Eddie Vedder

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Vedder was born in Evanston, Illinois, and raised believing his stepfather Peter Mueller was his biological father, going by the name Edward Mueller for a time. In the mid-1970s, his family moved to San Diego County, California. He received a guitar from his mother on his 12th birthday and began turning to music and surfing as a source of comfort, finding solace in The Who's 1973 album Quadrophenia. After his mother and Mueller divorced when Vedder was in his late teens, he learned the truth about his parentage—that Mueller was really his stepfather—and that his biological father, Edward Louis Severson Jr., had died of multiple sclerosis. This discovery later inspired the song "Alive." During his senior year at San Dieguito High School, Vedder moved out on his own, supported himself with a nightly job at a drug store, and dropped out of high school. He later changed his last name to Vedder, his mother's maiden name, and earned his high school GED from Oakton Community College in the early 1980s.

In Their Own Story

In 1990, Vedder was working part time as a night clerk at a local gas station when former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons gave him a demo tape of a Seattle band looking for a singer. Vedder listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. He wrote lyrics for three songs in what he later described as a "mini-opera" entitled Momma-Son, telling the story of a young man who learns he had been lied to about his paternity and that his real father is dead. He recorded vocals for the three songs and mailed the demo tape back to Seattle. Those songs would later become Pearl Jam's "Alive," "Once," and "Footsteps." After hearing Vedder's tape, former Mother Love Bone members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament invited him to Seattle to audition. They were instantly impressed with his unique sound. At the time, they were working on the Temple of the Dog project, founded by Soundgarden's Chris Cornell as a tribute to Andrew Wood. The song "Hunger Strike" became a duet between Cornell and Vedder. Cornell later said Vedder "sang half of that song not even knowing that I'd wanted the part to be there and he sang it exactly the way I was thinking about doing it, just instinctively."

Reader's Guide

Eddie Vedder is the lead vocalist and primary lyricist for Pearl Jam, a band formed in 1990 by Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, and Mike McCready, who recruited Vedder as lead singer. The band was initially called Mookie Blaylock but changed its name to Pearl Jam when they signed to Epic Records in 1991, naming their debut album Ten after Blaylock's jersey number. Ten became one of the best-selling albums of the 1990s, certified 13× Platinum. The single "Jeremy" received Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Song and Best Hard Rock Performance in 1993, and its music video won four awards at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year. The band's second album, Vs., set the record for most copies of an album sold in a week and spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard 200. Feeling the pressures of success, the band decreased promotion for its albums, including refusing to release music videos. In 1994, the band began a much-publicized boycott of Ticketmaster that lasted for three years. Vedder faced what he called a "pretty intense stalker problem" during the mid-1990s, which he referred to in the song "Lukin" from No Code. The band's third album, Vitalogy, received Grammy nominations for Album of the Year and Best Rock Album in 1996, and the lead single "Spin the Black Circle" won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance.

Did You Know?

• Vedder was born Edward Louis Severson III and changed his last name to Vedder, his mother's maiden name, after learning the truth about his parentage.
• He wrote lyrics for three Pearl Jam songs—"Alive," "Once," and "Footsteps"—after hearing a demo tape while going surfing.
• Vedder's first featured vocal on a record was on Temple of the Dog's "Hunger Strike," a duet with Chris Cornell.
• He dropped out of San Dieguito High School during his senior year and later earned his GED from Oakton Community College.
• Vedder was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 as a member of Pearl Jam.