Eddie Vedder's Embarrassing Tale: Naked in Public

Were you uncomfortable at all on Saturday Night Live this time?

No...I mean, we were still learning the songs, you know...

You seemed restrained, especially compared with how you are in a real concert.

Well, I'm aware that it's TV, too, you know? We don't do that much TV. We did some TV in London, and then we came back, and we did Letterman. So I mean we do it once every few years, but what I think is interesting is other people do this stuff, and they do it all the time and they do it really good, and they're kind of our peers, and I respect them and I admire them. I see things that are absolutely great.

Like the Chili Peppers? Is that who you're thinking of?

...or Tim Robbins, interviewing on Letterman. He gets his point across. Maybe the more you do it, the better you get at it. We were coming from a standpoint where, it was like the Native Americans, where if they took your picture, part of your soul got sucked out of you.

I was just thinking that that's how you guys have been acting, literally, today. Did something make you start thinking that way?

TV made us feel that way. I mean the fact that it's transmitted to -- I'm just guessing -- millions, it's tangible, that it actually sucks it out of you. But that's when you don't do it. I think you can kind of callus yourself to it and be more giving with it and free and say like, "Hey, here it is." It's so psychological in a way. To grasp it, especially when you feel proud of the information that you're disseminating, and your beats and rhythms and lyrical content, then how could this be bad? We stand behind what we're saying and playing so let's let it fly. I'm sure you can get pretty professional at it, which will suck all the life out of it and then you'll just be show business. But we're far from that. For us it's probably a good time to realize this is not a bad way to transmit information.

How did you get into yoga?

I made some changes... like we talked about earlier, when I found a place to get away. I met the few people who were around on this kind of deserted existence. I realized that these people were not impressed by what you had and what you were. They were impressed with how old you could live to be and how little you could live with. And we're talking about guys who are like eighty-five years old, looking like their bodies were in their 30s or 40s. Their faces showed it a little bit, doing yoga poses I still can't do, and living under a lean-to next to a river, and they usually have some artistic bent -- they drew these incredible maps or something. This was the most respectable way to live. And I was down with that.

When did all this change for you? Was it when you found this place to go away, when you found a meditation, that your attitude changed?

I just disappeared. The world is bigger than the world I was living in. That's all there is to it. You know, we were in a band, we played and promoted ourselves and then we complained about it. It just got to where it was beyond the beyond. We thought we were keeping up with each other. We all thought we were doing the right thing, and then we realized pretty quickly it was kind of out of our hands, and that's when we wanted to get some control back of our lives and our own destiny.

There was a time when you seemed reluctant to play your hits. But now you sound as if you're really into playing "Alive," I mean really into it. What changed?

I don't know if it changed, I don't think it was ever a problem. I mean I dare you to sing "Black" and not feel it. I dare you. That's why, like, I think about someone singing karaoke to our songs. You gotta feel it -- it's gotta be the real deal. That's part of the curse: If you're gonna play the song, you better play it. I've tried to phone in "Jeremy" a few times, and it's tough. It doesn't work.

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