mike mccready
30 Signature Guitars for Modern Artists
For decades, having a signature guitar was reserved for classic rock legends — the Claptons, the Hendrixes, the Pages, the SRVs and EVHs. But that’s no longer the case. From pop-punk to heavy metal, alt-country to neo-soul, modern artists of all genres and backgrounds are getting signature guitars from companies big and small. Among the titans of the industry, that intentional shift came with a new generation being put into decision-making positions. “When I started, it was largely classic rock and very much a pantheonic Hall of Fame,” Fender’s Executive VP for Products Justin Norvell says of the early 2000s. “It was an end-of-an-iconic-career kind of thing. But it was my feeling that it should be something that people can use to reflect back upon themselves. A Telecaster can mean James Bu...
106 Musicians Predict the 2022 Baseball Season
The powers-that-be did their best to prevent this year’s Major League Baseball season from happening, but, alas, we’re back. By we, I mean the annual SPIN baseball preview. As usual, everyone (or almost everyone) is optimistic about their team’s chances in 2022. In 2021, a good chunk of the season was played with minimal fans in attendance, but things should be mostly back to normal this year. As I said last year about the season: Will it be weird? Probably. But aren’t they all? If it wasn’t a weird season with bizarre injuries, what kind of season would it be? Not baseball, Suzyn. Somehow, we almost doubled the number of participants from 62 to 105. Maybe we go for a cool 162 next year? If nothing else, we know that musicians love America’s Pastime (even if many feel that it doesn’t love ...
30 Artists Reflect on 30 Years of Pearl Jam’sTen
The story has been told thousands of times, but it bears repeating: Pearl Jam should never have happened. The ’90s had just begun. In March 1990, the promising Seattle rock band Mother Love Bone was about to unveil their debut album. But on the eve of the release, the band’s lead singer, Andrew Wood, died tragically of a heroin overdose. His band members, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament were blind-sided, devastated, and decided to end the band. Over the next few months, Gossard slowly found his way back to music. He made a few demos that landed in the hands of a surfer from San Diego via Chicago who got them from ex-Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons. The surfer’s name was Eddie Vedder. The songs he sent back? “Alive,” “Once,” and “Footsteps.” Pearl Jam formed around t...
Eddie Vedder Says Ten ‘Getting Too Big’ Almost ‘Crushed’ Pearl Jam
In lieu of the coming 30th anniversary of Pearl Jam’s debut full-length, Ten, which was released on Aug. 27, 1991, Eddie Vedder and guitarist Mike McCready recall the album’s titanic success, and it’s titanic weight on the band following its intractable success in a recent feature from the latest issue of Classic Rock magazine. Upon its release, it didn’t do that well. That is, until it gained traction after MTV put “Jeremy” in heavy rotation. The band wasn’t expecting such a sudden jump into the limelight and was overwhelmed. Vedder thought that, with the mass popularity of the album on their backs, fame would do them in. “It’s getting too big too quickly,” he remembered. “We were going to be crushed, our heads were going to pop like grapes.” Even after releasing their sophomore fol...
Mike McCready on His New Guitar and Pearl Jam’s Year That Wasn’t
Mike McCready, one of the most underrated guitarists of the past 30 years, should be celebrating the one-year anniversary of Gigaton out on the road. But fans all know what happened there: Pearl Jam was one of the first bands to postpone a tour at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic — as bassist Jeff Ament told us last year, they had to act quickly and decisively. But McCready hasn’t been sitting idle during his pandemic year. Like his bandmates, he’s had the chance to work on other endeavors, like launching his own limited-edition signature Fender guitar. It’s based on McCready’s 1960 Stratocaster, which he thought for years was a 1959 model, the one his hero Stevie Ray Vaughn played. McCready says his Strat is the first thing he bought when the band took off ...
62 Musicians Predict the 2021 Baseball Season
Somehow, some way, it’s baseball season again. Yes, already. Last year’s abbreviated run saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Tampa Bay Rays in six games to win their first World Series title in 32 years, something that Ben Gibbard predicted in our 2020 preview. As you can imagine, Dodgers fans — especially the ones below — are in great spirits heading into the 2021 season. So what does that mean about this year? Absolutely nothing. As COVID restrictions start to loosen and with more fans allowed back into stadiums, excitement is beginning to buzz, especially with our group of experts. Like last time, many are hopeful that this will be their team’s year. We searched far and wide to get predictions for the upcoming Major League Baseball season, creating a proper barometer of what these su...
