Musical Style and Influences
McCready prefers to play "by ear" rather than from a technical standpoint. He stated, "I'm so ignorant of this technical stuff...I'm not into being a tech-head." McCready's guitar style is usually of an aggressive bluesy nature, and was described by Greg Prato of Allmusic as "feel-oriented" and "rootsy." McCready has cited Ace Frehley, Michael Schenker, Jimi Hendrix, George Harrison, Joe Perry, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, Eddie Hazel, UFO, and Randy Rhoads among his influences. When Pearl Jam supported The Rolling Stones in 1997, Vedder made a joke that McCready is such a big fan of the Stones that he would count the number of lines on the band's vinyl records. McCready is known to use a Fender Stratocaster, a Gibson Les Paul, and a Gibson Les Paul Junior. 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." Of his live performances, McCready has said, "I can kind of get into a meditative state when I’m playing, something I don’t get any other way...You might see me staring up in the sky with my eyes closed. I’m not faking it. That just kind of happens."
As time has gone on McCready has contributed more to Pearl Jam's songwriting process. McCready's first writing contribution for Pearl Jam was co-writing the music for the B-side "Yellow Ledbetter" (from the "Jeremy" single), which has since become a regular set closing song during Pearl Jam's live concerts. After co-writing material for Vs. and writing the music for the song "Present Tense" from the album No Code, he wrote the music for three of the tracks on the band's 1998 album, Yield, including one of the band's biggest hits, "Given to Fly". All but one ("Force of Nature", from Backspacer) of McCready's sole compositions for Pearl Jam use alternate tunings, such as open G on "Faithfull" (from Yield), a variation of open D on "Given to Fly", and a variation of open G on "Marker in the Sand" (from Pearl Jam). McCready made his first lyrical contribution for the band with the track "Inside Job", which closes the band's 2006 self-titled album.
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