Pearl Jam Premiere "Got Some" on Conan O'Brien's First 'Tonight Show,' Reveal Album Info

Tuesday June 2, 2009

Pearl Jam’s scheduled appearance on the June 1 debut of The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien had generated much online speculation. What song from their upcoming album would they play? What would it sound like? Those questions were answered, as well as some others, last night when the group premiered “Got Some,” a hard-charging, punk-ish number reminiscent of a lot of Pearl Jam’s work this decade.

Introducing the band, O’Brien said that the new album would be called Backspacer. He also held up what appeared to be cover art, but according to album illustrator Dan Perkins (a.k.a. This Modern World cartoonist Tom Tomorrow), it’s “only part of a greater whole – it wasn’t the finished album cover.”

Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis also shed more light on Backspacer in an interview with Billboard, revealing that the band will be using “a lot of partners” to release the album domestically. (Universal Music Group will be handling Backspacer overseas.) Pearl Jam recently completed their 18-year relationship with Sony, and they’ll be working with Target as well as smaller companies to put out Backspacer, although a specific release date has yet to be announced. “All we’ve been searching for forever is independence and control over our own stuff,” Curtis said. “The way of releasing records is changing every day. This is the best way we could do it ourselves in America.”

Watch Pearl Jam’s “Got Some” performance

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Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images.