nothing about him – only that he was in the liner notes of Vitalogy, and that playing drums on Stupid Mop was not exactly the calling card I was looking for. It wasn’t until much later that I learned about his history with Ed, and that Pearl Jam would not exist without him.

I saw Pearl Jam live for the first time with Jack. It was a transcendent experience (Randall’s Island, Night 1). Prior to that moment, Pearl Jam always felt fragile – something that could fall apart at any moment, their survival dependent on the will and whim of Eddie Vedder, a man equally likely to shatter or detonate at any moment. Something changed for me after that night. Seeing them live was almost a supernatural experience– like they were channeling something larger than themselves – something primal, elemental, raw, and true that was simultaneously not of this world and its beating heart. Something that real couldn’t help but exist. After that night, Pearl Jam finally felt immortal – something that would HAVE to endure, whether they wanted to or not.

And yet, when Jack left the band, I still felt fear, if not outright panic. By 1998 it seemed inevitable that the Seattle bands were destined to disintegrate, and I wasn’t confident Pearl Jam would be different. When I learned that Matt Cameron would join them for the Yield tour, it wasn’t just that I was relieved (though I was!). This pairing felt right and proper. The greatest drummer of the grunge moment should be a part of its greatest band. I don’t think I knew he played on the demos sent to Ed, but I knew Temple of The Dog, and when Matt became an official member, it felt like the closing of a loop, or the end of an extended prologue. Pearl Jam had found its forever lineup. The one it was always meant to have.

Twenty seven years is not forever. But in terms of band dynamics it may as well be. And while Jack Irons is often credited with saving Pearl Jam, Matt Cameron is undoubtedly the reason they endured. Matt Cameron did what probably felt impossible for most of the 90s. He made Eddie, Jeff, Mike, and Stone want to be in Pearl Jam.

Matt was a flashier drummer in Soundgarden. His parts more obvious. But that makes sense. Soundgarden was the musically showier band. Pearl Jam’s playing wasn’t technical in its orientation. It was emotional. Soundgarden, for me, often felt like an exercise in craft. Whereas Pearl Jam was a study in experiential truth. And I think we often forget (or take for granted) something fundamental about Matt: that he is arguably the most adaptable and selfless drummer of his era. In the innumerable albums he has guested on, the bands and projects he has been a part of, one of his singular gifts is his capacity to be whatever the music needed him to be. There is no overlap between talent and ego on Matt’s Venn diagram. He drummed in service of the song, not himself. I don’t think there is a member of the band as musically giving as Matt. There is a reason Eddie spent twenty seven years gushing about the opportunity to play with Matt. Matt enabled all of them to be their best selves, in ways that were maybe hard to see from the outside, but were so blindingly apparent to the band. And while this stage banter sometimes made it seem like Matt was in an extended guest spot, in reality it was recognition that his singular talents were not taken for granted – the ones the audience could see and hear, and the ones that could only be felt and understood by the band itself.



It's not that Matt was a chameleon. It’s just that he was monstrously talented, endlessly adaptable, and somehow always true to himself. Matt ensured whatever Pearl Jam did, the music would always maintain its integrity, and that whatever direction their individual muses took them (including his own), he would be there to hold it all together, and ensure that whatever came out of that alchemy was unmistakably Pearl Jam. In the studio for sure, and especially in the increasingly emotional and improvisational live experience.

Although Matt was the drummer on 60% of their albums and for 80% of their life as a band (I double checked the math. 80%!), he missed their imperial moment in the early 90s. He was not the studio drummer on the songs that made them famous, the songs that endured in the public consciousness. It is true that Matt will always stand outside the Ten, Vs, Vitalogy arc (he was having his own with Soundgarden) when Pearl Jam was the most important band in the world.

But there is another Pearl Jam. The Pearl Jam I have seen for twenty nine of my thirty shows. The band that could release 72 bootlegs and set two records for most albums to debut in the Billboard 200. The band that built a reputation as one of the best live rock acts of all time. Their incomprehensible performance chemistry is a product of the Matt Cameron era. The Pearl Jam that made Pearl Jam Radio possible, that made it so that you could be a fan solely of their live material and never run out of things to listen to – we owe this to Matt. His legacy is that Pearl Jam never became a legacy act. He was not of the Pearl Jam I saw on TV growing up. But he was the backbone of the Pearl Jam I was privileged to grow alongside of.

Rock bands have short life spans. Group dynamics are complicated under the best of circumstances, and having to maintain them under the glare and scrutiny of a sometimes obnoxious and entitled fan base (which is, to be fair, all fan bases) is hard to do. Bring in egos, money, the pressure and need of the machinery that depends on you, and it’s a miracle any of them survive. Most don’t. And most of us, therefore, find that our favorite music gets trapped in a particular moment in time – those brief windows when a band existed. And the music becomes a frozen, reified thing. Something we can go return to, or a piece of the past we can carry with us. But that relationship is always looking backwards, always recapturing something we had to leave behind.

But not for us. We have been blessed to grow old with our band. That the soundtrack of our lives is forever expanding, bridging our past, present and future is a gift we were given. Pearl Jam has been a constant in my life for almost 34 years – as a living, changing thing. The music did not just help me find and retain my youthful passion and outrage, but grapple with my adult responsibilities and obligations. It has been there to bridge the space between my dreams and my reality, to help me understand the world I grew up in, the world I made, and the one I will be passing on.

It is easy to take this for granted, and Matt’s departure is shocking because, whether we are conscious of it or not, it reminds us none of this is inevitable. None of it will last forever. It takes luck. It takes work. It takes love. It is a relationship, and now that will relationship will have to change. It is only appropriate that we grieve what is lost. It shaped our fandom. In countless ways, big and small, it helped shape who we are. It mattered. What follows will still be real. But it will be different.

I love Matt’s output with the band. He has anchored some stellar albums. He has been the drummer on some of my very favorite Pearl Jam songs. And he has even written a handful of my favorites. But his biggest contribution, I think, is the fact that Pearl Jam is still here. I don’t think it would be without him.

When Matt announced his retirement it was bittersweet. Matt has earned his the right to walk away on his own terms, while he can. Our heroes deserve the right to control their destiny. I wish him all the best in whatever happens next. I am sure he will be back on stage at one point. But I will miss him. What he accomplished, what he represented, and what he made possible.

This marks the end of an era, but not the end. This time I didn’t feel panic. Because Matt carried the rest of the band to a place where I no longer fear for Pearl Jam’s future. He made them comfortable in their skins. He made them enjoy being in a band together. He built the symbiotic and generative relationship they have with their fans. He helped turn concerts into revivals, and I just can’t imagine the band ever wanting to give that up. Pearl Jam will be different without him. But it will endure. Thanks to him.

Thank you Matt, for the music.
Thank you, Matt, for the memories.
Thank you, Matt, for putting in the work.
And thank you, Matt, for ensuring that this is not the end.