Gigaton: who’s the co-producer of Pearl Jam’s new album?

Share on WhatsAppShare on Telegram

Produced by Josh Evans and Pearl Jam, Gigaton will arrive on March 27, 2020, and marks the band’s first studio album since 2013’s Lightning Bolt.

After an almost 30 years old collaboration with Brendan O’Brien (everything but a few songs have been mixed or remixed by the Atlanta producer), for Gigaton, Pearl Jam took a different path and decided to hire Josh Evans as co-producer.

Josh Evans is a producer and sound technician from Seattle. His own personal website is ricecrackermusic.com.

He has already collaborated with Pearl Jam in three different occasions. In 2013 he was the guitar sound technician during the Lightning Bolt recordings. Four years later he joined Again Today sound recordings, a Brandi Carlile cover included in the album Cover Stories.

The following year, he took care of the sound production on Can’t Deny Me, a song that was produced by Brendan O’Brien and that should be included on the Gigaton tracklist, maybe in a different version from the one we heard in 2018.

There is more: Evans has been the sound technician on Jeff Ament’s third solo album (Heaven/Hell) and on some scores by Mike McCready (e.g. Sadie). He also took care of some collaborations the Pearl Jam guitarist was involved in, like the singles recorded by Kim Virant, Levee Walkers and Raw Power, The Stooges tribute band formed by Mark Arm, Duff MacKagan, and Barrett Martin.

Josh Evans has been the sound engineer on albums such as King Animal by Soundgarden, On Earth as It Is by Mother Love Bone, Sonic Evolution by Mad Season, Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King by Dave Matthews Band, Church + The Healing by Gary Clark Jr., The Concerto Project, Vol. 2 by Phillip Glass, The Firewatcher’s Daughter by Brandi Carlile, and many more.

Since 2008, he has been Kenneth “Boom” Gaspar’s Keyboard sound technician. He also was the guitar sound technician during some tours and has been one of Pearl Jam’s sound engineers since 2015. From 2010 to 2017, he has been the guitar sound engineer for Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil during various Soundgarden tours. Four years ago, he also took care of Chris Cornell’s voice levels during the Temple Of The Dog tour.