Pearl Jam‘s new album, Dark Matter, was recorded at the famed Shangri-La recording studio in Malibu, California, which was famously shown in The Band documentary The Last Waltz. Speaking with MOJO, frontman Eddie Vedder shares he felt he was “tapping into a sacred space” while writing there.
“I can’t tell you how much it meant to be in that spot,” says Vedder, who refers to The Last Waltz as his “introduction to so much music.”
“It was like mining energy in a safe place,” he adds. “It was a huge part of being able to go deep.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Vedder opens up about a number of Dark Matter songs. He describes the cut “Waiting for Stevie” as being about “a young girl not feeling appreciated by her peers, who finds relief and connection in music at a show.”
That leads him to a discussion of Taylor Swift. You might recall that Vedder attended the pop superstar’s Eras Tour over the summer, though he was misidentified by one Swiftie as Pedro Pascal.
“The craziest thing was it reminded me of punk rock crowds, of being aligned with all of the misfits in our town, back in the day,” Vedder says of his Eras experience. “It was galvanizing and powerful.”
Dark Matter is due out April 19, which is actually the same day that Swift’s upcoming album, The Tortured Poets Department, drops.
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