Pearl Jam New Album: Incubus Guitarist Mike Einziger Gears Up for Studio Collaboration with Vedder

Pearl Jam's mysterious new album, which we've been gearing up for since 2009's Backspacer, finally has a new update! Thanks to a tweet from Incubus' Mike Einziger, we recently learned that the lead guitarist of the alt-rock band has been working in the studio with the rockers of Pearl Jam. This musical collaboration was brought to our attention when Einziger tweeted his followers a picture of him, his girl, and Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder in a recording studio together on Tuesday:

"In the studio with my girl and Eddie Vedder, recording strings for Pearl Jam's new album :)"

This piece of evidence leads us to believe that Pearl Jam must be getting close to completing their new album, since a nonchalant Vedder told Rollling Stone back in January that it was nearly 50% finished at that point:

"Um, maybe halfway there. We're taking our time...we'll be ready to go when we're ready to go."

Further, when asked what the new 'PJ' music would sound like, the singer responded:

"It just comes out. It sounds like it sounds like. We really work together as a unit these days. It's really the compilation of all the parts. It's not like one guy trying to tell everybody, "These are my songs. This is what it should sound like." We've figured out after all these years that if everybody just puts their stamp on it, then it sounds how we want it to. Then it sounds new, 'cause everyone is growing, you know. Everyone is growing after all these years."

This statement was followed up by 'PJ' guitarist Mike McCready's also rather vague input from February when he told Stone that he expects the new LP to be ready "this year, for sure."

He continued with, "We have seven songs that are relatively completed. But then we have an additional 15 ready to go aside from any that Eddie brings in, so we'll weed through those.. I think there's a little bit more experimental stuff going on. There's a Pink Floyd vibe to some of it, there's a punk rock edge to other stuff."

At least now we know that some kind of progress is being made in the studio from Eiziger's tweet and that we can expect to hear some kind of collaboration involving "strings" strummed by the Incubus guitarist on Pearl Jam's new album. We can only hope that the "Better Man" musicians are at least "three-quarters" of the way there now that it's been three months since Vedder's "halfway" comment.

As for the band Incubus, each member is keeping busy with their own projects during the group's hiatus. While Mike is working with Hans Zimmer on the score for 'The Lone Ranger' film in addition to guesting on Pearl Jam's studio sessions, frontman Brandon Boyd is reportedly finishing up the final touches of his second solo album. Bassist Ben Kenney has also apparently been working on a solo record and Chris Kilmore has been doing some DJ gigs, antiquiet.com reveals.

Maybe the group Incubus will be reunited by the time that Pearl Jam finally releases this new album (which they're clearly in no rush to finish).