Jeff Ament spoke on SPIN about the postponed Pearl Jam tour, the latest records produced by Brendan O’Brien and Gigaton, the next album of the group and the bands he loves most (IDLES, The Murder Capital, Fontaines D.C. and Shame).
In a recent SPIN interview, Jeff Ament revealed that shortly before the Pearl Jam tour was postponed he was teaming up with the English artist God’s Key for a t-shirt titled Euro Death Squad: a collage of all those super right-wing European leaders, was the starting point for the EP that has recently published (American Death Squad). The bassist also talked about Brendan O’Brien’s previous Pearl Jam albums (“super-tight arrangements and no wasted spaces“) and the differences with Gigaton (it was started recording at the time of the group’s induction to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, just to detach from the nostalgia of the event itself).
Speaking of the current music scene, Jeff said he loves IDLES very much (“Their new track, Grounds, is the best song of the past three years or maybe more“) and all the other bands in that scene that reminds him of Seattle in the late 80s (The Muder Capital, Fontaines D.C. and Shame). “Listening to this music I felt as excited as when I first heard the Ramones, the Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys and the Minor Threat and all those hardcore East Coast bands. If I think about the Preoccupations… it’s like when someone tells me that rock is dead, just listen to them to realize that it is the best rock music of the last twenty years“.
Speaking about Gigaton‘s successor, Ament hopes that the group will start working on a new album soon, “even separately, we now have the technology and a lot of time available, it shouldn’t be very difficult. I’m sure everybody’s stockpiling riffs at this point” he concluded.
Born in Reggio Emilia in 1980. He created pearljamonline.it in 2001 and wrote the first edition of “Pearl Jam Evolution” in 2009 along with his wife Daria. Since 2022, he is behind 2 podcasts: “Pearl Jam dalla A alla Z” and “Fuori Orario Not Another Podcast”. He has collaborated with Barracuda Style, HvsR, Rolling Stone, Rockol and Il Fatto Quotidiano. He continues relentlessly to try to find “beautiful melodies that say terrible things”.
Favorite song: Present Tense
Favorite album: No Code
Favorite bands/artists other than PJ: Tom Waits, Soundgarden, Ramones, Bruce Springsteen, IDLES, Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital, Mark Lanegan, Cat Power, R.E.M.