No one knows what live music is going to look like when it finally comes back in full swing, but there's no shortage of competition among recorded music.

Painted Shield, a long-in-the-works band featuring Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, former Pearl Jam drummer and session ace Matt Chamberlain, keyboardist Brittany Davis and singer-songwriter Mason Jennings, used the pandemic isolation to produce its debut album.

In fact, as Gossard tells Q104.3's Out of the Box with Jonathan Clarke, the pandemic restrictions have lingered for so long that the band is already considering what's next.

"For this record, it really worked out," Gossard says of being home-bound for the past several months. "Everybody was sharing ideas and we were just bouncing stuff back and forth, getting stuff done. Everyone was enough on a hold that it really helped this process.

"We're continuing on. Matt's written a couple more songs since we finished the record, so we're already vying for record two at this point, which is pretty exciting that we're still kind of moving forward."

Painted Shield has never performed live, but the band is arranging things so that it will be ready to make its onstage debut when conditions permit it.

"We're actually having conversations about figuring out whether we can [all] get to one town and do at least some rehearsals, film some video and stuff like that," Gossard adds. "We're speculating about it now. We haven't gotten there yet."

Check out the full interview in the video player above!

The debut album, Painted Shield, is due out November 27 via Loosegroove Records. Pre-order or pre-save the album here.

Russ "Whip" Rose

About Russ "Whip" Rose