Pearl Jam Get to Work on New Album

BY Alex HudsonPublished Mar 16, 2011

Yesterday (March 15), we wrote that Eddie Vedder was prepping a solo LP in lieu of a new Pearl Jam album in 2011. Well, we may have spoken too soon. It turns out that the group, who are currently celebrating their 20th anniversary, are working on new material after all.

"We did a whole bunch of demos and everybody's got a disc of 25 [songs] right now," bassist Jeff Ament recently told Billboard. "April will be the time where we get together and learn to play all these demos and figure out which 12 to 15 of them float to the top. Hopefully we can get something done this year."

For the grunge legends, working on new material is a welcome change after spending so long compiling archival material for this year's reissues. "There's been so much focus on the past that I think all of us are really excited to make a new record and have something to look forward to because we've been digging in the boxes in our basement a lot the last year or so," Ament said.

As for the band's possible weekend-long festival this summer, the bassist said that plans are still up in the air. "We've reached out to a few [other bands]. It's mostly people that we're friends with. I don't think that anybody's fully signed on yet. We're not 100 percent where we're going to have it yet, so it's a little bit tricky," he admitted. "If it's Labour Day, that's three or four months; that should be plenty of time for people to make reservations."

While we're waiting for more details to emerge about the band's new album and anniversary bash, go here to listen to the new single from Eddie Vedder and here to read up on the upcoming reissues and documentary.

Latest Coverage