1984–1990

Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were members of pioneering grunge band Green River during the mid-1980s. Green River toured and recorded to moderate success but disbanded in 1987 due to a stylistic division between the pair and bandmates Mark Arm and Steve Turner. In late 1987, Gossard and Ament began playing with Malfunkshun vocalist Andrew Wood, eventually organizing the band Mother Love Bone. In 1988 and 1989, the band recorded and toured to increasing interest and found the support of the PolyGram record label, which signed the band in early 1989. Their debut album, Apple was released in July 1990, four months after Wood died of a heroin overdose.

Ament and Gossard were devastated by the death of Wood and the resulting demise of Mother Love Bone. Gossard spent his time afterwards writing material that was harder-edged than what he had been doing previously. After a few months, Gossard started practicing with fellow Seattle guitarist Mike McCready, whose band Shadow had just broken up; McCready in turn encouraged Gossard to reconnect with Ament. After practicing for a while, the trio sent out a five-song demo tape in order to find a singer and a drummer. They gave former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons the demo to see if he would be interested in joining the band and to distribute the demo to anyone he felt might fit the lead vocal position.

Irons passed on the invitation but gave the demo to his basketball buddy, San Diego singer Eddie Vedder. Vedder was the lead vocalist for a San Diego band, Bad Radio, and worked part time at a gas station. He listened to the tape shortly before going surfing, where lyrics came to him. There he recorded the vocals to three of the songs (Alive, Once, and Footsteps) in what Vedder would later describe as a mini-opera. He sent the tape with his vocals back to the three Seattle musicians, who were so impressed that they had Vedder fly to Seattle. Within a week, Vedder had joined the band.

With the addition of Dave Krusen on drums, the band took the name Mookie Blaylock, in reference to the then-active All-Star basketball player. The band played their first official show at the Off Ramp club in Seattle on October 22, 1990, and soon signed to Epic Records. However, concerns about trademark issues necessitated a name change; the band's name became Pearl Jam.

In an early promotional interview Vedder claimed that the name Pearl Jam was a reference to his great-grandmother Pearl, who was married to a Native American and had a special recipe for peyote-laced jam. Another theory put forward in Kim Neely's band history Five Against One holds that one of the band members really wanted pearl in the new name, and jamming is a common activity done by musicians. In a 2006 Rolling Stone cover story Ament and McCready admitted that Ament came up with Pearl, and that Jam was added after the band saw Neil Young live.