Rock and roll icon Eddie Vedder joined the Stern Show Tuesday morning to speak with Howard and his listeners about an issue very near and dear to his heart: epidermolysis bullosa (EB). As chronicled in “Matter of Time,” the Pearl Jam frontman and philanthropist’s soul-stirring new Netflix documentary, EB is a rare genetic disorder especially devastating to infants and young children. The heart-wrenching film blends powerful concert footage of Eddie’s 2023 benefit performances with a closer look at EB, the families it affects, and the scientific community’s race to find a cure.
Howard was moved by the “spectacular” doc as well as the fact Eddie and his wife Jill Vedder’s nonprofit organization, EB Research Partnership, has helped raise over $80 million and funded more than 180 EB research projects worldwide.
“This ability to come in and raise awareness, this is why we’re proud of the film,” Vedder told Howard. “You do get to know what this condition is. You do get to know what the kids and the parents go through — and parts of it are very tough to watch, but dammit you get to see and you get to feel and you get to understand that, you know, it’s heartbreaking, but it’s hopeful.”
Howard’s enthralling chat with Eddie was both free-flowing and comprehensive, covering topics ranging from jamming with the Rolling Stones and riding horses with Bruce Springsteen to some of the legendary musician’s other passions, including painting and surfing.
“What is the better high: catching a great wave surfing [or] playing that music and hearing the audience sing every word of it?” Howard asked.
“Both things are experiences that you look back on them with some reverence and some excitement, but after having done it you can appreciate it,” Vedder responded. “But when you’re in it, you just kind of have to be in it. ‘Don’t wipe out.’ That’s what you’re thinking in both cases: don’t wipe out.”
Wipeouts do occasionally happen, however, even for someone who has been winning audiences over on stage for as long as Eddie. “Maybe it’s a song I haven’t played in a while, and now I’m playing it, and now the vocals are about to come in, and I don’t know what the first line is,” he said, adding, “If you open your mouth, the first line comes out. It’s this bizarre thing that happens.”
“Really?” Howard marveled.
“Most times,” the musician clarified with a smile. “Every once in a while — one out of 10 — it won’t come out. Then you’ll have to look at people in the front row, who usually know [the lyrics], so I can just lean in and ask them.”
Regardless of what might go wrong on stage, rock legends like Vedder almost always manage to rise to the occasion. Could the same be said of Howard in 2024 when Eddie offered him the opportunity to perform alongside Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden?
“I’m backstage watching you guys. I think you felt bad for me, and you go, ‘You know, Howard, you could join us and play tambourine.’ And I went, ‘Agghh, can you imagine?’” Howard recalled with a laugh, adding, “That was really nice of you, by the way.”
“I think I suggested you play guitar,” Vedder responded. “I would not saddle you with a tambourine. Plus, [if] you go out in Madison Square Garden I want you to have something covering your midsection. I just want you to feel fortified and protected.”
Thankfully for the King of All Media, he did still get to hear one of his favorite Pearl Jam tunes — “Glorified G” — which Eddie revealed they added to the setlist just for him. “Anytime you come we will play it. You breathe new life into that song,” he told Howard.
Curtain Call With the Rolling Stones
In 1997, Eddie famously teamed up with the Rolling Stones for a live performance of “Waiting on a Friend.” Nearly 30 years later, Vedder still vividly recalls the conversations he had backstage with the band’s wonderfully eccentric frontman Mick Jagger — not to mention the chiffon curtains hanging in his dressing room.
“You probably think that’s … so rockstar to have chiffon curtains in [his] dressing room,” Howard told Eddie.
“It would’ve been insane if he didn’t,” Eddie laughed. “I remember getting into the elevator and it was [more] chiffon and leopard print,” he continued. “I get in and there were two Stones crew guys … And the one guy looks at the other, and he looks around at the leopard and the pink, and he says, ‘Do you think that the band thinks the whole world looks like this?’ And the other guy says, ‘I think they do.’”
Horsing Around With Bruce Springsteen
“Matter of Time” is available now on Netflix.
