Pearl Jam has shared a new song called "Running," the second single from their upcoming album Dark Matter.
"Jeff [Ament] had the main parts for that one, and we worked it over as a band," guitarist Stone Gossard told SPIN in a new interview. "I love the bridge. I don’t know what the hell those chords are that [guitarist] Mike [McCready]'s playing, but it sounds original.”
"It's one of the last ones we recorded at Shangri-La, and it was fun to come up with one more uptempo song," he said, adding that frontman Eddie Vedder's "vocal dexterity here and on a few other spots on the album is just stunning."
Listen to the hurtling, punk-inspired track below.
"Running" is the second single to be shared from Dark Matter following the release of the title track in February.
The album, the band's first since 2020's Gigaton, was produced by Andrew Watt and recorded over three weeks at Rick Rubin's Shangri-La studio in Malibu, California.
The album, the band's first since 2020's 'Gigaton,' is out in April.
"We worked with Andrew Watt, who's a younger pop producer-type guy, but he's really a rock guy at heart — I think we’re his favorite band," McCready told Classic Rock in a recent interview.
"When we were in the studio with him this past year, he really kicked our asses, got us focused and playing, song after song," he said. "It took a long time to make Gigaton, but this new one didn't take long. Andrew was like: 'You guys take forever to make records. Let's do this, right now.'"
"It's a lot heavier than you’d expect," McCready continued. "There's the melody and energy of the first couple of records. Andrew pushed us to play as hard and melodic and thoughtful as we've done in a long time. I feel like Matt Cameron's drumming has elements of what he did in Soundgarden."
"For better or worse, you're gonna hear a lot more lead guitar from me, stuff I haven't done in a long time. I went crazy, like with Chris Cornell and Temple of the Dog on Reach Down, all those years ago. I got to do it again. Usually, the first or second takes are best. After that, I start thinking about it and it doesn't have the feel. But Andrew caught the lightning in a bottle, as they say."
Pearl Jam just released their new album 'Dark Matter.'
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At a listening party for the album in February, Vedder said, "You all get together as a group as we’ve been doing for 30-plus years and you say, 'Let’s try it again.' No hyperbole, I think this is our best work."
Following the album's release in April, Pearl Jam will will hit the road, traversing North and South America and Europe from May through September and then playing Australia and New Zealand in November.
Dark Matter is out April 19th via Monkeywrench Records/Republic Records. You can pre-order it here.
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