Pearl Jam Starts New Album, Announces Brief Tour

Pearl Jam has bounced back from a quiet '07 (they played just two shows while frontman Eddie Vedder focused on his Into the Wild work) to announce a 10-date tour with Kings of Leon (June 11-17) and Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (June 19-30). Not to mention the start of its next record.

"It doesn't mean there'lll be a record out next month," bassist Jeff Ament told Billboard, "But it's the start of the process. Sometimes it takes six months and sometimes it takes two years. It's just fun to play. We've actually gotten really good at jamming with each other, so it's fun to get together and crank up the amps. We'll have [drummer] Matt [Cameron] throw a beat at us and try to come up with something. There's some new, different kind of things coming out of people."

Another new thing we can expect from the band is its first-ever Bonnaroo appearance in mid-June. "I'm looking forward to Bonnaroo," Ament said. "The things that's probably the most exciting to me is that we've been a band for 17 or 18 years and there's still things like this that we haven't done."

Outside of all this, guitarist Stone Gossard is working on his second solo album and guitarist Mike McCready is holding his annual benefit show for the Northwest Chapter of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America on May 3 at Seattle's Showbox venue.

On the road again:

6/11 West Palm Beach, FL - Cruzan Amphitheatre
6/12 Tampa, FL - St. Pete Times Forum
6/13-15 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo Festival
6/16 Columbia, SC - Colonial Center
6/17 Virginia Beach, VA - Verizon Wireless Center
6/19 Camden, NJ - Susquehanna Bank Center
6/22 Washington, DC - Verizon Center
6/24-25 New York, NY - Madison Square Garden
6/27 Hartford, CT - Dodge Music Center
6/30 Mansfield, MA - Tweeter Center

Vedder also has a short solo tour on tap for early April. "He's going to do great," Ament said. "He's been warming up for this his whole life, but especially the last seven or eight years, playing a song or two himself before our shows."

—The ARTISTdirect Staff
03.21.08