As Pearl Jam's new album Backspacer sits resplendent in the UK Top 10, singer Eddie Vedder says these days, he spends half an hour at most, penning lyrics.

Resting at number nine in the album chart, the 11 tracks on their ninth offering came together easily - especially after Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Matt Cameron got together, without Eddie Vedder, for some writing sessions.

During a Maida Vale session for the ´óÏó´«Ã½, Vedder told Zane Lowe: "What they did do, is put a lot of work into it. The musical ideas were presented a lot closer to song form.

"What was so uplifting about part of the process was that it enabled you to immediately tackle the thing and throw a vocal on it, and a meaning to it, immediately."

He added: "A lot of them were written real quick and happened quickly, as far as the lyrics, but it’s all because of the others getting them into such a galvanised form."

"I just can't handle taking more than half hour."

Eddie Vedder on lyrics

Vedder said he didn’t hang around when putting lyrics to The End, the final track on the album.

"Having written for a number of years, a number of records and a number of different reasons, I just can’t handle taking more than half hour.

"If it’s not gonna happen quick then I don’t wanna do it, because it means there’s another one out there that is gonna happen quick, and is gonna hit you like a lightning bolt," he explained.

The grunge legends have sold in excess of 30 million records in the US and an estimated 60 million globally.

They fought to make Backspacer available in independent shops as well as giant retailers.

The album is being distributed through Pearl Jam’s own label, Monkeywrench Records, in the US and has been made available in Target stores Stateside, while Island is looking after it internationally.

18 years on and the Seattle rockers are still at the top of their live game (read 6 Music review), something which Vedder hadn’t foreseen.

"I don't think we were meant to last," he admitted previously. "But we've been able to modify this vehicle as we go along and it's still running, and I think it's running not only as good as ever, but it's taking us to some different places."