Pearl Jam has a new drummer

The saga of Pearl Jam’s new drummer is becoming a mystery. Deliberately, according to Stone Gossard, guitarist and founder of the band, on the band’s radio station on SiriusXM. “I love all the mystery surrounding this thing. There’s not enough mystery in the world.” In short, we won’t know until the last moment, and that moment will be the date set for the return to the scene: September 27th at the Ohana festival in California, just over a year after Matt Cameron’s exit after 27 years. However, Gossard implied, the choice has been made

I think the band is very excited that we can finally actually play. It’s been a while and the fact that we can do it at Ohana makes it more exciting. And the fact that no one knows who will play drums with us even makes it even more exciting. So yeah, it’s our mystery wrapped in an enigma and we’re enjoying it right now.

In recent months there have been mixed statements from band members. Now Gossard has also said that the band and Cameron broke up without problems

He was ready for a change. God bless him, and we will always love Matt. But I think that, in a certain sense, it will also be good for us to let that element of the unknown come back into the equation, giving us the chance to regroup and try to still be up to par. It’s an interesting challenge. Where are you going after Matt Cameron? It’s a great question, because he has always served music in an extraordinary way. He has always played with power and energy, and it will be a difficult task to figure out how to deal with it. But I’m confident we can do it.

Confirmation also comes from Dave Krusen, the band’s original drummer between 1990 and 1991. Krusen had replaced Cameron, who tested positive for covid, for a show in 2022, but on Instagram he denied that he was the “new” one: “No, they already have a new drummer”.