Pearl Jam fans may not have to wait much longer for a follow-up to the band's 2013 Lightning Bolt LP.

While things seem to be very much in the planning stages at this point, bassist Jeff Ament tells Vice that after a planned South American tour this fall, the group has an eye toward working on some new music in 2016. As he put it, "The band will probably try and get another record going in the next year."

The South American trek, announced in the spring, is currently scheduled to span nine dates, starting Nov. 4 in Santiago, Chile, and continuing through Nov. 28 in Mexico City. These shows return the band to the stage after a year off following their long tour in support of Lightning Bolt.

If Pearl Jam do manage to get a new album together in 2016, it'll jibe with the schedule they've maintained since 2002's Riot Act, which started a decade of three-to-four-year gaps between LPs. Lightning Bolt, their 10th album, arrived four years after 2009's Backspacer, which marked the start of the band's own Monkeywrench imprint after a brief stop at J Records and their long tenure at Epic.

Consequence of Sound notes that during their recent downtime, the members of Pearl Jam have pursued a number of other projects, including a special reunion for spin-off band Mad Season and singer Eddie Vedder's contribution to the soundtrack for Cameron Crowe's Aloha movie. Most recently, guitarist Mike McCready joined a number of other Seattle vets for a one-off benefit gig as a Stooges tribute band called Raw Power.