Mike McCready: How He Learned to Play ‘Eruption’

Mike McCready is a beloved guitarist. However, it turns out even he needs help from the internet every now and again.

In May 2022, McCready performed the iconic guitar track "Eruption" during a Pearl Jam show in Glendale, Ariz. Eddie Vedder said to the crowd during some between-song banter, "I don’t think we’ve played a show since Eddie Van Halen passed away, and he was another legend that we miss. And so we’ve been wanting to play one for him." This then leads to McCready shredding "Eruption."

So, how exactly did McCready learn to play such a notoriously challenging piece of music? One word: YouTube.

He shared in a new interview with Guitar World, " ... Thank God for YouTube, because there's guys that have picked out every single note. Other people figured it out for me, so I didn't have to try to figure it out." McCready does admit that despite the help from YouTube, he still struggles with some parts of "Eruption."

In other McCready news: The Pearl Jam guitarist also recently shared he's working on a rock opera about the Seattle music scene. This project is still very much in the works, but he has big aspirations for it, including evolving it into a stage production.

McCready told Guitar World, "I'm working on a script and I've got about 18 songs that I'm working on, and I'm singing on it. It's been a long journey."

This rock opera will act as a partial tribute to late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, who McCready considers one of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time. McCready and Cornell were close friends and also bandmates in Temple of the Dog.

Cornell has clearly been on McCready's mind lately. During a July show with his side band The Rockfords, the guitarist performed an unreleased song titled "Crying Moon," which he wrote in tribute to Cornell.

McCready shared the performance via Facebook. He wrote, in part, "'Crying Moon' is part of my process in dealing with his death. Chris opened up my world to new heights when he let me play on 'Temple Of The Dog.' ... I love and miss him."

Additionally, McCready says in the clip below before performing "Crying Moon," "A lot of the singers have died in this scene. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I get the drug aspect of it, but it’s such a horrible cliche."

It's always the perfect time to go through the Pearl Jam catalog and choose our favorite songs.

We’re pulling from albums, EPs, Christmas singles, B-sides and even alternate versions (since they’ve remixed every song on Ten, we specified what our favorite versions were.)

Of course, with a catalog like theirs, there are still tons of songs that we’ve missed. We’re sure you’ll let us know what we got wrong.