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The series of events that had to happen to have Ten even exist is wild.

Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard were in Green River, but they broke up. Then, they were in a pysch-garage band called Mother Love Bone, whose singer, Andrew Wood, died right before their first album was released. The two of them, and a couple of members of Soundgarden put out a tribute album for Andrew, and this singer they’d heard about from Jack Irons, - the drummer from the Red Hot Chili Peppers - guested on one of the tracks. He’d gotten a copy of some demos Stone and Jeff were working on, wrote lyrics for it, sang over it, and sent it back. The guys liked it, so they hired him to sing in their new band.

That song was “Hunger Strike”, that tribute was Temple of the Dog, that guest singer was Eddie Vedder, and that new band was Pearl Jam.

This is all only scratching the surface of the strange series of events that had to occur for Ten to come into existence. In this debut episode of The Opus: Pearl Jam's Ten, host Jill Hopkins is joined by The Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon, AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine, and Museum of Pop Culture curator Jacob McMurray to trace the unlikely origins of one of the biggest bands of all time.

Subscribe now so you can check out all episodes of Season 16 of The Opus. Also, grab yourself an official Opus hoodie or T-Shirt at the Consequence Shop.

Original music by Tony Piazza.