Pearl Jam Focused on ‘Different and Exciting’ Things for Next LP
Pearl Jam isn’t lacking for material, as work continues on their 12th album.
“We’ve got demos for days,” guitarist Stone Gossard confirms in an interview with 101 WRIF (video below). “Everybody writes in the band, so now it’s really just trying to figure out what’s something different for us and what’s something exciting.”
The follow-up to 2020’s Gigaton was already taking shape before Pearl Jam took some downtime after completing a series of tour dates that had been postponed as the pandemic began. Gossard now says the new LP probably won’t arrive until 2024.
“The plan is that we're gonna do some more recording, and we’re gonna try to finish a record here pretty soon. There’s songs that are getting close to being done and there’s a bunch that aren’t,” he explained. “I think we’ve got a good start on another record that will be hopefully good. I bet it's gonna be 2024 before the record comes out, is my guess – but we’re working on it.”
They began sessions work with producer Andrew Watt in March. “Andrew is a total character,” Gossard said back then. “Really, like immediately, we were writing quickly – spontaneously. Bring in a riff. 'Let's knock it out.' Matt Cameron is playing his ass off.”
The aim was to make “looser” music, as Pearl Jam asked themselves: “What is another process? How is it that we can do something new? What’s the next step?” Gossard said. “We’re talking about trying different formations of how to generate song ideas, particularly ones that move us in a cool direction or in a direction that makes people go, ‘Ah!'”
Watch Stone Gossard’s Interview
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