Pearl Jam is being tight-lipped about why drummer Dave Ab-bruz-zese has left the Seattle rock band.
"I don't want to get into it," manager Kelly Curtis said. Band members were unavailable for comment.Curtis said the band isn't planning to issue a statement, saying that statements often mask the truth anyway. Abbruzzese left last week.
Curtis said the band will audition drummers to replace Ab-bruz-zese, but since Pearl Jam isn't touring, the band can take its time. "I don't think they feel the need to replace him right now," Cur-tis said.
Pearl Jam, whose "Vs." album has sold more than 8 million copies, has not toured since spring because of a dispute with Tic-ket-mas-ter, the country's largest ticket broker.
The band - Abbruzzese, bassist Jeff Ament, guitarists Stone Gos-sard and Mike McCready and singer Eddie Vedder - had planned to book a concert tour this summer to capitalize on the success of "Vs." The band wanted to keep concert tickets at $18 apiece.
The U.S. Justice Department began an investigation into possible anti-competitive actions in the concert industry after the band's lawyers filed a complaint in May.
The battle between Pearl Jam and Ticketmaster has prompted a new bill before the House of Representatives. Last week, Reps. John Dingell, D-Mich., and Gary Condit, D-Calif., proposed the Ticket Fee Disclosure Act, nicknamed the "Pearl Jam bill" on Capitol Hill.
The bill would require sellers and resellers of entertainment and sporting-event tickets to print clearly "the amount of any additional fees and charges beyond the face amount of such tickets."
Though Pearl Jam isn't touring in North America, the band is planning a tour of Australia next winter.
"We need to go to Australia," Curtis said. "We've never been there and Pearl Jam is very big there."
Meanwhile, Sony Music is awaiting the band's new album, tentatively titled "Vitalogy," after a 1920s health book Ament found in a used book store.
Curtis said the album is finished, but Vedder still needs to write out the lyrics by hand for the album's inner sleeve.