Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament: "Music Is In A Better Place Than It's Ever Been"

While Pearl Jam themselves have contributed their 5K-rated Gigaton to the wealth of absolutely brilliant albums coming out in 2020, Jeff Ament has praised several other rock bands for their work, enthusing that "music is in a better place than it's ever been right now".

Speaking on the new episode of ALT CTRL on Apple Music, the bassist reveals how watching Bristol punks IDLES live last year inspired him to check out other bands in a similar vein, even going as far as to compare that movement in particular to the legendary East Coast hardcore or late-’80s Seattle scenes.

"I think the actual music is in a better place than it's ever been," he says. "There's so much fantastic music. It's different than it was a couple years ago. It's not like you're going to the record store and talking to the record guy, but it's going online, it's talking to your friends."

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Jeff continues: "A year ago, I saw this band IDLES, and that just sent me on this incredible journey into Murder Capital and Fontaines D.C. and Shame and all those bands. I feel like that happens every three or four years for me where there's a subculture happening somewhere that just gets you really excited about music again, and honestly, it feels as exciting as when I first heard The Ramones, or when I first heard Black Flag and Dead Kennedys and Minor Threat and all that East Coast hardcore, and even what was going on here in Seattle in the late-’80s. I mean, there's incredible art being made all over the place. One of the great things about technology is you can usually find it really fast. You don't have to order it."

He adds that when people say, "Rock is dead," his response is simply, "Man, go check this… because this is rock. This is as good rock music as has been on the planet in the last 20 years."

Considering the breeding ground that has spawned such great modern rock, Jeff says, "There's young people learning how to play their instruments in a different way than we learned how to play our instruments, and there's a lot of pissed off people, and there's a lot of anxious people, and that's just all a perfect brew for great music and great art."

Listen to the interview below:

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