Pearl Jam's debut album Ten turns 35

Pearl Jam's debut album Ten has turned 35, and the people who made it went back through how it came together. The story starts in March 1990, when Andrew Wood, the singer of Stone Gossard's band Mother Love Bone, died of an overdose weeks before their major label debut was due out.

Gossard was 24 and did not stop. Within a few months of Wood's death he had written an album's worth of songs, or at least the bones of them, in the attic of his parents' house, working alongside Mike McCready, a metal kid turned Stevie Ray Vaughan devotee whose fluid solos Gossard treated as a second voice in the band. Bassist Jeff Ament, who had considered going back to art school, came back in.

The demos were cut with Soundgarden's Matt Cameron on drums, and the tape reached Eddie Vedder in San Diego through former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons. Vedder was working as a security supervisor at a petroleum company. He recorded his vocals at home in four or five hours, having written most of the lyrics and melodies in his head while surfing after a couple of sleepless nights.

What came back was close to finished. Alive, Once and the eventual B side Footsteps arrived carrying a narrative that runs across all three, and a voice pitched low at a moment when hard rock singers were competing to go higher. "I loved his low register immediately," Gossard said. It was not all usable: Vedder's first pass at Once wandered into spoken word and falsetto funk, which he still finds funny.

Dave Krusen played drums, and was pushed out as soon as the album was done. He was struggling with drinking through the sessions, and his first child was born as they started. His bandmates have never stopped praising the playing, and brought him back for the band's 2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.

Recording proper began at Seattle's London Bridge Studios in March 1991 with Rick Parashar, and it was harder than the Temple of the Dog sessions had been. Gossard said the band overthought it and that communication broke down; Even Flow was attempted 70 times or more. Vedder, who had never made a professional record, was largely unaware of the tension and slept on a studio couch, locked in at night, redoing takes.

The anniversary has produced a second release as well: Pearl Jam are pressing a 2016 Philadelphia performance of Ten to vinyl in November. Other rock records of the era have hit the same milestones this year, among them Jimmy Eat World touring 25 years of Bleed American.