Eddie Vedder says new Pearl Jam song is about Donald Trump ‘playing the victim’

Vedder added of Trump: ‘I don’t think there has ever been a candidate more desperate to win’

Eddie Vedder has revealed that Pearl Jam’s new song “Wreckage” was inspired by former US president Donald Trump.

“Wreckage” appears on Dark Matter, the Seattle band’s twelfth album, which was released on Friday (19 April).

Singer-songwriter Vedder, 59, told The Times that the song represents an appeal for unity.

“There is a guy in the United States who is still saying he didn’t lose an election, and people are reverberating and amplifying that message as if it is true,” said Vedder.

“Trump is desperate. I don’t think there has ever been a candidate more desperate to win, just to keep himself out of prison and to avoid bankruptcy. It is all on the line, and he’s out there playing the victim – at least they’re doing this to me, because if not they would be doing it to you – but you haven’t falsified your tax records. You don’t have classified information in your basement.

“So the song is saying, let’s not be driven apart by one person, especially not a person without any worthy causes.”

Eddie Vedder and Donald Trump (Getty)

When asked whether Trump’s time may be passing, Vedder added: “I can’t wait. Most thoughtful people are going through a bit of PTSD about it now, so maybe you’re right.”

Former president Trump is currently on trial in a hush money case in which he is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Follow the latest updates from Trump’s trial here.

The defendant spent much of the weekend complaining about the case on Truth Social and angrily posting his presidential immunity claims – on which the Supreme Court will hear arguments this Thursday.

Meanwhile, figures released by the Federal Election Commission revealed that legal fees had eaten up three-quarters of the cash from the pro-Trump Save America PAC, a key fundraising group.

Elsewhere among the myriad legal issues engulfing the former president, an agreement has been reached over Trump’s $175m bond to appeal the civil fraud trial ruling and the public filing is due of witness statements in the classified documents case.

In a four-star review of Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter, The Independent’s Louis Chilton wrote: “Recorded at Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, Dark Matter is a tremendously well-produced record – sharp and crisp when it needs to be, and looser when the songs allow.

“‘Wreckage’, the album’s angsty but layered third track, veers into tuneful, Americana-adjacent territory, becoming ever so slightly muddy. Credit to Grammy-winning producer Andrew Watt (collaborator of artists such as Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and The Rolling Stones) who serves as collaborator here.”