Pearl Jam Tries New Approach to Tickets : Pop music: January benefit shows in Washington will use a mail-order lottery. A ’95 tour may be handled similarly to avoid Ticketmaster.

Pearl Jam, whose touring plans were derailed last summer by a battle with Ticketmaster over service fees, will return to the stage next month in the nation’s capital for the first of what is expected to be a series of shows sidestepping the ticket giant.

The Seattle rock group will headline shows Jan. 14-15 at the 3,500-seat Constitution Hall to benefit Voters for Choice, the Washington-based political action committee that for 15 years has worked to elect abortion-rights candidates.

Tickets to the shows, which are expected to raise $100,000, will be sold without a surcharge through a mail-order lottery system designed in part to accommodate the band’s anti-Ticketmaster stance.

Sources say the band is exploring a similar mail-order approach for selling tickets to its planned U.S. summer tour at venues not affiliated with Ticketmaster.

“Pearl Jam doesn’t just sing about issues they care about. These guys walk it like they talk it,” said Gloria Steinem, co-founder and president of Voters for Choice.

Steinem, who supports the band’s crusade for lower service fees, took advantage of a clause in the exclusive contract between Constitution Hall and Ticketmaster Washington/Baltimore (a Ticketmaster licensee), which allows promoters of charity events to sell their own tickets. (The clause is believed to exist in all contracts between Ticketmaster and its affiliated venues.)

Ticketmaster officials declined comment, but a source close to the firm said the band’s tour plans for next summer “validates the idea that Pearl Jam has always had, and will always have, the ability to tour whenever they want.”

Pearl Jam’s feud with the Los Angeles-based firm erupted in May when the band filed a civil complaint with the U.S. Justice Department alleging that Ticketmaster has a national monopoly over ticket distribution.

The complaint--which also accused Ticketmaster of using its influence to thwart Pearl Jam’s planned low-priced 1994 summer tour--triggered an ongoing federal probe into anti-competitive practices in the ticket distribution industry.

Ticketmaster uses a portion of the service fees it collects to maintain exclusive contracts with the owners of the largest concert venues and promotion firms. Those contracts were reviewed in 1991 when the Justice Department’s antitrust division allowed the company to buy certain assets from its only major competitor. Ticketmaster denies Pearl Jam’s allegations.

Ticket distribution and itinerary details for the band’s eight-week trek next summer are not expected to be announced until March and could change pending any developments in the Justice Department investigation. Band members declined comment for this story.

Pearl Jam has performed only once in the United States since the investigation began, playing an acoustic set in October at Neil Young’s Bridge Benefit, a fund raiser for which tickets were sold through BASS, a Bay Area firm affiliated with Ticketmaster.

Officials from the Justice Department--which in May ordered Ticketmaster to surrender records pertinent to the probe--continue to conduct extensive interviews in several states with promoters, venue operators and talent managers. Last week, the government spoke to representatives for Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Phish and the Indigo Girls, sources said. Representatives for some of rock’s biggest acts--including R.E.M., Sting and Aerosmith--have already been interviewed.

It was not easy for Steinem’s organization to find a venue to present its upcoming benefit, which will also feature performances by Neil Young and L7. (Details, including ticket prices, are due to be announced next week.)

Tom Campbell, head of Avocado Productions, the nonprofit Los Angeles organization coordinating the benefit, said he approached nearly a dozen venues in the Washington area before getting a green light from Constitution Hall. According to Campbell, venue operators either disagreed with the show’s abortion-rights theme or cited scheduling conflicts.

Pearl Jam got involved with Voters for Choice after Steinem wrote the band, inviting it to play at the organization’s annual fund-raiser.

Sources close to the band say Pearl Jam is concerned about the upsurge in violence against doctors who perform abortions, as well as the fire-bombings of abortion clinics. The quintet has previously helped raise money for a variety of feminist causes.