Matt Cameron sent shockwaves through the rock world last week when he announced his departure from Pearl Jam after 27 years. “I have taken my final steps down the drum riser for the mighty Pearl Jam,” he wrote. “I am forever grateful to the crew, staff and fans the world over. It’s been an incredible journey. More to follow.
There’s no reason to think Cameron’s departure is anything but amicable, and the band even hugged him one by one following a champagne toast at the end of his last Pearl Jam at Pittsburgh’s PPG Paints Arena on May 18. In hindsight, the brief North American arena run earlier this year seems like a friendly farewell to their longtime drummer. But the public still hasn’t been told why Cameron left. He also didn’t discuss any future plans.
But in a new Instagram Story on his official account, Cameron made it clear that fans haven’t seen the last of him. “Thank you for the kind words of support,” he wrote, “and for the record, I’m still an active musician.”
At this point, nobody knows exactly what that means. But the surviving members of Soundgarden are now in possession of Chris Cornell’s final vocal tracks, and they’ve talked many times about turning them into the band’s last album.
“Our objective and goal was always to complete that,” Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil told Rolling Stone in May. “I probably have OCD enough to not want to leave something unfinished or incomplete like that, so I think the more we can attend to our body of work and our catalog…It would be a great gift to the fans. And I do think about this, and I don’t know how strange this sounds, but I feel like it’s a gift to Chris, too.”
Soundgarden was initially on the bill of the Black Sabbath Back to the Beginning farewell concert, but they didn’t wind up playing. “We are super bummed and regret that we were unable to coordinate the schedules of our individual and collective projects to attend and contribute to the festival,” they wrote in a band statement on Instagram. “The warmth, love and support from the Black Sabbath team has been a continuing source of encouragement and strength throughout our career.”
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They’ll have another chance to reunite Nov. 8 when Soundgarden are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “It seems that that invitation is there,” Thayil said. “It’s up to the Hall to how they develop their program, but we would love to play there.”
Pearl Jam, meanwhile, have made no announcement about how they’ll carry on without Cameron. Some fans have fantasized about them mending fences with Vs./Vitalogy-era drummer Dave Abbruzzese after three decades of estrangement. In a post on Facebook, Abbruzzese said that it remains a highly unlikely scenario.
“The fact that I haven’t had any personal contact with any of them leads me to believe the water under the bridge runs too deep and too icy for there to be any reconnection or reconciliation,” he wrote. “This is a shame and saddens me, greatly. I know I could and would have much to contribute if indeed the call came, but sadly, I don’t see that happening.”
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He then told fans to stop telling him to contact Pearl Jam management. “I appreciate and understand your desire to see what could come out of that reunion musically,” he wrote. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t curious, also.”
Just in case anyone was curious to see what it would be like to see Abbruzzese play Pearl Jam songs again, he posted a new video on Facebook over the weekend where he recreated his original drum part to “Animal.” He may not be reaching out to the band directly, but perhaps this is his way of showing that he still has the chops in the extremely unlikely event that they reach out to him.
