Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready has seen it all both onstage and in his experiences traveling the globe with Pearl Jam for the past 35-plus-years, but he’s about to tell a new story in an entirely different way. On Oct. 6, he’ll release the original Z2 graphic novel Farewell to Seasons, which reimagines the rise and fall of the Seattle music scene from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, as well as the deaths of Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood, Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain, Alice in Chains/Mad Season vocalist Layne Staley and, years later, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell.
Deluxe editions of Farewell to Seasons will be bundled with a rock opera of the same name that features new McCready songs fleshed out by some familiar local collaborators and performed in the persona of the novel’s main character, David Williams. The music will not be immediately available on either digital platforms or streaming services. Click here to preorder several varieties, including a platinum edition autographed by McCready.
The novel was written with Mark Sable and illustrated by Sebastian Piriz. R. Kikuo Johnson drew the cover, while Daniel Danger supplied the rock opera album art. Says Z2 editor in chief Rantz A. Hoseley, “having been in the heart of the NW music scene as a journalist in the 1990s, I’ve wanted for years to work on a project that would reflect what it was actually like for the musicians and the fans when ‘the world came to Seattle.’ I can say, without any hyperbole or exaggeration, that I feel like my entire creative life has led to me being involved with this book, and I feel so blessed to be a part of bringing Mike’s beautiful and poignant story to the world.”
McCready jumped on Zoom with SPIN to discuss the origins of Farewell to Seasons, how the creative process differed from his work with Pearl Jam and how he continues to remember his fallen Seattle scene comrades.
This project is unlike anything a Pearl Jam member has ever done before. Had you been working on it on the down low before it got to a point where you were ready to tell people about it?
I started working on it during COVID. I called Cameron Crowe out of the blue and asked him some questions like, hey, I want to work on a rock opera and I’ve got this idea — not thinking that it would turn into a graphic novel or anything like that. Originally, it was a musical stage show. Cameron gave me some really good tips and ideas, including the ‘11th hour song’ that is meant to be a big show-stopper near the end of a musical. So, I started writing a script with three characters, almost like historical fiction based around the Seattle music scene from the mid-1980s until about 1995. I didn’t have anything very solid for many years, which is why I didn’t talk much about it. I’m also so ADHD that I was finally able to get this together with the help of other people.
One of the main characters is David Williams, which is based on myself. There’s a female character named Angela Sunrise and another named Jonathan Alexander, who’s our tragic figure. How this came up was, I was thinking about all the singers that came from the Seattle scene and how many of them had since died. Was it worth it for them? That’s a question I’m trying to ask, but I don’t know the answer. Why did people become so interested in this music being made in Seattle? One of the characters, Queen of the Seasons, is the narrator of the whole project because the story comes from her dreams. There’s kind of a mysticism to it. It’s historical fiction based on some facts, but there are also different spirits that encounter the characters. Hollow is the deceiver and will tempt each one of these characters throughout their journey, while Echo is a seer of futures. When I finished the script, I sent it out to some people and there wasn’t any initial interest at first, but Z2 called back. I hadn’t thought of presenting this as a graphic novel, but I love them and I love comics.
Has the passage of time afforded you different perspective on what it really meant to go through losing close friends like Layne Staley and Chris Cornell, and how they continue to inspire you all these years later?
That’s a great question. Time has given me perspective. I look at it as the loss of musical collaborators, great artist and friends, and it’s sad. I miss Layne and Chris. What would they be doing now? What about Kurt Cobain? I didn’t really know him at all, but I’m curious. I’ve had a lifetime of experiences in the time since some of them passed. The question of whether it was worth it for them torments me and comes to me in dreams, because their music is still around.
With the Mad Season record, I think of the poignancy of Layne’s lyrics and how he was struggling and writing about all that as we were working. Now he’s gone, and it’s hard for me to listen to that record, but I’m also very proud of it. I have all these different feelings about these kinds of things. I mean, I started playing with [Pearl Jam guitarist] Stone [Gossard] only after Andy Wood died. I’ve had to think for many, many years about how from someone’s death came an opportunity for me. Even with Temple of the Dog, I was very aware of that. All of the sudden, I’m getting to play on this really cool record of songs that Chris wrote about Andy, who I didn’t really know that well, but I knew [Pearl Jam bassist] Jeff [Ament] and Stone very well. I didn’t want to overstep my bounds and probably was too cautious, which is why Chris went outside for a cigarette to give me privacy while I recorded the lead for ‘Reach Down.’ After that point, I felt, OK, I deserve to be here.
Chris told me once that when Andy died, for a lot of you guys it was the first time you’d experienced the loss of anyone your age, and not, say, a grandparent or a distant relative.
Chris and those guys knew Andy better than I did. I don’t want to imply that I was a great friend of Andy’s or anything. Unfortunately, there were a lot of heroin deaths around that time, which for me coincided with not playing music at all. It was a dark time. I had gone to L.A. with my band Shadow, but we didn’t make it big and then I got sick with Crohn’s. I was super depressed when I got back to Seattle in the late ‘80s. I’d basically given up, but I realized that a huge, flourishing scene was going on in town. All my friends’ bands were starting to take off, so I felt like I’d already missed my chance. It was devastating for the scene when Andy died. He was a charismatic figure who was funny onstage and when you’d see him out at other band’s shows. Three months later, I got a call from Stone out of the blue at the Italian restaurant where I was working to ask about playing together. For the graphic novel, I also wanted to include Shadow, because I feel like we never got any credit in terms of the history of Seattle music. We played a lot of shows when I was a teenager, some of which Stone saw. We put in a lot of time as kids, to the point that we were playing the Moore Theatre.
Is Shadow called something else in the story?
No, they’re actually called Shadow because I tried another name for them but we couldn’t get it. So, I reached out to the guys to make sure they were OK with it and they were. I wanted to give us a little props because we did pay a lot of dues ourselves prior to my situation with Pearl Jam. The Pearl Jam-like band that David plays in is called Soul Dream.
OK so, eventually, your script is ready and the concept is fleshed out after you get connected with Z2. What was it like collaborating with illustrators? Had you ever done anything like that before?
No, never. It has been very exciting. I go to Comic-Con a lot with my kids, and I met a writer there named Mark Sable. I wasn’t necessarily looking for a writer at that time because I didn’t know this was gonna happen, but I liked some of the stories he’d written. I told him what I was working on before I even had a deal, and six weeks later, the deal came through. Now, they have to take my script and illustrate it. An artist from Argentina named Sebastian Piriz is doing the actual artwork. He was one of my favorites from the examples Z2 sent me. It’s all so new and exciting for me, but I did give them my perspective about not wanting the band to look like anybody. I wanted it to be its own entity and to live in its own world. I love Ziggy Stardust and The Rocky Horror Picture Show — those heavily visual music concepts. I’d love to achieve something like that, or my version of it. It’s not done yet, but it has been rad to see the work in progress.
What were some things that felt important to translate through the David character? Did you want him to arrive at any specific takeaways as his story evolved?
I want to keep some ambiguity about the whole story until you read it. But for David Williams, who is me, it was about my journey of suffering with Crohn’s and addiction, to watching people die, to immense success and how having a front-row seat to that changed me and my perspective on life. How did I deal with Pearl Jam getting really big in both good and bad ways? I’m pretty tough on myself. In terms of the other characters, some struggle with addiction and becoming famous. When the spirits tempt them, which road should they go down? Are they being deceived? Is it just part of the music business? Does their ego say, fuck, I better do this or the band’s not gonna make it?
In addition to the graphic novel, you created a complete companion album. What can you tell us about it?
There’s an overture and then six songs which I’m singing on. Molly Sides from Thunderpussy sings backup and [Guns N’ Roses’] Duff McKagan and [Dave Matthews Band’s] Stefan Lessard play bass. I’ve got [Fastbacks/Posies member] Mike Musburger playing drums, plus contributions from Chris Friel from Shadow and Nate Yaccino. It’s basically a lost rock opera about one of the characters. We just finished it yesterday.
People might hear ‘rock opera’ and think of Meat Loaf.
I do love Meat Loaf! Of all the guys in my band, I’m the one that’s the most Kiss/Aerosmith/Meat Loaf/‘70s guy. I can write Pearl Jam ideas and they can come out of anywhere, but for this, I forced myself to understand that I have to talk about something over the course of six or seven songs and maintain the listener’s interest. It has to make sense, and it’s also all on me. Whereas with a Pearl Jam song, Ed [Vedder]’s doing the lyrics and I’m doing the music, or we’re all collaborating. One of the reasons I haven’t really spoken about this project yet is because I’m singing. I have been taking lessons for two or three years because I wanted to be good enough to put it out and not be embarrassed by it. I’m pretty proud and excited.
Did you ever work any of these songs up for possible Pearl Jam use?
No, this is all specific to the project. I wanted to force myself to write something like a rock opera, and it turned out to be a mini version of that within the graphic novel. It’s my perspective about one character and his arc. There’s more to it that I’d like to explore someday. Again, a graphic novel was not something I saw coming. Paul Westerberg used to sing about opportunity knocking once and then the door slamming shut. When an opportunity comes, do you know how to walk through the door and grab it?
