Joe Talbot and Mark Bowen of IDLES recently spoke about their participation in the Ohana Festival and the strong respect they have for Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, and Pearl Jam.
Last week you were at the Ohana Festival and you were with Eddie and tons of great people. How it was?
Mark Bowen: Eddie Veds he loves the shreds! Eddie’s great, he’s like a absolute fucking diamond of a person! He’s exactly what you expect Eddie Vedder to be.
He was like your cool uncle…
Joe Talbot: He’s great!
Mark Bowen: He chills and not chills at the same time…
What do you mean?
Mark Bowen: You see him when he’s on stage, he’s like….”eeeeeh!!!”
Joe Talbot: He’s got fire in his eyes! It’s not just him: Jeff… Jeff Ament, the bassist, he’s been supportive to us all over the years. He does incredible things all over the world, building skateparks. They’re all part of something they built together, and touring with them, playing one show with them, sorry!, we saw how huge their infrastructure was, but how each member of the tour was passionately involved within that band, so it’s cool!
It’s a one of the bands that tour on such a great scale, can you hold that time like Pearl Jam or other bands?
Joe Talbot: It depends from the songs, all the rest is irrelevant. Like, whenever we come to make an album, we have that fire within us. You know, we have something to do, we have a purpose. We come together because there is a purpose. I would not spend much time in the room with the other three members of the band at all, unless there was a purpose behind it: that purpose gets me up in the morning, I love it! I love them for it, you know. We’re like brothers within the songs, our familiy is in the songs: if the songs are not working, we’re not working. Longevity comes in this industry from many things, luck is a part you knoow… We’ve been lucky!
[Thanks to Federica Vitelli]
Born in Reggio Emilia in 1980. He created pearljamonline.it in 2001 and wrote the first edition of “Pearl Jam Evolution” in 2009 along with his wife Daria. Since 2022, he is behind 2 podcasts: “Pearl Jam dalla A alla Z” and “Fuori Orario Not Another Podcast”. He has collaborated with Barracuda Style, HvsR, Rolling Stone, Rockol and Il Fatto Quotidiano. He continues relentlessly to try to find “beautiful melodies that say terrible things”.
Favorite song: Present Tense
Favorite album: No Code
Favorite bands/artists other than PJ: Tom Waits, Soundgarden, Ramones, Bruce Springsteen, IDLES, Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital, Dead Kennedys, Mark Lanegan, Cat Power, R.E.M.