In a new Rolling Stone interview, Matt Cameron said he wants his new solo career to run parallel to his ongoing work in Pearl Jam. The band hasn’t released an album of new material since 2013’s Lightning Bolt, and Cameron is very tight-lipped in regards to when that might happen. “We’re still just kind of writing stuff right now,” is just about all he’ll say on the matter. “We’re still in the beginning stages of everything.” He has just four words to say about the possibility of more Pearl Jam live dates in 2018: “We have no plans.”
Pearl Jam members Mike McCready and Stone Gossard were interviewed on KISW just a couple of days before Chris Cornell’s death in May, and they provided an update on Pearl Jam’s next album at the time.
A fan asked on Twitter, “Any chance that anybody has a chance to see Pearl Jam play live soon?”
Stone said, “What did we say last time?”
Mike responded, “I’ll let Stone do the diplomatic answer on this one, because he’s better at it.”
Stone added, “I would say yes, there’s no plans though right now. We’re trying to write right now, and make a record. We’re trying to write some new songs, we’re pretty focused on hometown hanging. So, we’ll get in some shows here.”
The DJ then mentioned that when a new album comes out, shows always follow.
Gossard said, “Absolutely.”
McCready discussed Pearl Jam’s recording future yet again in a live discussion with Cameron Crowe in July. When Crowe discussed how the music industry has changed with more of an emphasis on touring than albums, he asked McCready if he saw Pearl Jam continuing to make albums along with touring in the future.
“I think so. It’s changed, like you said. We were having this discussion a couple of weeks ago, I feel like we can go out and tour even if we don’t have a record out, and that is a huge luxury, thank you for that, seriously, thank you for that. That’s a huge luxury, we’re very aware of that, but at the same time to keep it interesting for us as artists and musicians, we need to keep creating. We need to keep trying to push the boundaries, of whatever our boundaries are, we try to get out of those.
A lot of that is Jeff Ament’s brain, he will go, ‘Let’s try to do it this completely different other way.’ [He can] look at it from another angle. We have distinct personalities in the band, and his vision a lot of times is kind of where we – Ed too obviously, but I see Jeff do it. He will say, ‘Let’s try something that is more Peter Gabrielish with a twist of Venom.’ I’m serious, that keeps it interesting. On that line, that gets us excited to kind of go: ‘Let’s try to do that.’ Our band is in a situation where we all write songs, and edit each other’s songs. That keeps it interesting.”
