Iconic rockers Pearl Jam have been tearing things up on their spring tour, introducing tour debuts every night, playing albums in full, busting out unique covers, and putting on just all-around crazy fun concerts. The band’s guitarist Mike McCready recently gave an interview to Rolling Stone, talking about the band’s current state of affairs.
As the interview took place on April 21st, the piece naturally starts off with a discussion of the late great Purple one himself, Prince. McCready talks about meeting Prince, seeing Prince and more in the interview:
I keep getting texts. It’s devastating and shocking. I remember one time we met him. He was really cool. I asked him a silly guitar question, and he said he didn’t know what he did to get his sound, but his tech would know. And then he said he was very into our Ticketmaster battle. I think this was at a party in 1995. It felt really good to know he was behind our Ticketmaster battle.
I must have seen him four or five times in concert. Every time I was like, “OK, he is the best guitar player I’ve ever seen.” I’d go to his show and get completely blown away by his technique, and mostly just his feel and how fast he could play. He can stop and just milk the notes. He was just so phenomenal on the guitar. And then a year would pass and I’d forget and I’d see him again and go, “He’s still the best guitar player I’ve ever seen in my life.” And I’ve seen a lot. He just blew my mind.
Pearl Jam Reflects On Prince’s Legacy, Ends Show With ‘Purple Rain’ Refrain
McCready also talks about the band’s current tour at length, saying that the band isn’t really celebrating their 25th anniversary, but they are certainly aware of the milestone and grateful for the support.
I would say this tour is an extension of the Lightning Bolt record that we put out three years ago now. We’re still on that tour. We have the same staging and we’re doing those songs and even though they’ve been around for a while, they still feel new to me in the set.
We’re all aware of the 25 years, and we’re happy about it. The person that cares about that stuff the most is probably me. Jeff and Stone, maybe not as much. They’re kind of always thinking forward. Ed also cares about the legacy and all that. But I feel like we might have covered it in the 20th with the PJ20 shows we did.
But we’re happy to be around for 25 years. It’s kind of an anomaly. Sometimes I just pinch myself and go, “Oh, my gosh, we’re still playing together and we’re still telling the same silly jokes on the road. But we’re all 50-plus and we have these new generations of fans that are coming to see us.” That’s a gift. We’re very aware of it.
He also discusses the cancellation of the North Carolina show, citing Bruce Springsteen as their inspiration for the decision. “We did have to cancel that show in North Carolina. That was a thing we thought really hard about. As a band, we just don’t tolerate any kind of abuse or intolerance of any kind of LGBT people by any kind of government. We felt we needed to support people that didn’t have a voice,” said McCready.
He also talked about the band’s plans for a new album and future tours. For the album, McCready says:
We’ve been discussing, yeah. We have been talking on it a little bit, on and off. I think early in the year we had talked about going in this summer to start doing some demos and things, but this tour is happening now so we’re kind of in that mode. But that being said, we’re all working on demos for it. And we’re not sure when we’re going to record it, though. That’s the question right there. But I think that organically sometime on the tour we’ll go, “Hey, let’s book a couple of days in Seattle in July,” and we’ll all end up being there. We’re not actually going to be there in July, but if it happens, that’s how it’s going to happen. There’s my non-answer for you. Yeah, I don’t know yet. But I feel like we will do some demos together this summer.
As for touring, well, fans might just have to wait a while. “I think before we would go out again, we would probably do some more music for our new record. That being said, I think what we’re doing is on the books now.”
Get your Pearl Jam while its hot! The band continues their tour of Canada tonight, May 10th, at the Air Canada Center in Toronto, ON.
[H/T Rolling Stone]
