Pearl Jam Twenty

• Pearl Jam on Pearl Jam: While heralded as rock music icons, Pearl Jam is also known for being notoriously media-adverse. After the epic success of Ten, the band shunned the spotlight, refusing to shoot videos or do interviews. Even as their studio albums continued to be critically acclaimed and commercially successful, the interworkings of the band remained unknown to even their diehard fans, until now. Pearl Jam Twenty is an intimate narrative of the band told from their perspective. This ascetically stunning, definitive chronicle of their two decades as a band is a treasure trove of little-known anecdotes, rare archival memorabilia, and the band’s personal photos, tour notes, and drawings.

• A twenty-year anniversary event: Academy Award-winning director Cameron Crowe will write the book’s Foreword and his major film about the band will be released to coincide with Pearl Jam Twenty’s publication. The band will promote the book alongside the film’s premiere at fall 2011 film festivals and a series of special events will be arranged to celebrate the band’s two-decade anniversary.

• One of the world’s greatest bands: Pearl Jam exploded onto the music scene in 1991 with their debut album Ten, which has sold 13 million copies. In 2009, the band’s most recent (and self-released) studio album, Backspacer, debuted at #1 on the Billboard chart and #1 on iTunes, was certified gold in three months, and earned a 2010 Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song (“The Fixer”).

• Continued relevance: Instrumental in popularizing alternative rock in the mainstream, twenty years in, Pearl Jam refuses to slow down, building on their already enormous fan base. Their official fan club, Ten Club, is one of the music industry’s largest, and they have more than 2.3 million Facebook friends. Known for their relentless touring and intense live performance, the band is still considered an A-list festival headliner and regularly sells out arenas worldwide. Pearl Jam is also recognized as one of the foremost proponents of social causes in the music business.

In 1991, Pearl Jam’s debut album, Ten catapulted the little-known Seattle-based band into superstardom. Then, at the height of their popularity, the band shunned the spotlight, refusing to shoot videos or do interviews. Even as Pearl Jam’s studio albums continued to be critically acclaimed and commercially successful, selling over 60 million albums worldwide, the inner workings of the band—their day-to-day routines, influences, and motivations—remained unknown even to their diehard fans.

Twenty years later, this is their story. PEARL JAM TWENTY is a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes anecdotes, rare archival memorabilia, and the band’s personal photos, tour notes, and drawings. Told with wit and insight in the band members’ own words, and assembled by veteran music writer Jonathan Cohen with Mark Wilkerson—and including a foreword by Cameron Crowe along with original interviews with legends and contemporaries like Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, and Dave Grohl—this intimate work provides an in-depth look at a group of musicians who through defying convention established themselves as “the greatest American rock band ever” (USA Today Readers’ Poll 2005).