In an interview with Rolling Stone, Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament discussed the group’s legacy as they ready to kick off a North American tour in April. The discussion swung to the group’s unpredictable setlists, which Ament credited to seeing the Grateful Dead in his early days. 

“I remember the first time I saw them, the crowd went nuts at one point,” Ament said. “I was like, ‘Man, I don’t even recognize this song.’ I didn’t know the Dead that well. I was like, ‘Did somebody just take their pants off? The crowd is going crazy right now.’ Someone said to me, ‘Oh, they haven’t played this song since 1968.’ I thought, ‘Wow, that’s the most incredible thing ever.’ The crowd knew the catalog so well that within 30 seconds of the song starting, they all knew. We’re sort of touching on that sort of relationship with our fans, and that’s great.”

Ament also touched on a forthcoming release from Pearl Jam as the follow-up to Lightning Bolt, saying that they have nothing on the books at the moment. “There’s no plan of making a record yet,” he added. “When we got together in South America there was lots of talk of how we wanted to do it and in what ways we wanted it to be different, what things we liked about the last record.”

Pearl Jam’s tour begins April 4 in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.