"I was thinking about all the singers that came from the Seattle scene and how many of them had since died." Pearl Jam's Mike McCready announces rock opera about the history of grunge in Seattle

Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready has announced a 'long-lost' rock opera based on the music scene in Seattle between the mid-eighties and the mid-nineties, the era that saw the rise of grunge. Farewell To Seasons will also be published as a graphic novel.

The music for Farewell To Seasons will be released on an album featuring Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan, Stefan Lessard (Dave Matthews Band) and Mike Musburger (Fastbacks, Posies), as well as Chris Friel from Shadow, the band McCready led before being asked to join Temple Of The Dog in 1990.

"I started working on it during covid," McCready tells Spin. "I called [film producer] Cameron Crowe out of the blue and asked him some questions like, hey, I want to work on a rock opera and I’ve got this idea – not thinking that it would turn into a graphic novel or anything like that.

"Originally, it was a musical stage show. Cameron gave me some really good tips and ideas, including the ‘11th hour song’ that is meant to be a big show-stopper near the end of a musical. So, I started writing a script with three characters, almost like historical fiction based around the Seattle music scene from the mid-1980s until about 1995."

"One of the main characters is David Williams, which is based on myself," McCready continues. "There’s a female character named Angela Sunrise and another named Jonathan Alexander, who’s our tragic figure. How this came up was, I was thinking about all the singers that came from the Seattle scene and how many of them had since died. Was it worth it for them?

"That’s a question I’m trying to ask, but I don’t know the answer. Why did people become so interested in this music being made in Seattle?"

The Farewell To Seasons graphic novel is published by Z2, who've previously produced graphic novels based on Dio's Holy Diver, Judas Priest's Screaming For Vengeance, and Iron Maiden's Piece Of Mind, as well as comics based on the work of Pantera, Primus, Type O Negative, Joan Jett, The Grateful Dead, Mötley Crüe, The Doors, Anthrax, Public Enemy and many more.

"Having been in the heart of the NW music scene as a journalist in the 1990s, I’ve wanted for years to work on a project that would reflect what it was actually like for the musicians and the fans when ‘the world came to Seattle'," says Z2 Editor-in-Chief Rantz A. Hoseley. "I can say, without any hyperbole or exaggeration, that I feel like my entire creative life has led to me being involved with this book, and I feel so blessed to be a part of bringing Mike’s beautiful and poignant story to the world.”

In 2017, McCready composed the score for The Glamour & The Squalor, a film about Seattle radio DJ Marco Collins, who helped break the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Weezer, Garbage and others.

Farewell To Seasons will be released on October 6, and is available to pre-order from Z2 now.