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Eddie Vedder Says Pearl Jam Are ‘Maybe Halfway There’ With New Album

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder plays Isle of Wight

Pearl Jam are working on their follow-up to 2009’s well-received Backspacer, but they’re not in any huge rush. Asked about the new material by Rolling Stone, Eddie Vedder said the grunge outfit is “maybe halfway there.” He didn’t reveal any song titles or release date plans just yet.

“We’re taking our time,” Vedder said, continuing directly. “I was talking to Jeff [Ament, Pearl Jam’s bassist] today … He’s heading to the West Coast, I’m heading east. And we’re out here like, you know, like Johnny Appleseed. He’s covering part of the country. I’m doing the other … We’ll be ready to go when we’re ready to go.”

In appropriate Johnny Appleseed fashion, Vedder sprinkled only the tiniest tidbits about the new music’s stylistic direction: “It sounds like it sounds like,” he said. “We really work together as a unit these days … We’ve figured out after all these years that if everybody just puts their stamp on it, then it sounds how we want it to. Then it sounds new, ’cause everyone is growing, you know.”

Pearl Jam, of course, have been keeping plenty busy even without a new full-length. The band recently issued a Christmas fan club single. Vedder has been hosting a SiriusXM Radio show. And he’s been showing up onstage, whether solo with Pearl Jam, to join everyone from Roger Waters to Jay-Z. Ament, meanwhile, has his own group, RNDM.

In September 2011, Pearl Jam even debuted a new song live on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, the politics-scorched “¡Olé!” Could that be a hint at the direction of the upcoming material? We’ll find out when we find out.