When it was announced that Pearl Jam will be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame next year, there was one person who was pissed off, and with very good reason.
David Abbruzzese – who drummed on Pearl Jam’s second and third album Vs. and Vitalogy, and joined the band prior to the release of debut album Ten – will not be inducted with the rest of the band he helped make famous, an official snub that has Abbruzzese, plus many PJ fans, furious.
Abbruzzese posted a message on Facebook, which read in part: “I challenge anyone to justify why I am not worthy of a place in the history of Pearl Jam. The official reason given from the RRHOF makes it bullshit. It make my years of hard work appear to be worthless towards the success born of the formative years of Pearl Jam. This is simply not the case. The milestones and the success obtained during my period in the band…
The Grammy, AMA’s, MTV Awards, over 20 plus million albums sold. MTV Unplugged performance. SNL twice, etc. Over 275 shows.
“For anyone to take a stand for denying my right to be recognized, I deserve to hear how you are possibly justifying such an absolute travesty. Statistics and the opinions of the Pearl Jam fans voiced on social media for the last 20 plus years will attest to that.
Someone need only to pull their head out of their ass and add my name.”
These are all very valid points. The strongest case for Abbruzzesse comes from the official Hall Of Fame itself, who writes of their methods for selection, “the members of each eligible band are determined by largely who was present and active during the most influential recording years.”
Surely drumming on both Vs. and Vitalogy, and being “present and active” during the extensive tour which break the album Ten has to count for something. Vs. actually broke a first-week sales record in America, and held it for five years, selling over 7 million copies in the US alone. Vitalogy sold 5 million copies, and would have broken the aforementioned first-week sales record too, was it not blocked by Vs.
Yet this isn’t deemed enough for Hall of Fame entry. As Abbruzzesse says, this is clearly bullshit.
