Stone Gossard
Stone Gossard
Stone Carpenter Gossardis an American musician who serves as the rhythm and additional lead guitarist for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Along with Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, and Eddie Vedder, he is one of the founding members of Pearl Jam. Gossard is also known for his work prior to Pearl Jam with the 1980s Seattle, Washington-based grunge bands Green River and Mother Love Bone, and he has made contributions to the music industry as a producer and owner of...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth20 July 1966
CountryUnited States of America
I like to write music. And I think exploring with lyrics and figuring out how to make complete songs is fun. I think I have a take on it. I don't know if it's great, but it's an interesting take. It's original.
I'm probably at my least religious I've ever been in a while. When you're moved by music, that's always good. But I haven't been talking to God too much lately.
For the most part, I really love being in a collaborative thing. And in a collaborative thing if you have a singer as good as Sean Smith or Eddie Vedder, you kind of think, well, why don't you just go ahead and let them sing? People seem to really like it.
There's been a lot of role reversal going on in the band. The roles people have been playing for a long time will always be there, but everybody's willing to try on different outfits.
You can say what you think music is, but the only way it really is, is how people experience it.
And I look forward to the time when I can become more indulgent with my songwriting. But this band is a family, and it's a process that we have to grow with together.
And I think all of those get touched on with the idea of bikes and of small communities becoming more interconnected. we're pretty fractured I think.
And I remember as a second or third grader having some autonomy to go to the store if I felt like it, walk home, take my time, kick the can. We were on our own schedule after school, so that was cool.
Right, those relationships with your parents and family are the hardest to figure out, and the same patterns get carried into a band situation.
I think I have my own sort of distinctive swing, for sure. I think that's something that comes really natural to me, to push against the beat and kind of explore a triplet feel behind everything just to see what that feels like.
A significant event for me was learning Hank Williams, reconnecting with his music's simplicity, which inspired me to inhabit the same territory. It's different, because I grew up on Led Zeppelin, The Stooges and punk, so in that sense I'm mutating country and folk more than a few degrees.
Raising awareness, changing the marketplace, effecting spiritual change - whatever it is that you decide is your thing, go for it.
Politics is tricky; it cuts both ways. Every time you make a choice, it has unintended consequences.
On some planet, I probably could have been a lawyer. On some planet, I could have been somebody in advertising.