We’re finally back, and so is Pearl Jam!
In case you haven’t heard the band had already mentioned that they were working on a new album, but a couple of weeks ago Jeff Ament gave Billboard some more info on the upcoming album.
Basically, Ament said that the band were about to head to L.A. for a two week session with Brandan O’Brien (who you should know by now since he previously produced all of STP’s album, some stuff for The Boss and of course the Pearl Jam albums Vs., Vitalogy, No Code and Yield). He said that Vedder had put down some rough vocals back in December for about half of the songs, and the rest of the band has been working on the album during a recent trip to Montana.
It was also mentioned that this was the first time since 1996’s No Code where the band recorded for a significant amount of time outside of Seattle. The comparisons to No Code didn’t stop there with Ament stating that he hopes that the band can kick out the jams quickly like they did with that album.
Oh yeah, the most important thing about this news is that the guys are confident that the album will be out this year.
Needless to say the band says their pumped about this album, and so am I!
The first reason is that Brandan O’Brien is back as producer. He defiantly brought out the best in Pearl Jam, not that the last three albums were bad, cause Pearl Jam doesn’t record bad albums. But, the four albums he produced for Pearl Jam are the strongest in their catalog and this album should show us how much the guys really have left in the tank.
The second reason is how they’re going about recording the album. I like the fact the band is stepping outside of Seattle, not that we don’t love Seattle. The guys need some other inspiration though. A change of scenery just to shake things up a bit. And, I like how they want to record the album similar to No Code, which was a hugely underrated gem. It has some of the strongest Pearl Jam songs on it, but was lacking just a little focus. Now that the band is wiser and stronger, having that same approach sounds sick.
The final reason why we’re all pumped about this new Pearl Jam album is that it’s going to be self-released. Pearl Jam, even when they were under contract with Epic, always played by their own rules. They actually never really needed a contract.
They avoided the press, MTV and even Ticketmaster for a time. They released singles that weren’t radio friendly and made sure that every album was also released on vinyl. But, there was always that contract restraining them just a tad. When they released their 2006 self-titled album for J Records they did some cool promotion for it.
They gave away the first single “Word Wide Suicide” and gave fans who pre-ordered the album from the Ten Club a code to download it on midnight of the release date, as well as, a bonus disc containing the band’s 1992 New Year’s Eve performance. It should be really exciting to see how their going to promote this new album without a label. I think the fans will benefit big time.
