Pearl Jam‘s Stone Gossard has tried to defuse the recent war of words between his bandmate Eddie Vedder and Mötley Crüe‘s Nikki Sixx.

Gossard said that he was a fan of Mötley Crüe’s music, despite Vedder’s recent comments, and that he had purchased the band’s 1981 debut album ‘Too Fast For Love’ when it was still available only on the indie label Leathür Records.

“Jeff [Ament, Pearl Jam bassist] and Mike [McCready, guitarist] and I loved hard rock, like, went through it all. I bought the first Mötley Crüe on Leathür Records,” Gossard told the Fan First podcast. “I thought it was, at the time, it was punk-like. It had that same [energy]. It’s like Motörhead.”

He added, “There was things about it that I was discovering about British hard rock at that time that felt also rebellious or against the norm or something that made me interested in it. And I always liked heavy.”

A back and forth began in January, when Vedder dismissed Mötley Crüe as “vacuous”, saying in an interview with The New York Times Magazine: “‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ and Mötley Crüe. Fuck you. I hated it. I hated how it made the fellas look. I hated how it made the women look.”

Sixx then responded: “Made me laugh today reading how much the singer in Pearl Jam hated Mötley Crüe. Now considering that they’re one of the most boring bands in history, it’s kind of a compliment isn’t it?”

On stage earlier this month, Vedder appeared to make a further jab at Mötley Crüe’s stage theatrics, when he commented on a drum solo by drummer Chad Smith.

“That drum kit – that silver, beautiful machine that he is the engine of – does not need to elevate or rotate to do its job. Let me just point that out,” Vedder said.

Vedder recently released his new solo album ‘Earthling’, which features appearances from Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Ringo Starr. In a three-star review, NME said: “The record’s through-line is its allegiance to fatherhood itself; most of these tunes sound less like classic Vedder, and more like the music that raised him.