Stone Gossard: “Dark Matter isn’t our best album, but..”

In a recent interview with the British magazine NME the guitarist of Pearl JamStone Gossard he also spoke, among other things, about the band’s latest album “Dark Matter” (read the review here). During the chat, the American musician was asked if the band’s twelfth album, released last April, was their best of their career.

Gossard responded very truthfully: “I wouldn’t say that.

I think it will end up being a very impactful record: at some point, looking back, this album will be significant.”

He then explained how the album was born: “For us, working with Andrew Watt (the producer of “Dark Matter”, ed.) was effective. He kind of went back in time and said, ‘You did this really well, just do this.’ He made me think, ‘OK, we did that, what’s the opposite of him?’ Let’s go in the opposite direction.'”

In this period the Pearl Jam are on tour to promote the new album. In another interview Gossard gave to Kerrang! he was asked which songs from the new record work best in concert. Stone revealed: “The whole record is literally fun, and for me it’s different. Normally we try to play everything from a new record and there are some songs that we don’t learn to play live, something doesn’t feel right. But all the songs on “Dark Matter” work. It’s about the work we put into writing them and arranging them.” When pressed he cited one song over the others from “Dark matter”: “It’s great to play ‘Wreckage’”.