Pearl Jam Comes Alive; The reluctant rockers return with a new CD that might just bring back the fame they love to hate.

Byline: Lorraine Ali

Eddie Vedder writes songs on a manual typewriter, carries important papers in a 1940s suitcase, keeps his credit cards in a plastic Batman wallet and wears his beat-up lumberjack boots over a pair of blue argyle socks. He prefers to talk politics rather than Pearl Jam, and has a 21-month-old daughter who likes to sing Daddy's new single, "World Wide Suicide," during play group. "She dances around singing 'Suicide, suicide'," says Vedder, "and I have to wonder what the other parents are thinking."

Such personal tidbits feel like a full-length tell-all memoir when you consider that Pearl Jam has been, and remains, a band that guards its privacy. After the success of their 1991 debut, "Ten," which sold nearly 10 million copies, the Seattle group stopped making videos, shunned endorsements and shied away from almost all self-promotion. And each subsequent album proved less accessible than its predecessor. (Can you name the last two Pearl Jam records?) But despite their refusal to play the game--or because of it--Pearl Jam is still considered one of the last rock bands that matter. "What's threatened by being out there all the time is your sense of normalcy as a human on this planet," says Vedder, 41,…