10 Best Replacement Singers Of All Time
4. Eddie Vedder - Pearl Jam
Ok, so maybe it seems a little bit out of place calling Eddie Vedder a replacement, considering how foundational he was to the creation of Pearl Jam. Although he may not have been in the trenches with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, his fingerprints are all over their debut album Ten and have been defining the grunge sound since the beginning. If you want to know the full story of the band though, you need to back up a few years.
Before Vedder was even in Seattle, he was a gas station attendant in San Diego who was given a demo tape by Stone from his friend Jack Irons. At the same time that Eddie was a no name, Stone and Jeff were making waves with Mother Love Bone with grunge icon Andy Wood, until he passed away due to a drug overdose just a few weeks shy of their debut record's release.
Left without a band, Stone and Jeff got together with the help of guitarist Mike McCready before stumbling on Ed, whose booming baritone was a breath of fresh air from the people trying to out scream each other on the circuit around the same time. Even though Pearl Jam deserved to be considered their own separate entity away from Mother Love Bone, this is still one of the greatest silver linings that Stone Gossard could have hoped for.