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Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard is sharing news about the band’s next studio album.

"We really want to finish a record this year,” Gossard tells Billboard. “[It's] now between half and three quarters done, but we got some new material and we're excited about hopefully doing some more work on that later in the year."

Among that new material, he divulges, is a brand new hard-edged rocker by fellow Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, "that's fantastic that reminds me of Motorhead. I hope that that one is in the mix coming up."

No release date is set for the as yet untitled follow up to 2009's "Backspacer," but Gossard explains Pearl Jam hopes it will be out in the first half of 2013, "if all goes according to plan."

Stone’s session with Billboard was to discuss his long-running band, Brad, who just released their fifth studio album, “United We Stand.”

Though Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder recently had to postpone his spring solo tour to allow a back injury that resulted in temporary nerve damage to his right arm to heal properly, the Pearl Jam plan is still on track for live dates beginning in June.

Beyond the already announced summer European tour and gigs at Florida's DeLuna Festival and Atlanta's Midtown Music Festival (both the weekend of Sept. 21), Gossard hints that there are more 2012 shows in the works. "We're going to try to play a little bit more this year… Not too much, but a few things."

Gossard shares that Vedder is "plugging away" at recovering fully. "It's just really one of those things you have to rest it [and] you have to do physical therapy for awhile to get it to come back. He's doing everything he can to get well… He's probably overwhelmed with all the people sending him notes and saying, 'Hey we're thinking about you.'"

Vedder's summer solo European tour remains slated to kick off July 25 in Amsterdam and wrap Aug. 3 in Zambujeira do Mar, Portugal, and his postponed spring tour has been rescheduled in full to begin on Halloween in Las Vegas and wind up in Clearwater, FL on Dec. 4.