"Yield" was completed in 1997 and released in 1998. In the spring of 1997, I had made a decision to stop taking medications that I had been taking daily since 1988.

I finished the recordings I had started with Eleven. Matt Cameron joined for the rest of those sessions.

After wrestling with myself for six months, I began medical treatment. During that time I started a band with some friends of mine called Jack's Car, but that didn't last.

I remember wearing overcoats, hiding in the bushes outside of Abbey Road Studios, waiting for the traffic to clear. As it did, we would drop our overcoats and run out on to the cross walk and strike our poses.

I had wanted to play drums since the age of 9 when I saw a drum set in the window of a music store for the first time. We took lessons at a local music school and began playing together after about 6-9 months of lessons.

I began both auditioning with Pearl Jam and recording for Eleven. In the fall of 1994, I joined Pearl Jam.

I could not finish the rest of the tours the band had planned. I was replaced by Matt Cameron. The next years of my life were about recovery, healing, and right living. I never lost the need to create.