How much would that helmet sell for on...
(From an old Rolling Stone Eddie Vedder Interview)
Interviewer: I understand that the guys would present riffs and you'd pick the weird one instead of the one that sounded like Pearl Jam. And also, I wonder if there were other songs that were as catchy or as poppy as "Betterman" but we never heard them because they weren't what you wanted.
EV: Yeah. We were all trying to tame the beast. I was the guy who got [stalkers] or whatever, it just happened. And so it probably seemed more life-threatening to me to tame the beast. And you know, we're talking about melodies and hooks in a song, and could that be life-threatening? But, I've just explained it. I felt that with any more popularity we were going to be crushed, or our heads were going to pop like grapes. I went through this fucking yearlong period where I wore helmets all the time. It was like army helmets that I'd find, or just like whatever. It was this kind of analogy, like I need a helmet...I felt like...it's just funny looking...sleeping in a fucking army helmet. I remember one day after a Lollapalooza gig, I woke up in a hotel in an army helmet and a T-shirt. And, I heard a live band playing. I thought it was a live band. So I went out the door to see if it was live. I had to know -- was that a real stand-up bass? Or were they just playing music in the atrium or whatever? So I pushed the door open, went to look, you know, and I looked back and the door just went [makes a clicking sound]. So I'm standing in the hotel, in this atrium thing and I've got an army helmet on and a T-shirt.
Interviewer: In like your underwear? Nothing?
EV: Nothing; army helmet and a T-shirt. I was thinking, "Aww, this is really bad." And so I go down to the maids, but they won't let me in. I don't know anybody else's room number. Everyone's got a pseudonym. I don't know who's what. And, so I take the T-shirt off, wrap it around the back, put the army helmet over the front, go down in this glass elevator, it's Easter Sunday -- this all starts to hit me -- it's Easter Sunday, there's all these people in their Easter [best]. It was somewhere in the Midwest like Milwaukee or something. I had to walk through the people, and parents were hiding their kids from this freaky guy. It must have been like a real apparition. Then -- sorry I got into this story; I'll just finish it -- but the funny thing is that I actually waited in line. There was a line at the front desk. I actually waited in line behind two other people. It was kind of a Tarzan goes to Vietnam look or something. And then of course you get to the lady, tell her your problem, locked out of your room and, of course, she asks for an ID. That's when I lost it.
Sep 16th