Pearl Jam's Mike McCready is writing a "grunge opera"

14 September 2023, 11:18 | Updated: 14 September 2023, 11:19

Soundgarden man Chris Cornell is one of the legends to be immortalised in the project.

By Radio X

@RadioX

Grunge legend Chris Cornell is to be immortalised in a rock opera.

The Soundgarden frontman's Temple of the Dog bandmate, Pearl Jam's Mike McCready, is hoping to turn the project he's working on about the legendary Seattle music scene into a stage show.

McCready has confirmed that the project will pay tribute to Cornell - who tragically died by suicide in 2017 aged 52 - among other legends from the scene, including Mudhoney, Nirvana and Screaming Trees.

He told Guitar World: “I look at him as one of the greatest singers and songwriters of all time, aside from being a friend.

“I love Chris and I’m working on a little project about the Seattle scene and a musical kind of rock opera thing. It’s just from my experience in the Seattle music scene, and he’s part of it.”

On the process of writing the show, McCready revealed: “I’m working on a script and I’ve got about 18 songs that I’m working on, and I’m singing on it. It’s been a long journey.”

Last month, the musician shared a clip of him performing the tribute song Crying Moon in memory of his late friend Cornell.

He captioned the clip: “This is a song I wrote as a goodbye to my friend Chris Cornell. Crying Moon is part of my process in dealing with his death. Chris opened up my world to new heights when he let me play on Temple Of The Dog.

"When he agreed to sing on Mad Season as part of the Sonic Evolution show with the Seattle Symphony, I literally jumped for joy! The Temple Of The Dog reunion at that show inspired us to tour, which was amazing. Playing War Pigs live with Chris was a dream. I love and miss him...”

The guitarist also revealed Pearl Jam's follow-up to 2020’s Gigaton is nearing completion.

He explained: “I think there’s a few tweaks here and there that have to happen, and we’re probably not going to have anything out this year.”

He hailed producer Andrew Watt for pushing them outside their comfort zone.

The Alive rocker said: “Watt got us into a room and just pushed us as hard as we could be pushed, you know, it’s hard for a quote-unquote outsider to come into our world because we’ve done things a certain way.

"We’re open to new things, but we are also in our own world. We’ve done things for 30 years. So we know the dynamics of our band very well. But sometimes we need to get pushed and questioned, and Andrew did a great job of that.”