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Pearl Jam Preps New Album, Tour
03/06/2006 3:02 PM, E! Online
Josh Grossberg
Guess who's still alive?
After a nearly four-year break
from recording, Pearl Jam has announced plans to release its eighth
official studio album on May 2, followed by a major tour.
The
self-titled disc contains 13 tracks, many of which, Eddie Vedder tells
Billboard, were written by the grunge rock stalwarts out of anger
and frustration at the reelection of President George W. Bush and the
ongoing war in Iraq.
"It's understandable why someone would
like their entertainment to provide an escape from modern-day worries
and the reality of war," Vedder told the trade paper. "We feel this
record creates a healthy opportunity to process some of these emotions
rather than deny them."
Pearl Jam, of course, made headlines
in 2002 with the anti-Bush screed "Bushleaguer." During concerts that
year, Vedder impaled a Bush mask on a microphone stand, drawing some
criticism from conservative quarters that the musicians went too far.
The new set, produced by Adam Kasper and Pearl Jam at Studio X
in Seattle, is the group's first for J Records. The band left its
longtime label, Epic, in 2003 after fulfilling the terms of its
contract.
"It's a very special opportunity for us to work
with a band that possesses such an historic legacy," J Records founder
Clive Davis says in a statement.
To hype the release, Pearl
Jam's making an MP3 of the lead single, "World Wide Suicide," available
for free download for two days via the newly redesigned pearljam.com
starting Wednesday, the same day the song goes out to radio stations
across the country.
According to Vedder, the record has the
usual barrage of "hard-driving" rockers the group is famous for along
with two quieter cuts, "Parachutes" and "Come Back," which he said could
represent the quintet's "best attempts yet at pulling the disguises off
of loss of life, and even love." Two other tracks, "Comatose" and "Gone"
have already been performed live.
An announcement regarding
tour dates is expected within the coming days. While Pearl Jam hasn't
issued any new material since 2002's Riot Act, which debuted on
the Billboard charts at number five, Vedder & Co. have kept up
appearances on the road, playing 37 dates in Europe and North America in
2005, including a benefit with Robert Plant at Chicago's House of Blues
to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina.
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