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Stone Gossard


Stone Carpenter Gossard (born July 20, 1966, Seattle, Washington) is the rhythm guitarist and founding member for American rock band Pearl Jam.

Stone is well known for his work in grunge rock bands based in Seattle through the 1980's prior to Pearl Jam, and he has made significant contributions to the music industry since then aside from Pearl Jam.

Stone formed his first band in the early 1980's named March of Crimes, which introduced him to the emerging music scene in Seattle. Stone formed a close friendship with fellow guitarist Steve Turner who attended the same school as him. Stone was a founding member of the influential grunge bands Green River and Mother Love Bone. After singer Andrew Wood's death and the demise of Mother Love Bone, his new songs and demos developed into significant contributions to the Temple of the Dog project, and the formation of Pearl Jam in 1990. Eight of the eleven tracks on Pearl Jam's seminal debut Ten were musically penned by Gossard, including Alive, Even Flow and Black. He has since made less of a solo contribution to the bands work, but has become part of the collaborative efforts, however he was behind the more recent hits Do the Evolution and Life Wasted.

Stone is known for his hard rhythm style of playing, and his superb sense of beat and groove. He said of himself: "I like rhythmic things that butt up against each other in a cool kind of way". He is a very talented and varied guitarist, and can be seen playing lead guitar on a lot of Pearl Jam's more recent songs. Eddie Vedder was quoted as saying that Stone is extremely difficult to collaborate with as he outright refuses to work on anything remotely like anything he's done before. As well as guitar contributions, Stone has also played mellotron, bass guitar, lead vocals and made numerous backing vocal cuts.

Aside from Pearl Jam, he is a founding member of Seattle side project band Brad, who formed in 1993, and have since released 3 albums. Stone formed the record label Loosegroove Records in 1995, but the company was folded in 2000. He released his first solo album, titled Bayleaf in 2001. He is the owner of the prestigious Studio Litho in Seattle.

He appeared in the 1992 movie Singles as himself, making up lead actor Matt Dillon's backing band. During Pearl Jam's dispute with Ticketmaster in 1994 over prices and surcharges, Gossard, along with fellow Pearl Jam member Jeff Ament, appeared before a congressional sub-committee to testify on the issue. He has also produced records by such artists as Satchel, Green Apple Quick Step, Weapon of Choice and Critters Buggin. He is a talented artist and painter, and his artwork is on many Pearl Jam releases, as well as his solo album, Bayleaf.

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