Why Jack Irons Quit Pearl Jam

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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

Drummer Jack Irons has had a pretty storied career being the original drummer for the Red hot Chili Peppers and was inducted with the band into the rock n’ roll hall of fame. In addition to that he also played with Pearl Jam for nearly half a decade before leaving the group. Irons would go on to play with Courtney Love, Eleven, Neil Young, Joe Strummer and The Wallflowers in addition to having a solo career. One of my subscribers requested that I do a lstory on why he left Pearl Jam and that’s what we’re going to explore in today’s video.
Jack Irons would be an original member of Red Hot Chili Peppers who formed in 1983, but by 1988 the band’s guitarist Hillel Slovak passed away due to a drug overdose. For Irons it was the final straw and he soon left the band recalling to the book grunge is dead “I was really struggling with my mental health. I was having a nervous breakdown and that went on for a long time.” He would go on to reveal he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was hospitalized for it and it was a life long battle he was still fighting. It was following Slovak’s death Irons thought about giving up on music and pursuing something else but he got an offer to drum for former Clash frontman Joe Strummer, something he decided to agree to do. It was on that tour Irons met his wife and future pearl jam frontman Eddie Vedder. It was at a gig in San Diego Vedder attended the show knowing some of the people who owned the venue, Vedder wanted to meet Irons because of his history with the Chili Peppers and wanted to meet Strummer. It was after that meeting with Vedder for the first time Irons would reveal in teh same book

“After that we kept in touch and started to hang out.and play basketball togetherLike every weekend he would drive up from San Diego to LA where i was living. He and my wife were the two main people in my life at the time.

In 1990 in Seattle one of the up and coming bands Mother Love Bone would disband after frontman Andrew Wood died of a drug overdose. Mother love bone member stone gossard and jeff ament were picking up the pieces and starting a new band that would eventually become pearl jam. Gossard and Ament would reach out to Irons knowing him for his work in the Chili peppers to join their new project but the timing wasn’t right with him tellig Rolling Stone
I remember meeting Stone and Jeff [Ament] at their hotel. They came to L.A. to do whatever they were doing, and I met them. We talked. They asked me about playing with them for their new band, trying it out.
I had so many things going on in L.A. Post–Joe Strummer, I had started my band Eleven… As I mentioned, I met my wife-to-be. By the time I met Jeff and Stone, she was pregnant. The gig required uprooting and going to Seattle. I couldn’t do it. I had already committed to doing a tour with Redd Kross for like three months and I really needed the gig.
While the pair were disappointed that Irons couldn’t join them they would give him their demo tape incase he knew any singers. He would end up passing the tape onto Eddie Vedder who of course became the group’s frontman. Pearl Jam would find a different drummer in Dave Krusen who played on the group’s first album Ten. He would be temporarily replaced by Matt Chamberlin and then replaced by fan favourite Dave Abbruzzese who played on 1993’s Versus and on some of the group’s third record 1994’s Vitalogy. But personality conflicts led the band to firing Abbruzzese, i’ve done a whole video on why Abbruzzese was fired the link is down below. I’ve also done one on Dave Krusen’s firing. By 1994 Irons was playing in his band Eleven who had just put out their second record and opened for Soundgarden, but the band struggled to have the same level of success as other alternative . It was at that point Irons and his family left LA and bought a cabin in Norman, California, but he hadn’t planned on what to do to make money.

By August of 94 Irons would hear that his friends in Pealr Jam had parted ways with Abbruzesse and he would call his friends in the band and ask if th