20 Things You Should Know About Pearl Jam

Watch Pearl Jam: Storytellers this Saturday, July 1, at 10 pm ET.

1. Eddie has inspired at least four "tribute" songs: Local H's "Eddie Vedder," Weird Al Yankovic's "My Baby's In Love with Eddie Vedder," SNFU's "Better than Eddie Vedder," and "Me and Eddie Vedder" by the Rugburns.

2. Eddie has two foot pedals for his guitar -- one is labeled "Dirt" and the other is "Soap."

3. Eddie literally became the grunge poster boy in 1993, appearing on the cover of Time magazine with the headline "All the rage: Angry young rockers like Pearl Jam give voice to the passions and fears of a generation."

4. "Better Man" was written and performed by Vedder while he was the singer for Bad Radio, a San Diego band he fronted in his pre-Seattle days. On VH1's Storytellers, Gossard noted that Vedder didn't share his "Better Man" demo until they were working on their third disc. "Just think of the other songs he has hidden away," Stone said.

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5. In Cameron Crowe's 1992 film Singles, Gossard, Ament, and Vedder appear as members of Matt Dillon's band, Citizen Dick.

6. The band has a touch of Spinal Tap in 'em when it comes to drummers. Three of their stick men - Dave Krusen, Dave Abbruzzese, and Jack Irons - have come and gone. No, no one died of spontaneous combustion.

7. Pearl Jam has a basketball jones. Ament was the starting point guard on his high school all-state team in Montana. The band was first called Mookie Blaylock after one of their fave NBA players, and their debut Ten got its title from Mookie's uniform number. At a 1998 show in Dallas, a shirtless and shoeless Dennis Rodman climbed on stage, dancing and singing with the band for 45 minutes. His voice is heard on an answering machine on "Black, Red, Yellow," a B-side on the "Hail Hail" single. And Eddie sang the National Anthem before the third game of the 1998 NBA Finals in Chicago (you can find it on YouTube, of course).

8. On April 16, 1994, 11 days after Kurt Cobain's suicide, Pearl Jam appeared on Saturday Night Live. During "Daughter," Vedder pulled back his jacket to reveal a large "K" written on his T-shirt, and ended the song quoting Neil Young's "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)," which includes the "it's better to burn out than to fade away" reference in Kurt's suicide note.

9. Eddie's full name is Edward Louis Seversen III. He used his stepfather's last name, Mueller, before using Vedder, his mother's maiden name.

10. At various secret shows and benefits, the band has been billed as Piss Bottle Men (a nod to a song by Mike Watt), the Honking Seals, and the David J. Gunn Band.

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11. Pearl Jam's 1998 Yield disc was inspired by Ishmael, a novel by Daniel Quinn, in which the title character -- a gorilla who can communicate telepathically -- expounds on the problems of human civilization. "This book was passed around during the last recording session, and we pass it on to you," the band said in a letter to their fan club. "You could almost go as far as saying that the liner notes to the record are in there."

12. In May, Illinois homeboy Vedder [holding two-year-old daughter Olivia] threw out the first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field and led the crowd in a sing-along of "Take Me Out To the Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch. He had previously performed the tune in 1998 and 2003, adding a "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" shout-out to the Ramones in '03.

13. Vedder has inducted three icons into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: the Doors in 1993 (he filled in for Jim Morrison during a three-song set), Neil Young in 1995 and the Ramones in 2002. He sported a very spiky mohawk at the latter affair.

14. Pearl Jam side projects have included Mad Season (McCready with Layne Staley of Alice In Chains and Barrett Martin of Screaming Trees), Three Fish (Ament), Brad (Gossard), the Rockfords (McCready), and Wellwater Conspiracy (Matt Cameron). Vedder, credited as Jerome, drummed with his ex-wife's band, Hovercraft.

15. Mike McCready plays lead guitar on the Stillwater songs in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous.

16. The tattoo of a crossed tomahawk and a wrench on Vedder's right calf is the logo of Earth First!, a radical environmental group.

17. The 15-year-old Matt Cameron sings "Puberty Love" in the 1978 cult classic Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. SPOILER ALERT: When the homicidal fruits are corralled in Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego (Cameron's hometown), the song is played at top volume and killer tomatoes meet a horrid demise. Even more trivia: Matt is credited as "Foo" Cameron, a nickname derived from his younger brother, who pronounced Matthew as "Ma Foo."

18. Vedder wrote "Life Wasted," the opening track on their new disc, in a car after attending the funeral of Johnny Ramone, who he called "the best friend I ever had on the planet."

19. The band made its debut on October 22, 1990 at a small Seattle club called the Off Ramp. Their first tour was a brief West Coast trip opening for Alice in Chains in February 1991.

20. "Last Kiss," the band's most successful single, was a cover of a 1964 hit by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers. The Pearl Jam version was first issued as its seventh fan-club-only Christmas single in 1998, and then on No Boundaries: A Benefit for the Kosovar Refugees. Both the original and the cover peaked at No. 2 on the charts.