Pearl Jam at work on new album as 'Ten' hits 10-million mark

Pearl Jam at work on new album as ‘Ten’ hits 10-million mark

By Mikael Wood

Feb. 23, 2013 12 AM PT

Pearl Jam plans to release a new studio album later this year.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, guitarist Mike McCready said the Seattle band is “working on demos right now” for the follow-up to 2009’s “Backspacer,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was nominated for the rock album Grammy Award. Pearl Jam has “seven songs that are relatively completed,” McCready said. “But then we have an additional 15 ready to go aside from any that [frontman] Eddie [Vedder] brings in, so we’ll weed through those.”

The guitarist described the new songs -- which he said he and his bandmates will begin recording soon with producer Brendan O’Brien -- as “a logical extension of what ‘Backspacer’ was. But I think there’s a little bit more experimental stuff going on. There’s a Pink Floyd vibe to some of it; there’s a punk-rock edge to other stuff.”

Word of a Pearl Jam album arrives just as the band’s landmark 1991 debut, “Ten,” was certified this week for sales of 10 million copies. It’s the 22nd disc to reach that milestone since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking sales data 23 years ago.

“I’m happily shocked to hear that,” McCready told Billboard. “We had no idea that it was ever going to do that well. I just felt like it was a really cool record and that I was in a good band.”

“Ten” follows Adele’s “21” and Usher’s “Confessions” as the latest inductees into the 10-million-sold club. According to Billboard’s Keith Caulfield, the next album likely to get there is Celine Dion’s “Let’s Talk About Love,” which has sold 9.6 million copies.

Beginning next month Pearl Jam is scheduled to play a string of South American festival dates, followed by a pair of North American shows: July 16 in London, Canada, and July 19 at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. Tickets for both concerts, according to Pearl Jam’s website, are sold out.

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