Pearl Jam Guitarist Says New Album Is ‘Close To The Finish Line’

Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard revealed that fans might be getting the band's new album sooner, rather than later. During a chat on the Kyle Meredith With. . . webcast, Gossard said, “We're getting close to the finish line.”

Godard couldn't help but sing the praises of the band's current producer, Andrew Watt. Watt — who has produced Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder — was recently behind the boards for sessions for both the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney, and is best known for producing Ozzy Osbourne, as well as Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, One Republic, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, blink-182, Zac Brown Band, and Maroon 5, among others. Watt is also the guitarist for Eddie Vedder's solo band, the Earthlings.

Stone Gossard gushed about the positive vibes Andrew Watt has brought to the latest Pearl Jam sessions, saying, “He's most hardcore Pearl Jam fan you’ll ever meet. He can play all of our songs, and all of Soundgarden‘s songs back at us — better than we can play them. It's been such a joy to make a record with him. He’s energizing us.”

Whether Watt's style is more in line with Pearl Jam's classic '90s recordings, Gossard said: “You’ll have to be the judge of that. The energy (Watt)’s looking for. . . he’s a fan club member, he’s seen the band 50 times. But he is also a top-flight pop producer.”

Stone Gossard told us a while back that the band never sets out with a predetermined goal for a new LP: “It's very difficult to set out to do something and achieve it, as opposed to just each song, try to make it as good as you can. We set out more like, we're gonna make a record and we know we're gonna — everyone's gonna write some songs, and we're gonna try to do the best for each of those songs and then we're gonna see what we've got at the end and figure out how to put 'em together, y'know? It's much less planned than you would imagine.”