Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder Says Pop Music Can Be ‘Toxic’ And How Being A Parent Changed His Songwriting

Pearl Jam has released their 10th Studio Album, "Lightning Bolt." Lead Singer Eddie Vedder sits down and talks about the music scene, and how being a parent has changed his own take on songwriting.

 In an interview with Huffington Post, Vedder addresses various topics. On the perceived decline of rock music: "You can look at it another way, that when it does get in the mainstream, it tends to get watered down and co-opted rather quickly. If things are cyclical, and some people might look at rock as being on the downside, that probably means that it can retain some purity that maybe wouldn't be there otherwise. But I think there's some good pop music out there. I tend to know a little bit more about that than I would normally because I have kids. But, you know, you don't want ice cream for dinner every night. At some point, I imagine it might go back to hi-fi or die. We'll see."

On today's popular music and whether he likes some of them:
"There are certain songs that are empowering, especially for women. Maybe it's the fact that I have little girls, but songs that are empowering -- for really anybody -- give you the ice cream, but they become something of value. Yeah, and if you consume it -- and I think that's maybe when you're looking at it from a parental standpoint. I'm not going to advocate burning books or bulldozing records, but you look out for your kids and hope they're not having toxic intake. I think in the new world, that's more difficult thing to do."

On being a parent and how it has changed his songwriting: "I think there are many answers to that question, and I'm not sure which is the best one. It changes you. There's no way to avoid that. My patterns as a human were fairly established. I thought that parenting would be a sidecar to everything I was doing. If anything, I was in the sidecar. In a myriad of ways, it's going to change everything. Being a parent could take your focus away, but it could also add focus. It takes your focus away because you have a constant responsibility and beautiful distraction. It can add to your focus, though, because you know you don't have three days to yourself to become a mad scientist and lock yourself in a room with three cases of beer and a carton of smokes and come out with a song. You're going to do it in an hour, with a six-pack and one pack of smokes. So, it's really healthy.

You don't have the luxury of insanity anymore. You're not really allowed to be insane. I resented that for a little bit. I was like, "No, it's important to be the mad scientist crazy person and to dig down deep and get to some place you haven't been before." Then you realize that it's not fair to your kids to have a psycho dad. That's just not the way it's going to work. You figure out other ways to generate the same results, but you do it in a way that's less insane. I think in that way it's a positive thing and it's probably added years to my life."