Mike McCready says Pearl Jam ready to tour, but drummer search continues

Pearl Jam is ready to move, but the band cannot launch its next era until it finds the drummer who can anchor it. Mike McCready said on April 17 that he wants the band back on tour and back in the studio, yet the search for a replacement behind the kit is still ongoing, leaving the rhythm chair as the key to everything that comes next.

The timing makes the opening especially sharp. Pearl Jam’s last live performance came on May 18, 2025, in Pittsburgh, when the Dark Matter World Tour wrapped. That run was built around Dark Matter, the band’s twelfth studio album, which arrived on April 19, 2024. The official U.S. tour announcement for that cycle had already pointed to Pittsburgh as the final stop, with shows on May 16 and May 18, 2025, and the band closed the book on that chapter there before the lineup changed.

Two months later, Matt Cameron announced he was leaving Pearl Jam on July 7, 2025, ending a 27-year stretch that made him the longest-tenured drummer in the group’s history. Cameron joined in 1998, and his exit marked the end of an era for a band that has cycled through multiple drummers over the years. His departure also carried added weight because Cameron was one of only two drummers, along with Dave Krusen, included in Pearl Jam’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction lineup in 2017.

McCready’s message was not that the band is stalled, but that it is being deliberate. He said he is basically done with the break, wants to tour again, and would love to start work on another record, while the band remains in what he described as a slow talking-and-thinking phase. The members are texting, emailing, and trading ideas, and McCready made clear that once a decision is finally made, Pearl Jam tends to move quickly.

That is why the drummer search matters so much to fans and to the band’s next sound. Pearl Jam is not just filling a seat. It is choosing the player who will shape the groove, the live feel, and the first new songs after Dark Matter. For one of rock’s most durable bands, the next tour and the next record will not begin until that choice is made.