Age, Biography, and Wiki
Eddie Vedder was born as Edward Louis Severson III in Evanston, Illinois. He rose to fame in the early 1990s as the lead singer and one of the guitarists of Pearl Jam, a band that became a defining act of the grunge movement. Vedder is celebrated for his dynamic stage presence and deeply personal lyrics, which often address social issues and have resonated with a wide audience.
| Occupation | Rock Singer |
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| Date of Birth | 23 December 1964 |
| Age | 60 Years |
| Birth Place | Evanston, Illinois, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Capricorn |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about Eddie Vedder's height and weight are not widely documented, he is known for his distinctive stage presence and energetic performances.
Vedder has used his role as a musician to speak on several politically-oriented themes. In 2009, he said, "People on death row, the treatment of animals, women's right to choose. So much in America is based on religious fundamentalist Christianity. Grow up! This is the modern world!" In 1992, Spin printed an article by Vedder, titled "Reclamation", which detailed his views on abortion. Vedder and Pearl Jam performed at Rock for Choice in 1994. During the band's appearance on MTV Unplugged in 1992, Vedder stood up on his stool during the instrumental break of the song "Porch" and wrote "PRO-CHOICE" on his left arm with a magic marker.
Vedder is known to use a Mike Lull-modified, vintage Fender Telecaster that features a single coil pickup in the bridge position and a P-90 pickup in the neck position, as well as various stickers as a tribute to his favorite band of all time, The Who. He uses three vintage Fender Tweed amplifiers, including a 1959 Deluxe and a 1957 Custom Twin. His two main acoustic guitars are a 1930s-era Martin 00-17 and a vintage Gibson Pete Townshend Signature SJ-200.
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Dating & Relationship Status
Eddie Vedder has been married to Beth Liebling from 1994 to 2000 and later married Jill McCormick in 2010. He is known for his close family life and has been involved in various philanthropic activities over the years.
His parents divorced in 1965 when Vedder was an infant. His mother soon married Peter Mueller. Vedder was raised believing that Mueller was his biological father, and he went by the name Edward Mueller for a time. Vedder's ancestry includes Dutch, German, English, and Danish on his mother's side (Vedder) and Norwegian on his father's side (Severson).
While living in Evanston, Vedder's family fostered seven younger children in a group home. In the mid-1970s, the family, including Vedder's three younger half-brothers, moved to San Diego County, California. Vedder received a guitar from his mother on his 12th birthday, and began turning to music and surfing as a source of comfort. He especially found solace in The Who's 1973 album, Quadrophenia. He said, "When I was around 15 or 16...I was all alone—except for music." His mother and Mueller divorced when Vedder was in his late teens. His mother and brothers moved back to the Chicago area, but Vedder remained with his stepfather in California so he did not have to change schools.
After the divorce, Vedder learned the truth about his parentage and that Mueller was really his stepfather, not his father, an incident that later inspired the song "Alive". Vedder met his biological father briefly as a child, but was led to believe that Severson was merely an old friend of his parents. By the time Vedder learned the truth, Severson had died of multiple sclerosis. During his senior year at San Dieguito High School, Vedder moved out to live in an apartment and supported himself with a nightly job at a drug store in Encinitas. Because of the pressure of work and school, Vedder dropped out of high school. He joined the rest of his family in the Chicago area, and changed his last name to Vedder, his mother's maiden name.
In 1984, Vedder returned to San Diego with his girlfriend Beth Liebling and his friend Frank. While living in the San Diego area, Vedder recorded demo tapes at his home and worked various jobs, including as a contracted security guard at the La Valencia Hotel in La Jolla. Vedder had several stints in San Diego area bands, including Surf and Destroy and the Butts. One of those bands, called Indian Style, included future Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave drummer Brad Wilk.
In the 1980s, Vedder worked part time as a night clerk at a local gas station. Through the Southern California music scene, Vedder met former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons, who became a friend and would play basketball with him. Later in 1990, Irons gave him the demo tape of a Seattle band looking for a singer. Vedder listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. He wrote lyrics for three of the songs in what he later described as a "mini-opera" entitled Momma-Son. The songs tell the story of a young man who, like Vedder, learns that he had been lied to about his paternity and that his real father is dead, grows up to become a serial killer, and is eventually imprisoned and sentenced to death. Vedder recorded vocals for the three songs, and mailed the demo tape back to Seattle. The three songs would later become Pearl Jam's "Alive", "Once", and "Footsteps".
After hearing Vedder's tape, former Mother Love Bone members Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament invited Vedder to come to Seattle to audition for their new band. They were instantly impressed with his unique sound. At the time, Gossard and Ament were working on the Temple of the Dog project founded by Soundgarden's Chris Cornell as a musical tribute to Mother Love Bone's frontman Andrew Wood, who died of a heroin overdose at age 24. Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron and newcomer Mike McCready were also a part of the project. The song "Hunger Strike" became a duet between Cornell and Vedder. Cornell later said that Vedder "sang half of that song not even knowing that I'd wanted the part to be there and he sang it exactly the way I was thinking about doing it, just instinctively."
Vedder has contributed solo material to several soundtracks and compilations, including the soundtracks for the films Dead Man Walking (1995), I Am Sam (2001), A Brokedown Melody (2004), Body of War (2007), and Reign Over Me (2007). Vedder collaborated with Pakistani musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for his contributions to the Dead Man Walking soundtrack. He covered the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" for the I Am Sam soundtrack. Vedder wrote "Man of the Hour" that Pearl Jam recorded for Tim Burton's Big Fish Soundtrack (2003). Vedder wrote two songs for the 2007 feature documentary, Body of War, produced by Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue: "No More" (a song referring to the Iraq War) and "Long Nights". Vedder and the supergroup the Million Dollar Bashers, which includes members from Sonic Youth, Wilco, and Bob Dylan's band, covered Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" for the biopic film, I'm Not There (2007). Pearl Jam recorded a cover version of The Who's song "Love, Reign o'er Me" for the film Reign Over Me, which takes its title from the song. In 2010, Vedder recorded a new song, "Better Days", which appeared on the soundtrack to the 2010 film Eat Pray Love. Vedder contributed original music for the soundtrack to the 2021 film Flag Day, which also featured the musical debut of Vedder's daughter Olivia on lead vocals in the first single, "My Father’s Daughter", written by Vedder and Glen Hansard.
On September 18, 2010, Vedder married his longtime girlfriend, model Jill McCormick, whom he had been dating since 2000. They have two daughters, Olivia, born in 2004, and Harper, born in 2008. In 2011, McCormick appeared in the music video for Vedder's solo single, "Longing to Belong". In 2014, Vedder and McCormick co-founded the EB Research Partnership, a non-profit organization dedicated to finding a cure for the genetic skin disorder epidermolysis bullosa. They have raised over US$25 million to fund research to find a cure.
Vedder was a close friend of Chris Cornell, the Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman. Aside from Vedder's Pearl Jam bandmates, Cornell was one of the first people Vedder met after moving to Seattle in 1990. The two were neighbors for a while and shared vocal duties in Temple of the Dog. In the 2009 book Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music, Soundgarden manager Susan Silver recalled that Cornell carried Vedder onstage on his shoulders at Pearl Jam's second show in Seattle (the band was known as Mookie Blaylock at the time): "Everyone was still reeling from [Andrew Wood]'s death... The band came on and Chris carried Eddie onto the stage – he was on his shoulders. It was one of those super powerful moments, where it was all a big healing for everybody. He came out as this guy who had all the credibility in the world – in terms of people in Seattle – and Malfunkshun and Mother Love Bone were loved bands. Andy was such an endearing personality. It was a hard thing to do – to show up after people die. And Chris bringing Eddie out, and pointing at him, as much Pearl Jam lead guitarist Mike McCready recalled that Cornell had helped welcome the "'super, super shy'" Vedder to Seattle: "He was like, 'Hey, welcome to Seattle. I love Jeff [Ament] and Stone [Gossard]. I give you my blessing". From then on [Vedder] was more relaxed. It was one of the coolest things I saw Chris do'". In a 2009 interview with Uncut magazine, Vedder stated that Cornell is "the best singer that we've got on the planet". About the impact that Cornell had in his life, Vedder told a crowd in Alpine Valley before performing "Hunger Strike" with him in September 2011; "I had no idea how he would affect my life and my views on music and my views on friendship and what a big impact he would have. These guys [the other members of Pearl Jam] know him much longer than me and his impact is profound". The friendship between Vedder and Cornell is featured in the 2011 documentary Pearl Jam Twenty. During his solo concert in London on June 6, 2017, Vedder talked for the first time about Cornell since his death on May 18, 2017, saying that "he wasn't just a friend, he was someone I looked up to like my older brother" and "I will live with those memories in my heart and I will love him forever".
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| Husband | Beth Liebling (m. 1994-2000) Jill McCormick (m. 2010) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Eddie Vedder's net worth is estimated to be between $100 million and $120 million. His wealth comes from his successful music career with Pearl Jam, including album sales, touring, and merchandise. Pearl Jam's collective net worth is estimated to be around $400-$450 million, reflecting the band's enduring popularity and financial success.
Career, Business, and Investments
Career Highlights:
- Pearl Jam: Vedder's work with Pearl Jam has been instrumental in shaping his career. The band is known for hits like "Jeremy," "Even Flow," and "Alive."
- Solo Projects: Outside of Pearl Jam, Vedder has released solo albums, including "Ukulele Songs" and "Earthling," showcasing his versatility as a musician.
- Philanthropy: Vedder is renowned for his charitable efforts, particularly in environmental and social causes.
Feeling the pressures of success, with much of the burden of Pearl Jam's popularity falling on Vedder, the band decided to decrease the level of promotion for its albums, including refusing to release music videos. Vedder's issue with fame came from what he stated as "what happens when a lot of these people start thinking you can change their lives or save their lives or whatever and create these impossible fuckin' expectations that in the end just start tearing you apart." In 1994, the band began a much-publicized boycott of Ticketmaster, which lasted for three years and limited the band's ability to tour in the United States. Vedder faced what he called a "pretty intense stalker problem" during the mid-1990s. Vedder would refer to the issue in the song "Lukin" from No Code.
The band subsequently released No Code in 1996 and Yield in 1998. In 1998, prior to Pearl Jam's U.S. Yield Tour, Irons left the band due to dissatisfaction with touring. Pearl Jam enlisted former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron as Irons' replacement on an initially temporary basis, but he soon became the permanent replacement for Irons. "Do the Evolution" (from Yield) received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance. Vedder described Pearl Jam's approach in 1998, saying "We've had the luxury of writing our own job description...and that description has basically been cut down to just one line: make music."
Vedder began incorporating social commentary and political criticism into his lyrics and performances early in his career with Pearl Jam. He usually comments on politics between songs, often to criticize U.S. foreign policy. During Pearl Jam's 2007 Lollapalooza headlining show, Vedder and the band played a song telling the crowd in Chicago to boycott the oil company BP because they had been polluting Lake Michigan.
Social Network
Eddie Vedder is relatively private on social media platforms, focusing more on his music and philanthropic endeavors. However, his work with Pearl Jam and his solo projects have garnered a significant following across various social media channels.
Vedder also provided background vocals on several other Temple of the Dog songs. In April 1991, Temple of the Dog was released by A&M Records. "Hunger Strike" became Temple of the Dog's breakout single; it was also Vedder's first featured vocal on a record. "I really like hearing that song. I feel like I could be real proud of it – because one, I didn't write it, and two, it was such a nice way to be ushered onto vinyl for the first time. I'm indebted to Chris (Cornell) time eternal for being invited onto that track", Vedder said in 2009. In the 2011 documentary Pearl Jam Twenty, Vedder said, "That was the first time I heard myself on a real record. It could be one of my favorite songs that I've ever been on – or the most meaningful." Vedder and Cornell performed the song together for the last time on October 26, 2014, at a benefit for Bridge School.
Vedder contributed an album's worth of songs to the soundtrack for the 2007 film, Into the Wild. The soundtrack was released on September 18, 2007, through J Records. It includes covers of the Indio song "Hard Sun" and the Jerry Hannan song "Society". Vedder said that having to write songs based on a narrative "simplified things". He said, "There were fewer choices. The story was there and the scenes were there." Vedder's songs written for the film feature a folk sound. Thom Jurek of AllMusic called the soundtrack a "collection of folksy, rootsy tunes where rock & roll makes fleeting appearances." Vedder won a 2008 Golden Globe Award for the song "Guaranteed" from Into the Wild. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his contributions to the film's original score. At the 2008 Grammy Awards, "Guaranteed" received a nomination for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. "Guaranteed" was also nominated a 2008 World Soundtrack Award in the category of Best Original Song Written Directly for a Film. At the 2009 Grammy Awards, "Rise" received a nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo.
Vedder had a brief acting cameo in the 1992 movie, Singles, along with Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam. He appeared as himself, playing drums in lead actor Matt Dillon's backing band, Citizen Dick. He was also interviewed for the 1996 grunge documentary, Hype! He appears in the 2003 Ramones documentary, End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones. In 2007, he made a cameo as himself in the comedy film, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. He appears in the 2007 Tom Petty documentary, Runnin' Down a Dream, the 2008 political documentary, Slacker Uprising, and the 2009 Howard Zinn documentary, The People Speak, based upon A People's History of the United States. He was featured in the 2008 Greg Kohs documentary, Song Sung Blue, performing with Lightning and Thunder. He had a one-scene cameo in the second episode of the second season of the IFC television show Portlandia. He also appears in the 2012 documentary West of Memphis, protesting against the case. Vedder made an appearance in the season 3 episode 16 of David Lynch's Twin Peaks Aug 2017. He was referred to by his birth name, Edward Louis Severson.
Music critic Jim DeRogatis has described Vedder's vocals as a "Jim Morrison-like vocal growl". Greg Prato of AllMusic said, "With his hard-hitting and often confessional lyrical style and Jim Morrison-esque baritone, Vedder also became one of the most copied lead singers in all of rock." Vedder has inducted Aerosmith, the Doors, Neil Young, the Ramones, and R.E.M. into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in his induction speeches he has cited them all as influences. Other influences that Vedder has cited include Pete Townshend and the Who, which the singer considers to be his favorite band of all time, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Talking Heads, Fugazi, and the Clash.
Although primarily a vocalist, Vedder began playing guitar on some Pearl Jam songs with the Vs. songs "Rearviewmirror" and "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town". When the band started, Gossard and McCready were clearly designated as rhythm and lead guitarists, respectively. The dynamic began to change when Vedder started to play more rhythm guitar during the Vitalogy era. McCready said in 2006, "Even though there are three guitars, I think there's maybe more room now. Stone will pull back and play a two-note line and Ed will do a power chord thing, and I fit into all that." Vedder's guitar playing helped the band's sound progress toward a more stripped-down style; the songs "Rearviewmirror" and "Corduroy" (from Vitalogy) feature Vedder's raw, punk-influenced guitar playing. As he had more influence on the band's sound, Vedder sought to make the band's musical output less catchy. He said, "I felt that with more popularity, we were going to be crushed, our heads were going to pop like grapes." He has also contributed performances on the ukulele, harmonica, accordion, and electric sitar to various Pearl Jam recordings.
Throughout Pearl Jam's career, Vedder has interacted with the crowd during the band's concerts. Early in Pearl Jam's existence, Vedder and the band became known for their intense live performances. Vedder participated in stage diving as well as crowd surfing. During the early part of Pearl Jam's career, Vedder was known to climb the stage lighting rig and hang from the stage roof. Looking back at this time, Vedder said, "It's hard for us to watch early performances, even though that's when people think we were on fire and young. Playing music for as long as I had been playing music and then getting a shot at making a record and at having an audience and stuff, it's just like an untamed force...a different kind of energy. And I find it kind of hard to watch those early performances because it's so just fucking, semi-testosterone-fueled or whatever. But it didn't come from jock mentality. It came from just being let out of the gates."
Vedder has written songs and lyrics that question religious authority. Vedder is a Chicago Bulls and Chicago Bears fan and a long-time, die-hard fan of the Chicago Cubs. In November 1993, Vedder and White Sox pitcher Jack McDowell were involved in a barroom brawl in New Orleans, Louisiana, that resulted in Vedder being arrested for public drunkenness and disturbing the peace. Vedder sang the national anthem before the third game of the 1998 NBA Finals in Chicago, and has sung "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at six Cubs games, including Game 5 of the 2016 World Series. In 2007, a few days before performing with Pearl Jam in Chicago for Lollapalooza, he threw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field, the home of the Cubs. Vedder wrote a song at the request of former Cubs shortstop and first baseman Ernie Banks paying tribute to the Cubs called "All the Way". The day after the Cubs won the 2016 World Series, the Cubs' official Twitter account posted a montage video backed by Vedder's song in a tribute to Cubs fans.
Education
Vedder attended San Diego's University of California, but he did not pursue a degree. Instead, he focused on his music career, which eventually led to his rise as a prominent figure in the grunge movement.
Vedder attended San Dieguito High School, now called San Dieguito Academy, and donated proceeds from a 2006 Pearl Jam concert in San Diego toward the construction of a theater for the school in the name of his former drama teacher, Clayton E. Liggett. Liggett was Vedder's mentor in high school. Vedder wrote the song "Long Road" (from Merkin Ball) upon hearing of Liggett's death in 1995.
Conclusion
Eddie Vedder's career as the iconic frontman of Pearl Jam has been marked by enduring success and a strong commitment to his craft. With a net worth ranging from $100 million to $120 million in 2025, he continues to be a prominent voice in the music industry, both through his work with Pearl Jam and his solo endeavors.
