By Andy Aledort

"Hee-yaaa!"

Pearl Jam's Mike McCready bursts into his trendy Manhattan hotel room in grand fashion, screaming at the top of his voice and heaving his near-mint 1968 Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar through the air. As I look on in frozen terror, the instrument bounces gently onto the large double bed.

"Aw, this is my favorite guitar," McCready says, seeing my alarm. He picks up the instrument, strums a few chords and finds that it is still perfectly in tune. He laughs. "I could never hurt it."

Not all of McCready's guitars are so well loved. Just a few nights before our interview, when Pearl Jam appeared on the David Letterman show, McCready concluded the performance by throwing his ax carelessly to the ground. But maybe you can afford to take such risks when your band has had one of the best-selling songs of the past year - the radio favorite "Last Kiss" - and is now releasing its highly anticipated sixth album, Binaural (Epic). Pearl Jam's first studio recording since Yield, the group's 1998 Platinum-plus album, Binaural finds the group - McCready, vocalist Eddie Vedder, guitarist Stone Gassard and bassist Jeff Ament - back in action with a new drummer, former Soundgarden stickman Matt Cameron, replacing Jack Irons, Pearl Jam's old friend and drummer since 1994.

"Two days before the Yield tour began, Jack quit the band," explains McCready, obviously still troubled by the memory. "He had some personal things to deal with. That was cool, but we were up shits creek with no paddle there for a minute." A quick phone call to Cameron got the band back on course. "Luckily, he was available and very into it."

Cameron's ferocious drumming style injected new life into the band and provided the shot of adrenaline Pearl Jam was looking for. It was soon followed by a booster shot in the form of "Last Kiss." An oddball cover of the 1964 hit originally recorded by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, Pearl Jam's version rose all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard Top 100, where it was wedged improbably between the likes of Britney Spears and TLC.

Obviously, the present pop terrain bears little resemblance to that of nine years ago, when Pearl Jam exploded onto the rock scene with Ten. But the runaway success of "Last Kiss" clearly illustrates the band's continuing relevance to the record-buying public. Whether this was part of an ingenious master plan or simply a fluke, it left a large rock audience curious to hear what Pearl Jam would do next.

As it turns out, Binaural is as far removed from the pop-friendly "Last Kiss" as it could be. A dark and densely recorded album, Binaural reflects the personal toll that the past two years have taken on some of the band's members, McCready in particular.

"While we were making this record, I was going through another bour of drug problems," he says. "I had had a period of sobriety, but I fell back into it, and it was bad. I was really going down and was taking a lot of pills. Binaural was made during a real dark period in my personal life. So, for me, that is reflected in the music. In my mind, this is a darker album."

It's also the band's most sharply focused album since 1993's Vs. Considering Pearl Jam's reinvigorated sound and McCready's newfound sobriety, it's no surprise that the guitarist feels enthusiastic about the record.

"I love Binaural," says McCready. "I think it came out really great. I've been through a lot in the last two years, as have all of us. This album represents a great new beginning for me, and a great new beginning for the band."

GUITAR WORLD: After seeing you throw your guitar on the David Letterman show and then witnessing your entrance into your hotel room, I have to ask: Do you have a specific guitar-throwing technique?

Mike McCready: No! [laughs] It's all about being spontaneous. When we were working on Vs., I had this beautiful old yellow Telecaster, and our producer, Brendan O'Brien, had one that was very similar. We were recording the song "Don't Go On Me," and I threw the guitar up in the air at the end of the take, allowing it to come crashing down to the ground. Brendan was sitting next to our engineer, Nick DiDia, and he said "Did he just throw my guitar? He just threw my guitar, goddammit!" And I said, "No, it wasn't your guitar. I'd never do that to you!" But it made a great sound, and he got it onto the take.

I did the same thing at the end of another song, "Brand New J." (sic) I threw a six-string Fender bass, and it made this great, gunshot-like sound. That ended up on the record, too. So, I guess you could say that guitar tossing is a bit of an art.

GW: Did Pearl Jam, as a band, have any particular goals for this record?

McCready: Not in the beginning, because I don't think we really knew how the record would take shape. I knew working on the record would be exciting, because it was the first studio album that would feature Matt's contributions. It was exciting knowing that there was a new influence in the band, one that had had such a great impact on our last tour. That tour was the most fun I have ever had while out on the road.

GW: It must have been a bit scary, considering the circumstances under which Matt joined the band.

McCready: Yeah, but he was incredible. He knew the songs almost better than we did! He came in and he made it happen, right away. And the songs just sounded better and better as the tour went on. With Matt behind the kit, I could get into a space and just play, and the bass and drums were right there. He's like a fucking hurricane blowing my head off; that's what it feels like playing with Matt.

Having Matt back there helped me to play a lot better, too. I play my best if I close my eyes and see the guitar neck in my mind's eye. I don't think about the notes - I just feel it. For me, playing is a totally unconscious thing. Matt's drumming allowed that to happen more than it ever had before.

GW: All guitar players seem to be totally enamored with the drums.

McCready: Oh yeah! I bought a drum set, and I love to play. The only problem is that I play the drums like a guitar player: if I'm playing along with a record, I play all of the guitar accents instaed of the drum beats. For example, I love to play drums to AC/DC, but I tend to play all of Angus Young's guitar accents, even though I really should be playing like Phil Rudd!

GW: You mentioned that you had drug problems during the making of Binaural. What was happening that made you to turn to drugs?

McCready: At the time, I felt like I was fighting just to live. There was a lot of stuff going on with me that was making things difficult. Now, I feel very, very grateful that I'm out of that phase; I never want to go back to that space again. It's "one day at a time," and sometimes it's more like one second at a time. And that's alright. Not only can I function and live - which is clearly the most important thing - but I can play a lot better too, which is like the icing on the cake.

GW: One of your biggest heroes, Stevie Ray Vaughan, went through a period of drug addiction. When he came out of it, he was able to talk about it in a down-to-earth way, and he inspired many people to straighten themselves out.

McCready: Stevie was a big inspiration for me. Luckily, I got to see him play live. It was out at the Gorge, in Washington, which is a beautiful place. At the time, I was so depressed about life. I wasn't playing at all then; I'd given it up. While he was playing, it was very sunny. But as soon as he started "Couldn't Stand the Weather," these huge clouds rolled in overhead, and rain began pouring down. When the song ended, the rain stopped! It was like a religious experience, and it changed me. It lifted me out of the negative mindset I was in, and it got me playing again. I thank him forever for that.

His approach to sobriety was that he refused to take credit for straightening himself out. There is something out there more powerful than you or me - a higher power - and, whatever that may be, it is what helps you. It's spiritual, it's mental, it's physical. Life still deals me some cruel cards, but being sober has made the difficult times easier to deal with. You may feel more pain at times, but you get more pleasure out of life, too. The highs are definitely much, much higher. I have never felt higher in my life than playing music while sober.

When we went on tour with Neil Young [following Young's 1995 collaboration with Pearl Jam, Mirrorball], I was freaking out, and it wasn't just because we were on tour with Neil Young; I was experiencing true sobriety then, and while we were playing I would go places in my mind that I had never been to before, because I was clear. The music was the spiritual part of it. Because of the feeling of the music, I saw things that I had never seen before and felt "truths" that I had never before felt. There was a feeling of pure light emanating from my head, traveling a million miles away and then coming back. This gave me a wonderful feeling, like, "What was that?" That happened a bunch of times, and it's a really great, amazing experience. It's 180 degrees away from where my head was at when I was using drugs. I know I'm going to get that feeling again now, and I'm excited about it.

GW: Has any music been released that captures that feeling?

McCready: There is some stuff on our live record, Live on Two Legs that I feel pretty good about. I like the version of "Black" that's on there; I really got into the solo on that tune. We felt that those shows were very strong, and that's what led us to release a live record. I'm happy with it, definitely. I'm also happy with a lot of our bootlegs! [laughs] There is some really cool stuff out there.

GW: The fact that there are so many Pearl Jam bootlegs doesn't bother you?

McCready: Not at all. I love bootlegs! I've always collected them - I have about 400 Rolling Stones bootlegs.

GW: "Breakerfall" reminds me of another classic English band: it opens in a way reminiscent of the Who's "I Can See for Miles."

McCready: Yeah, it has the same kind of build up to it. That's Eddie; he loves the Who. We all do - I mean, Pete Townshend! Stone is also playing a 12-string Rickenbacker on that tune, which is very Townshend.

GW: What can you say about working with producer Tchad Blake [Tom Waits, Sheryl Crow, Crowded House]?

McCready: He's really good at getting a lot of atmosphere on the slower songs. The spooky, dreamy feeling of "Sleight of Hand" is a real good example of what Tchad brings to the production. He also pushed me in ways that I hadn't been pushed before. He encouraged me to try many different approaches to certain guitar parts. As a result, I sometimes tried a part as many as 10 or 12 different ways. It forced me to think in ways I hadn't, which is always a good thing, and it helped me to keep an open mind.

GW: While your rhythm parts might have been thought out, your solos on this record have a real immediate, spontaneous feeling to them.

McCready: I've always aspired to capture that on record. It's like that old blues rumor that Willie Dixon was yelling the lyrics in Howlin' Wolf's ear while he was recording the songs. You can't get any more immediate than that! That feeling of immediacy ends up on the record, which, to me, is exactly what you want.

GW: It could be said that Seattle musicians in the Nineties were responsible for bringing immediacy back to rock. Does it surprise you that, in regard to the once formidable Seattle scene, Pearl Jam is the "last band standing." Soundgarden, Nirvana, and Alice in Chains, who, along with Pearl Jam, were the biggest bands to come out of Seattle, are all no more.

McCready: From my perspective, I'm glad that we're still around and that people are still interested in listening to what we're doing. We still get along well as a band. When we get together, we feel great, and when we get away from each other, that's good, too. That has everything to do with why we're still around: we go 100 percent when we're together, either when we're out on the road or working on a record. And then we can all go back into our separate lives afterward.

GW: The music of Pearl Jam helped to define grunge rock in the Nineties. But Pearl Jam seems to have escaped the constraints of that tag. Is this part of the reason why the band continues to persevere?

McCready: That's a really good point. I never thought of us as a grunge band, anyway. I always thought that was just a meaningless label stuck on a bunch of different bands. We are just a rock and roll band. We've always aspired to be more like the Rolling Stones - to have that kind of integrity and longevity. Those are my influences and will continue to be, I believe.

GW: What would you say the Seattle bands, collectively, brought to the table?

McCready: I think we brought a lot of honesty. Seattle is a really small town, and when we were coming up there weren't a lot of clubs to play in. Musically, it's a repressive environment. Even though the city tries to paint itself as very liberal, it's actually very conservative.

Out of that type of environment came Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Soundgarden and Pearl Jam. We were all practicing and playing in garages for years, without many other places to play. You needed to get insurance policies from the city and go through all of this bullshit just to put on a show. A lot of the anger and frustration in the Seattle music scene grew from how we felt about the environment. People keyed into it, and it exploded. In my mind, we were playing for ourselves, and, out of that, people started digging it. That was amazing to us, and I feel very grateful for that.

The Nineties were an amazing time, but times change. Popular music is cyclical: it goes through these five- and 10-year cycles in which something new comes along and then wears out its welcome. When something becomes very popular, there's always a backlash to it, because there has to be. If that didn't happen, music would stagnate. Rock music needs to constantly be reborn. Now there are new bands like Korn, and that's great, because things need to move on in order to progress and grow. The Nineties were a great time for us, but, in a way, it's an even better time now. The pressure is off and we're freer to do what we want. And people still want to listen to us.

GW: The song "Evacuation," on Binaural, seems to address that very thought: "Time to take heed and change direction..."

McCready: I'll tell you what that lyric means to me: it means to evacuate my own self from where I was, from the fucking horrible, drugged-out abyss that I was in. The song is about having a spiritual rebirth. I was at the point of utter degradation, where I needed pills just to be able to get out of bed every day. My life was saved by an amazing rehabilitation center in Tucson, Arizona. I don't like to sit and preach to anyone about rehab, and I sure hope that I don't come off that way. All I can say is that it changed me and it saved my life.

But I would say that people should be free to interpret our lyrics however they like. I know what the song is about, but I don't want to steer people's interpretation of the song in any specific direction. To me, a song can be interpreted in so many different ways. I don't know what half the words mean on the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, but every song makes me feel fucking alive: "Stop Breaking Down," "Shine A Light," "Sweet Black Angel" - the vocal harmonies and the feeling of those songs are so strong, I don't really care what the lyrics are about. I just know that the songs evoke the most spiritual, glorious kinds of feelings. It's like pure emotion opening up from the heavens.

I feel that music should be free to be interpreted by the individual. That's why I have a problem with videos. Often, they dictate what the song is about, and those images end up being the thing that sticks in people's minds. That's why I loved listening to the radio when I was growing up. I had my own vision in my head of what songs like "Stairway to Heaven" and "Kashmir" were about.

GW: In addition to the Stones and Led Zeppelin, you are a confirmed Hendrix-phile. Wasn't Pearl Jam involved in the court case that eventually returned the rights to Jimi's music to his family?

McCready: Yes. Hendrix is the man. He's the greatest rock guitarist ever, no question about it. I went to a deposition, but not to a trial. They asked for my opinion of Alan Douglas [Douglas is the controversial producer responsible for the Hendrix records released between 1975 and 1995, starting with the much-reviled Crash Landing (1975), and ending with the somewhat-reviled Voodoo Soup (1995) - GW Ed.]. I always hated what that guy did. I was more than happy to go and speak at the deposition. Alan's lawyer argued was that Douglas' marketing of Hendrix was the reason for Hendrix's current popularity. I said that that was a bunch of bullshit. When I was young, my dad brought Band of Gypsys back from Vietnam, and he turned me on to Hendrix. It didn't have anything to do with marketing. "Machine Gun" - nothing gets better than that. I listened to that and it tore my fucking head off! When Jimi hits that one note at the beginning of his solo and you can hear the oscillation of the Univibe, you can feel the anger and the depth of emotion.

GW: That one note launched a million ships.

McCready: Oh, yeah! I've been trying to get that note for my entire career, and I know I'll never find it. It happened then, and it will never happen again.

GW: Binaural was mixed by Brendan O'Brien, who has been working with Pearl Jam for quite a while. Brendan has a reputation for being the most "guitar friendly" producer/engineer around today.

McCready: He's great; he's a way better guitar player than me or Stone! [laughs] I've never heard him screw up - ever! Stone and I look at him while he's playing and say, "We'll never get to that level!" He's a real sweet guy, too. And because he's a very good musician as well as a good producer, he knows how to get great sounds on tape very quickly. He can hear and find all of those "old school" sounds that we're looking for.

GW: Does his presence inspire you to play the very best that you can?

McCready: Oh, yeah, he really does. I once asked him who his favorite producers were, and he said, "I don't have favorite producers. I have favorite bands." That way of thinking encapsulates why he's such a great producer. He's a musician first, and he knows how to get the most from a band. He also brings in some amazing gear. He's got this old purple Marshall "plexi" head that is probably the best-sounding Marshall I've ever heard. He also has this killer Martin 12-string that I want so badly, but he refuses to sell it.

GW: Taken as a whole, Binaural starts off with a bang, right out of the gate. But it gets more mellow and reflective as it progresses, ending with the plaintive "Parting Ways."

McCready: The final sequencing of the record was a conscious decision. We sat down as a group with Brendan and listened to the first and last 10 seconds of each song, just to see how each one moved into the next. There was only one other sequence for the album that we considered. The final sequence is actually the second one we did, and we all liked it and agreed on it.

GW: Does the band ever have any major differences of opinion about what the lead track should be?

McCready: Sometimes, but it's rare. We usually are all thinking along the same lines. If not, it's dealt with democratically: we weigh the options of doing it one way or the other. Our differences of opinion and how we resolve them is part of what defines us as a band. We all communicate really well together. Sometimes it's in a real unconscious, unspoken, mind-reading kind of way, but we communicate. That's a critical thing for a band to have in order to survive.

GW: Do you have a favorite track on the record?

McCready: "Nothing As It Seems," because it gave me a chance to really stretch out as a player. I'm using this crazy, giant Fender pedal on the song, which is supplying all of the wild, swirling, distorted sounds. It sounds like a plane going down! I have no idea what the pedal is called; there's one pictured on the cover of a Sonic Youth album. Even the guys at Fender don't even know what it is. But if anyone out there has one, please sell it to me!

GW: What was your standard gear line-up for the record?

McCready: It was a combination of things. I used a blue, 1965 SG that I love, plus my '59 Strat, my '59 Les Paul, plus a newer Strat. I play the '59 guitars the most because I love them so much. For amps, I used a 50-watt, 1969 Marshall "plexi," some Ampeg Reverb-O-Rockets and some Fender amps.

GW: Looking ahead, what are your hopes for Pearl Jam?

McCready: We've got to keep growing, like a bad weed, because that's the key to it all, right there.