MTV: With "Yield," it seemed as though there was an obvious resurgence in the enthusiasm about being part of the band and going on the road. Is that spirit continued on this record?

Ament: Sure. When you have Matt Cameron in your band, you have a really amazing drummer and [that helps]. Also, when you actually have some input into what's happening [in the band], it makes you feel more a part of it and it gets you more excited about what you're doing. I think that's a natural thing to have happened.

When we were in Australia... what was that? Two years ago? That's when I started to get the sense that most of us were really excited to be out there, and we kind of came out the other side. We could see how fortunate we were to be on a stage in front of 10, 15, 20,000 people and playing our songs. We were actually able to take it in, look at each other, and appreciate one another and appreciate what we had.

Gossard: People liking the new songs, liking the old songs, and really feeling like, Man, we're in a special position right now where people are listening to the new music. We can go out there and play the new stuff, and we have a large group of songs that we can play from our past that people still respond to. We haven't been out there so much where people are sort of sick of you, regardless of what you sound like, but just by the fact that you're in their face all the time.

Everyone's gonna burn out on everything if it's on TV all the time, or [if you're] giving interviews all the time about what your opinion is about any given set of issues. We're definitely feeling pretty fortunate right now, just to have some people that care about our music and [that we're] able to go out on tour, go to Europe and play in Verona in a 3,000-year-old amphitheater, or play in Barcelona, or play in Poland. We're definitely pretty fortunate, for sure.[RealVideo]

MTV: The first single from "Binaural" is "Nothing As It Seems," which is a great track, but not the most obvious, radio-friendly choice. How did the band decide on that as the lead single?

Gossard: That was the band just talking about singles and going over them, saying, "Well, 'Last Kiss' came last, so let's give them something heavy." "Well, let's not give them something heavy, 'cause we always do something heavy." And somebody said, "Let's just put out 'Nothing As It Seems,'" and we were like, "All right." So that's what we did. It wasn't too thought out; it was more like everybody just enjoys that song.

It's something sort of darker than "Last Kiss," and it's a little bit of a challenging song. We know that we get to pick the first single, but we might not be able to pick the second one. Radio starts to play whatever they want after they get the record, so let's at least pick something that's a little different from what you might hear on KROQ right now and see what happens.

MTV: How surprised were you at the success of the benefit single, "Last Kiss?"

Gossard: Incredibly surprised. We recorded that at sound check and spent maybe $1,000 mixing it. It was a Christmas single that was out for three or four months before anyone started playing it, and all of a sudden it's the biggest song we ever had.

Ament: And we weren't even really working together at all at that point, so it was almost kind of a mirage in some ways. We had this huge single, but we were actually taking time off at that point.

MTV: After the minimal production of that track, was there any talk about adopting that approach on some of the "Binaural" material?

Ament: We talked about it. [Laughs] It was like, How great would it be to make a record that way? Mainly because it was so easy. We literally recorded that song [after we] played it two or three times at a sound check, and just got the best version.

Gossard: If we just did all covers, it'd be fine. [Laughs]