Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard on survival, his love of IDLES and the chances of Glastonbury

nme.com:

Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard has spoken to NME about the band’s upcoming London shows, his side project Painted Shield, his love of IDLES, and the band’s plans for this year’s US Presidential election.Currently touring to support their 12th album ‘Dark Matter’, the Seattle legends play two shows at the stadium this weekend (June 29 and 30), which Gossard promised us would bring mixture of favourites and surprises.“We’ll probably try to sprinkle in some new stuff every night, and we’re playing some of the hits as well,” he said. “It’s a good show.

The band’s playing pretty well right now. Everyone’s in good spirits.”Gossard is also cueing up the release of ‘Painted Shield 3’ on July 26, the third album from the eclectic band featuring himself, singer-songwriter Mason Jennings, keyboardist Brittany Davis and drummer Matt Chamberlain.He also spoke about Pearl Jam’s plans for the November US election, after their shows to encourage voter registration in key marginal areas reportedly proved helpful in Joe Biden’s election win.“We’ll be involved,” he says of this year’s contest. “I don’t know the exact scope of it, but whether it’s funding or communicating and targeting very specific places that we want to make an impact and we feel like we can help.”Check out our full interview below, where the guitarist tells us if they’d ever headline Glastonbury, three-hour gigs and the secret to the band’s longevity as a stadium-level act.NME: Hello Stone.

What’s the secret to still be playing huge stadiums after all these years?Stone Gossard: “Probably the biggest thing is that we haven’t broken up.

Our favourite rock bands: they shared, they wrote songs together, they had highs and lows. So we went into it thinking it’s gonna be some work.