Mike McCready chatted with SPIN’s Daniel Kohn about the progress Pearl Jam is making on its 12th studio album, which is being produced by Andrew Watt.
“He brings this very positive energy and knows how to get really good sounds” he says. “At the same time, his energy kind of kicked us in our asses a little bit. He would be like ‘Come on, dude,’ you know? He is kind of yelling and jumping up and down a lot and being happy. He’s a fan, but he has great structure ideas, great sound ideas, and song ideas. I’m so excited about what he did with us. The record’s gonna have some great examples of Matt Cameron’s drumming that just blew my mind. He took it up about 10 notches for this new record, and it really is because of Andrew’s enthusiasm, and, again, him jumping up and down and saying ‘Try it again!’ and then saying ‘Oh, we got it!’ and on to the next thing. He pushed us to play as best as we could. It’s hard for us to listen to other people because we have so many ideas ourselves”.
“We wrote (new songs) right on the spot”, “Andrew Watt told us not to bring any of our stuff, except for Matt’s drums. Andrew knows exactly what each amp sounds like and what they’re gonna do. I don’t know that until I’m doing it. I just know what I like to hear. He was a fan and is a fan of the band, so that has helped with making this record”, he concluded. You can read the full interview on SPIN.
Meanwhile, if you are a Ten Club members, you can buy a new Mike McCready signature model Fender Stratocaster on pearljam.com.
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.