Call it holistic or holographic thinking, it's been quite effective imagining the world's problems are all right in front of you on a smaller scale with your band. You deal with those relationships, and that's where real major change begins.

Every year is filled with good times and fights and struggles and misunderstandings. All of it adds up to being in a band over a long time.

I picked up a guitar, and I knew what I wanted to do.

Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.

We may take breaks and do other things, but we feel we'll ultimately have Pearl Jam as a family.

A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music's simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It's different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I'm mutating country and folk more than a few degrees.

I think I have my own sort of distinctive swing, for sure. I think that's something that comes really natural to me, to push against the beat and kind of explore a triplet feel behind everything just to see what that feels like.