With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it’s hard to get up the courage to say, Can I sing this part, or, I want to play guitar. I feel like I have more courage to do that. – Jeff Ament
It’s hard for us not to be involved with things. When you have so much information and you see so much need, there’s too much going on for us not to get involved. – Jeff Ament
Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love talked trash about the fact that I hooped. I once stopped to say ‘Hi’ before a show, and as I walked away, Courtney yelled, ‘Go play basketball with Dave Grohl!’ – Jeff Ament
Our first record didn’t come out on vinyl, so I think that might have had something to do with actually being in a position to make sure that it came out in vinyl this time. It sounds way better. – Jeff Ament
We just finished making a record. Everybody wants to play shows, so we’re going to after that. – Jeff Ament
I had a portable 8-track player under all my ramps, cranking one of my four 8-tracks – Cars/’Candy-O,’ Ramones/’Road To Ruin,’ Cheap Trick/’Heaven Tonight’ and the first Devo record. I don’t remember skating without music. – Jeff Ament
It’s great that people are basically spending their two weeks of vacation to come out and be with us in some weird part of the world. And I think we owe it to them to take ’em to some cool places. – Jeff Ament
It was hard to figure out what were the good causes, the bad causes, even the good politics and the bad politics. So we started taking requests and figuring it out. – Jeff Ament
I didn’t write this song. Someone was talking in a room. I just wrote down everything they said. – Jeff Ament
When I moved to Seattle, I was hanging out with kids who had done drugs, had sex a million times. I look at them now and realize their childhood was taken away. – Jeff Ament
Where I grew up, I could be a punk rocker and a jock. But in college, it became apparent that those two worlds didn’t mix. When I brought my guitar back to school after Thanksgiving break, a friend handed me his bass and said, ‘Listen to the Ramones.’ – Jeff Ament
I’ve seen kids turn their lives around. It’s usually a kid who’s outside of the team-sport world, or maybe has a darker personality or doesn’t fit in. Skateboarding ends up being something they latch onto. It sounds hokey, but finding a focus on something – whether it’s skateboard or playing your guitar – can be life changing. – Jeff Ament
I certainly didn’t want to be in a punk rock band, because I had already been in a punk rock band. I wanted to be in a band that could do anything – like Led Zeppelin. – Jeff Ament
I led the state in defensive interceptions my senior year, with seven in nine games. Then I went to Montana to play basketball and found out quickly that my college career wasn’t going to work out how I’d envisioned it. – Jeff Ament
Punk rock and skateboarding took the ‘school’ out of living your life, and I related to learning as I went, doing a lot of different things that I liked, when I liked. Consequently, I’m mediocre at all of the above, but still stoked on being a lifetime student of music, skating, painting, writing, etc. – Jeff Ament
Unless you’re a vegan freak of nature like Tony Gonzalez, I don’t think you can play sports much past your early 30s. – Jeff Ament
