Mike McCready of Pearl Jam has said that he is working on an epic new rock opera based on his experiences in the Seattle grunge culture. In an exclusive interview with Guitar World, McCready said that the project is inspired by and memorializes late Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, who was also McCready’s bandmate in Pearl Jam precursor Temple of the Dog. “I look at him as one of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time, aside from being a friend,” McCready stated in the interview, according to Consequence. “I adore Chris, and I’m working on a small project about the Seattle scene, sort of a musical rock opera.” It’s basically based on my knowledge of the Seattle music culture, and he’s a part of it.” In August, the rock star teased the rock opera by posting a live performance of Cornell’s “Crying Moon” on Instagram. According to Guitar World, he is now envisioning it as “a record and maybe some sort of stage/play thing.
” “I’m working on a script, and I’ve got about 18 songs that I’m working on, and I’m singing on it,” he continued. It’s been a long road.” Later in the conversation, he said that Pearl Jam’s follow-up album to 2020’s Gigaton is nearly ready. “I think there are a few tweaks that need to happen here and there, and we’re probably not going to have anything out this year.” “Watt got us into a room and just pushed us as hard as we could be pushed, you know, it’s hard for a quote-unquote outsider to come into our world because we’ve done things a certain way,” he said of his producer Andrew Watt. We’re open to new experiences, but we also have our own world. We’ve been doing this for 30 years. So we’re quite familiar with our band’s dynamics. But every now and then, we need to be pushed and questioned, and Andrew did an excellent job of that.”
https://www.instagram.com/mikemccreadypj/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=e7f98cec-9d62-4a3b-829b-3ef24e825dce
