Pearl Jam has gotten a start on its next album, but it's still in "its very infant stages" according to guitarist Mike McCready.
"We've had one session of writing and it has yielded ... about five ideas so far," McCready told Billboard.com during a conference call with reporters about this year's Bonnaroo Music Festival, which Pearl Jam will headline on June 14. "Some of it's kind of poppy and some of it's a little hard. We want it to grow up a little bit. We have to revisit it a few times."
Pearl Jam is working on the album, the follow-up to 2006's "Pearl Jam," with longtime associate Brendan O'Brien. And though the band is known for previewing new and unrecorded material at its shows, McCready says that's unlikely to happen on Pearl Jam's upcoming North American tour.
"We might get into some sort of jam," the guitarist said. "We have about 200 songs to pull from, so we'll do that and maybe do some obscure B-sides. For new stuff, I don't know if we have it refined enough to want to play it in front of an audience yet. We don't want to hack in front of everybody."
Nevertheless, McCready said Pearl Jam is looking forward to its first visit to Bonnaroo, where drummer Matt Cameron will also be performing a jazz set. "I think it's a perfect fit," McCready said. "We try to keep everything as in-house and small and as punk rock and do-it-yourself as we can. That's part of our way of doing business. That fits right in with how Bonnaroo is doing theirs."
As for jamming with other acts at the festival, McCready said that "if we run into somebody, 'Hey, you want to come up and jam?,' that's kind of how our band works." But he's hoping to run into one person in particular.
"I'd love to have Jack White up," McCready said. "I think he's just a phenomenal guitar player. I'd love to see him play up close ... because he's got a killer voice and he's a great lead player, too. That would be exciting to me."
McCready also said that Pearl Jam plans to continue making live recordings available to fans from its upcoming tour -- which starts June 11 in West Palm Beach, Fla. -- but isn't sure what form that will take yet.
"We've had one session of writing and it has yielded ... about five ideas so far," McCready told Billboard.com during a conference call with reporters about this year's Bonnaroo Music Festival, which Pearl Jam will headline on June 14. "Some of it's kind of poppy and some of it's a little hard. We want it to grow up a little bit. We have to revisit it a few times."
Pearl Jam is working on the album, the follow-up to 2006's "Pearl Jam," with longtime associate Brendan O'Brien. And though the band is known for previewing new and unrecorded material at its shows, McCready says that's unlikely to happen on Pearl Jam's upcoming North American tour.
"We might get into some sort of jam," the guitarist said. "We have about 200 songs to pull from, so we'll do that and maybe do some obscure B-sides. For new stuff, I don't know if we have it refined enough to want to play it in front of an audience yet. We don't want to hack in front of everybody."
Nevertheless, McCready said Pearl Jam is looking forward to its first visit to Bonnaroo, where drummer Matt Cameron will also be performing a jazz set. "I think it's a perfect fit," McCready said. "We try to keep everything as in-house and small and as punk rock and do-it-yourself as we can. That's part of our way of doing business. That fits right in with how Bonnaroo is doing theirs."
As for jamming with other acts at the festival, McCready said that "if we run into somebody, 'Hey, you want to come up and jam?,' that's kind of how our band works." But he's hoping to run into one person in particular.
"I'd love to have Jack White up," McCready said. "I think he's just a phenomenal guitar player. I'd love to see him play up close ... because he's got a killer voice and he's a great lead player, too. That would be exciting to me."
McCready also said that Pearl Jam plans to continue making live recordings available to fans from its upcoming tour -- which starts June 11 in West Palm Beach, Fla. -- but isn't sure what form that will take yet.
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