Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready recently recalled how drummer Matt Cameron received legal threats from KISS as a teenager, sharing the story during an appearance on Chris Jericho.
The conversation arose when McCready was asked if he had the chance to meet any of his heroes when Pearl Jam started to explode, and whether he ran into Ace Frehley or any of those musicians.
“I met Ace a little bit longer later on and he came out and did Black Diamond with us and Matt Cameron sang because Matt was in a KISS cover band in San Diego when he was a kid,” McCready said. “They actually got a cease and desist letter from KISS because they were getting so much attention in San Diego. Can you imagine that? 16-year-old kids, and KISS was like, ‘These guys are gonna take our audience from us.'”
McCready then described what it was like to perform with Frehley and meet other musical icons.
“Matt would sing Black Diamond back then,” McCready continued. “So when we finally met Ace, we did that with him and you know it’s my dream come true. Like if I had known I was going to meet anybody from KISS when I was 14, I would have passed out. It doesn’t even make sense to me.”
He also reflected on meeting other legendary figures who inspired him.
“So I did and I got to meet Keith Richards,” McCready added. “Opened up for him, you know, and I’m just in awe of him and just you get around and so luckily, I’ve been able to meet a lot of my heroes, you know, and yeah, it’s just part of the thing that’s the icing on the cake again, you know.”
The story McCready tells is one Cameron himself has confirmed before. The drummer has said the band operated as a neighborhood KISS cover group in San Diego, and the legal pressure came from the band’s management rather than from the members directly. Cameron has described the experience in his own words, saying, “I was in a neighborhood KISS cover band when I was 13/14, something like that.” The group reportedly changed how it presented itself after the letter arrived.
Cameron’s path from those San Diego cover bands to the biggest stages in rock is well documented. He began playing drums professionally at age 14 in various cover bands in San Diego before joining Soundgarden in 1986, where he played until 1997. Soon after Soundgarden’s initial breakup, he was asked to join Pearl Jam, becoming the band’s drummer in 1998.
The performance McCready describes with Frehley took place on a landmark night for the band. The original KISS guitarist joined Pearl Jam on June 25, 2008, during the second of a two-night stand at Madison Square Garden in New York, playing lead guitar on KISS’ “Black Diamond.” Fan-filmed footage of the collaboration has circulated widely since.
Details of the performance show how the tribute was split between the two musicians. Frehley came out without his KISS makeup during the second encore, and McCready sang the opening verse of “Black Diamond” while Cameron handled the remainder — a fitting arrangement given Cameron’s history with the song.
For McCready, sharing a stage with Frehley was the culmination of a lifelong influence. The guitarist has called the Madison Square Garden appearance “a total high watermark in my life,” and he wrote of Frehley, “I would not have picked up a guitar without Ace and KISS’s influence.”
