Camping trips, rifles, jokes and old band tensions — the ex-drummer lays out his version of how Glorified G came to life, adding another layer to the Pearl Jam myth.
Sometimes it just takes a joke and a couple of rifles to turn a song into legend.
Glorified G, track four on Vs., is one of Pearl Jam’s most talked-about songs, often seen as a jab at drummer Dave Abbruzzese. And now, Dave himself, in a long Facebook post on April 28th, 2025, has laid down his version of how it all went down.
“I still find it hilarious that I have to talk about this,” Abbruzzese wrote. “I do, because it seems, as the years pass, the story changes and I become kind of a villain in it. Almost as if it is another reason I was unceremoniously fired by the band, and my contributions and hard work discredited. So, I’m going to lay it down as it is, as it was, and as it always will be.”
It all kicked off during a camping trip up at Mount Rainier. Dave went out there with his good buddy Jon Anderson, and just to feel a little safer in the woods, he decided to pick up a .22 caliber rifle — basically, as he puts it, “a glorified version of a pellet gun.” When he got back, he casually mentioned the gun to Kelly Curtis, the band’s manager at the time. Kelly told him to be careful, but Dave shrugged it off, saying everything went fine, the gun was just in case some wild animals showed up.
The real tension hit when he showed up at rehearsal. Dave picked up on the cold shoulder from the rest of the guys pretty quick — something he says wasn’t totally out of the ordinary, but this time, he could feel it had a reason. When the whole gun thing came up, Dave tried to laugh it off: “Yeah, I got a gun, in fact I bought two,” he joked. That kicked off a pretty heated back-and-forth about guns and owning them. Jeff Ament chimed in, sharing something his dad used to tell him: if you’re gonna have a gun, you better always keep it loaded. That little line amped up the conversation, turning it into this big mix of personal stories and cultural takes on guns.
And while all this was going down, Eddie Vedder was hanging back, quiet but laser-focused, scribbling in his notebook. That whole conversation — with some extra flair and polish — turned into the lyrics for Glorified G, laid over a riff Mike McCready had been messing around with at the time. The song ended up not just as a social commentary, but also as a snapshot of the tensions that were bubbling inside the band.
Abbruzzese’s take on guns
Dave was clear on his stance: “Do I believe in AR-15s and military assault rifles and all these sorts of things being available to the public is a good or necessary thing? No, I never have and I never will. I don’t understand why people need such military grade weapons, but as far as being able to have the right to purchase a .22 caliber gun or a BB gun or a handgun or whatever that is a constitutional right”.
He added, “I also believe that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. That being the case there ought to be stricter ownership laws in place.”
How the song shaped his image
Over the years, the legend around Glorified G snowballed, and for a lot of fans it became this sort of anthem about the band’s tension with Dave. But he brushes it off: “So, there’s the story. That’s what it is. Some oversensitive blah blah blah and overtime it’s turned into that Eddie wrote the song as a dig on me and blah blah blah blah blah and I don’t really give a fuck, but I am tired of feeling like I need to defend myself against something like this. Something so trivial and stupid.”
The Rock Hall snub — another sore spot
Abbruzzese has also been vocal about his frustration over not getting an invite to Pearl Jam’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2017. But here’s the thing: the Hall usually inducts the original lineup, and if members changed, they pick the most recognizable or longest-serving ones. So for Pearl Jam, they brought in original drummer Dave Krusen and Matt Cameron, who by that point had been in the band for 19 years. It was a call based on standard Hall of Fame rules, not necessarily a personal diss.
Looking back on a past that still echoes
Abbruzzese has never shied away from airing out stories from the band’s past. Love it or leave it, his version gives a peek inside a moment that helped shape one of Pearl Jam’s most intense and talked-about songs.
Glorified G remains a powerful track, tackling America’s gun obsession with a sharp, no-nonsense edge. For Dave, it’s also a reminder of how an everyday moment can turn into rock folklore — and why, even now, he’s still feeling the need to set the record straight.
Born in Reggio Emilia in 1980. He created pearljamonline.it in 2001 and wrote the first edition of “Pearl Jam Evolution” in 2009 along with his wife Daria. Since 2022, he is behind 2 podcasts: “Pearl Jam dalla A alla Z” and “Fuori Orario Not Another Podcast”. He has collaborated with Barracuda Style, HvsR, Rolling Stone, Rockol and Il Fatto Quotidiano. He continues relentlessly to try to find “beautiful melodies that say terrible things”.
Favorite song: Present Tense
Favorite album: No Code
Favorite bands/artists other than PJ: Tom Waits, Soundgarden, Ramones, Bruce Springsteen, IDLES, Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital, Dead Kennedys, Mark Lanegan, Cat Power, R.E.M.