Thursday, October 4th 2012
News: Mad Season
Mad Season to Release Box Set With New Material in Early 2013
Mad Season, the grunge supergroup originally comprised of Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees, along with special guest Mark Lanegan), the late Layne Staley (Alice In Chains) and John Baker Saunders, showed signs of something of a return this year. After hinting at the release of never-before-heard material, McCready actually joined Martin onstage back in May. Now, things are coming further into fruition, as Martin just announced that a Mad Season box set is set to drop in March 2013, including the aforementioned unreleased material.
In an interview with The Sun Break, Barret Martin laid out the plan in detail: “To honor our departed brothers, Mike and I oversaw a Mad Season box set, which comes out March 12th, 2013. It contains the re-mastered Above album, the Moore concert on DVD with surround sound, and a bunch of live recordings that we never released. The most exciting stuff: three songs that Mark Lanegan wrote lyrics and sang on, songs that we started to record for the second album but never finished because of Baker’s and Layne’s deaths. One of the songs Peter Buck wrote with us, and the other two are from me and Mike. They are three of the heaviest and most beautiful songs Mad Season did, and I know Layne and Baker will love them.”
So, to recap: a box set with Mad Season’s debut Above remastered, a DVD, live recordings, and three new songs with Mark Lanegan on vocals. While that’s not exactly the plan that McCready first mentioned (“find singers that are up to the caliber of Layne” to record “probably eight” songs), it’s exciting nonetheless.
Expect the Above box set in March 2013, and probably more details on it before then. Here’s a quick reminder of why we’re excited about this:
Special thanks to Alice In Chains Chile for the tip.
Well, we can be optimistic and hope for a new album besides the box-set.
Without Layne Staley and John Saunders it wouldn’t be Mad Season. A new album should never be made out of respect for the memories of those two. It’s why I refuse to buy any new Alice In Chains albums. Just not the same without his voice.
A-FUCKIN’-MEN TERRENCE!!!
Stoked to hear the remastered ‘Above’ and finally ‘Live at the Moore’ on DVD (besides the bootlegs, of course)
Wonderful news. While I wouldn’t have minded a new album by mad season, remastering this most brilliant of supergroup efforts will be an early birthday present from me to me.
It’s amazing how Layne at about 30% sounds better than 90% of singers at 100%.
My head just exploded figuring out the maths.
Oh well, 3 new ones…I guess the Pearl Jam album is on for 2014. Yes, I give it an extra year because they only have like half the thing done (7 songs) and we seem to be getting differing answers every time a journalist asks one of the guys. So I guess they themselves don’t even know when it will be done.