“Farewell to Seasons is a story I’ve been developing for many years, inspired by the creativity, community, and chaos of the Seattle music scene,” McCready says in a statement
Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready has spent the last two decades working on the “graphic album” and rock opera Farewell to Seasons, which presents an alternate history of the early 1990s Seattle grunge scene told from the vantage point of fictional musician David Williams, and it’s finally available for pre-order today through Z2’s website. It will receive a wide release on October 7.
“I’m incredibly excited to announce my new graphic novel with Z2, Farewell to Seasons,” McCready says in a statement. “It’s a story I’ve been developing for many years, inspired by the creativity, community, and chaos of the Seattle music scene. Farewell to Seasons is a historical fantasy set in that world, and alongside the graphic novel, there will also be a ‘lost’ rock opera connected to the story, featuring original music written from the perspective of David Williams, one of the main characters. I’ve had a great time bringing this project to life with Z2, and I hope people enjoy the journey as much as I did creating it.”
McCready worked on the graphic novel with writer Mark Sable and illustrator Sebastian Piraz. [It’s an] unflinching depiction that captures the lived experience of that seminal era, woven with elements of magical realism throughout it,” reads a press release. “The story externalizes the characters’ inner struggles and moments of triumphs, rendering an almost luminous manifestation in the moments where the music empowers the characters to feel that almost anything is possible, as well as the stark depiction of an oily darkness that threatens to drag them down when they are possessed by self-doubt and fear.”
McCready has had a lot of time over the past year to finish Farewell to Seasons since Pearl Jam have taken a break following their amicable split from longtime drummer Matt Cameron. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Eddie Vedder declined to say whether or not the group had hired a new drummer. “ If I were to say anything,” he said, “I think we’d wanna have a band discussion about what we’d wanna say or who would be the messenger or whatever.”
Vedder did say that the band remains active. “We’re in the lab, we’re woodshedding, excited,” he said. “It’s cool to think of change. As much as we’d like to have done it the way we did it forever — and we’ll still be able to do that thing — I think we’re all just excited for the future.”
