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:
http://youtu.be/kpymR1W7rqM
Special thanks to Alice In Chains Chile for the tip.
