Jeff Ament is opening up his Pearl Jam photo archive — and he’s less interested in the iconic shots than what happened immediately after them. In a new conversation with SiriusXM’s Pearl Jam Radio, Ament discussed the trove of photographs behind his forthcoming book Since Forever, which, as previously reported, will be released Sept. 25. The bassist says the project draws from roughly 1,000 images he digitized with the help of his art director brother Barry, with about 250 ultimately making the book.
Among the most revealing material are photographs from Pearl Jam’s earliest years, including images from the making of Vs. and Vitalogy that Ament says have never previously been published. For him, the value isn’t simply in documenting a young band at work, but in preserving the little moments around the ones fans already know.
“I don’t want to see the famous photos,” Ament recalled telling longtime Pearl Jam and Seattle scene photographer Lance Mercer. “I want to see the next photo because as a fan, then you could start making a story out of it.”
That philosophy is particularly evident in a sequence from the Vs. era. One image shows the band’s Potato Head rehearsal space in Seattle, with then-drummer Dave Abbruzzese lying on the floor while producer Brendan O’Brien talks to him. The following frame captures the rest of the band beginning to walk away as tension builds around the conversation, which Ament said with a chuckle was about “cymbals.”
Ament also has vivid memories of photographing the band as its touring life changed. One image featured in the book shows Ament, Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Abbruzzese crammed into the back of a bus, all smiles. He believes it was taken in the Midwest during the band’s first weeks on a larger, more luxurious vehicle after graduating from van tours, and the transition was memorable for reasons beyond comfort. Ament recalls the band reacting to the arrival of its first bus at the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, N.C. like “little kids,” rushing outside to claim their bunks. They soon learned which ones were best avoided.
“You don’t pick the bunk that’s right next to the bathroom because the door gets slammed all the time. Or the one that’s next to the microwave, if you have maybe a guy in the band that’s waking up in the middle of night and like throwing stuff in the microwave ’cause he can’t sleep,” Ament offered before laughing and coughing under his breath that the latter culprit was in fact Abbruzzese.
The photographs also provide a glimpse into the increasingly complicated atmosphere surrounding the making of Pearl Jam’s 1993 sophomore effort, Vs. Ament remembers noticing that the band’s attitude toward his camera had changed as the sessions progressed, while conversations about privacy, doors and windows began influencing his visual thinking for the album art. He eventually began bringing developed prints into the studio, helping the band settle on the visual world surrounding the record. Ament’s photographs of Montana sheep and the clear-cut landscapes near the San Rafael, Ca., studio where Vs. was recorded ultimately embodied the album’s imagery.
The book also turns the studio into a kind of musical time capsule, as Ament can look at a photograph and immediately identify what Pearl Jam was recording at the time. Images of Abbruzzese at different drum kits, for example, connect directly to specific Vs. songs such as “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town,” while photographs of the band’s expanding collection of instruments reveal how much its sonic palette was growing.
The Vitalogy material reaches beyond the band’s usual Seattle-area recording sessions, with photographs from Southern Tracks in Atlanta and Daniel Lanois’ Kingsway studio in New Orleans. Ament counts the Kingsway images among his favorites, including one of Vedder and McCready asleep during a three-day recording stretch that produced classic songs such as “Last Exit,” “Tremor Christ” and the Ament-penned “Nothingman.”
There are also photographs from the band’s recording of Victoria Williams’ “Crazy Mary” for the Sweet Relief benefit, including an image of Williams singing and playing guitar and another of Williams with Vedder that Ament calls one of his favorites in the book.
Jeff and Barry Ament will discuss Since Forever during appearances on the Storytellers Stage at Vedder’s Ohana Festival on Sept. 25 and 27 in Dana Point, Ca., with additional book events in select cities to be announced. As previously reported, Pearl Jam is returning to live duty at Ohana for the first time since May 18, 2025. It will also be the band’s first show with an as-yet-unnamed new drummer, following longtime member Matt Cameron’s departure last summer.