Pearl Jam Talk ‘Lightning Bolt’ with Judd Apatow, Carrie Brownstein

Pearl Jam’s new record Lightning Bolt is set for release on October 15th, and now the band is offering a peek inside the record with a new short documentary directed by Danny Clinch. (He helmed the band’s 2007 concert film Imagine in Cornice, as well as the videos for Lightning Bolt tracks “Sirens” and ”Mind Your Manners”).

The short film takes a unique approach, with the band chatting about the new record with a handful of interviewees, including director Judd Apatow, Portlandia star and rocker Carrie Brownstein, champion surfer Mark Richards and former NFL safety Steve Gleason.

Intercut with tracks from Lightning Bolt, the band opens up about their new material and the continued growth of their songwriting process, with frontman Eddie Vedder drawing similarities between writing music and surfing. “The wave is actually the song and the words are kind of like the board, so it’s really how you’re moving around that,” he says. “Surfing is pretty easy once you’re on the wave, and so is songwriting, once you’re on the wave. But you can spend a lot of days out there paddling around and not getting anything.”