In a recent interview with VWMusic, Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard shared that the addition of Josh Klinghoffer to the band took them to another level and made their sound better.
Josh Klinghoffer is best known as the former guitarist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He worked with the band for a decade as John Frusciante’s replacement. He was even a part of the recording of two studio albums. However, Klinghoffer joined Pearl Jam as a touring musician after Frusciante returned to RHCP.
The connection between RHCP and Pearl Jam is unique. In 1991, RHCP’s fifth album ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ was released. After the album became a hit with the fans, the band decided to go on a tour to promote the album. They then began their tour with Pearl Jam as one of their opening acts.
There were also talks about former RHCP drummer Jack Irons, who associated Eddie with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament before Pearl Jam even started its musical journey. This introduction resulted in Pearl Jam becoming one of the prominent alternative rock bands in today’s rock and roll industry.
When Gossard recently talked about what Klinghoffer brought to Pearl Jam, the guitarist stated that he sang so many parts of songs they ignored where their voices weren’t enough for complex backing vocals. He also added that Josh is a Pearl Jam fan who knows most of their songs better than they do. The musician also mentioned that Klinghoffer is a great guy to be around. Finally, he talked about Klinghoffer’s knowledge of music that made them sound better than ever before.
Stone Gossard’s thoughts on Josh Klinghoffer joining Pearl Jam:
“Josh has such a great voice, and he’s singing so many harmony parts that have been ignored for a long time. Matt can sing pretty well, and I, Jeff, and Mike can kind of throw up a background every once in a while too. But Ed writes pretty intricate, complex, and extremely challenging background vocal parts, so if you don’t sing, you’re not going to be able to wing it. So, for us, to have Josh singing all these parts from these old songs, and the new ones too, while also playing these keyboard parts that we have been missing, it’s incredible.”
He added:
“It’s funny because Josh is a Pearl Jam fan from way back, so he knows our material better than we do, which is kind of hilarious. It’s just a joy to be around him, and he’s an amazing and personable guy too. He’s a musical genius who has a lot of deep harmonic knowledge and a tremendous understanding of music.
Josh is informing the band and making us so much better, but he’s also a brother and somebody who is fun to tour with. So, being out with him, it’s just been nothing but a joy, and I think we probably sound better than ever, and a lot of that is Josh adding back in some parts that have been ignored for a while.”
Pearl Jam members have delayed their ‘Gigaton Tour’ dates due to the pandemic in 2020. The band rescheduled the tour to begin in March 2022. However, there were a few setbacks. Jeff Ament tested positive for Covid-19, causing the band to refund tickets for several of their concerts.
