THEM CROOKED VULTURES On Taking Flight

November 22, 2009

Toronto Star recently conducted an interview with FOO FIGHTERS frontman Dave Grohl and QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE singer/guitarist Josh Homme about THEM CROOKED VULTURES, their collaboration with LED ZEPPELIN bass player John Paul Jones.

On the opportunity to play alongside a member of LED ZEPPELIN:

Grohl: "Who's going to let that go to waste? None of us needs to be in this band, but none of us would want to be anywhere else, you know? No, that's not true. I need to be in this band because the feeling I get playing with the VULTURES, I don't get anywhere else.

"I'm a drummer, goddammit. I want a band to play the drums in. But I'm not just gonna go eke out with some band that doesn't matter, I wanna do something that's gonna make people's heads spin. And that's why I'm in a band with Josh and John."

On the project's secretive beginnings:

"If we couldn't make something that we would like together, why would that be? So there was an instantaneous pressure that really drove us down into the underground. Our management didn't know, nobody knew. It would almost be damning if the three of us couldn't make something that you would enjoy. 'Oh, that's right: you guys suck.'"

On THEM CROOKED VULTURES' self-titled debut:

Grohl: "I just wanted to try to get seven songs every two weeks, but it quickly went from being a haphazard, Desert Session, fly-by-night recording to trying to make an important album. And I think we knew within the first month or two that we were making something that had a lot more weight or depth to it than some side project."

Homme: "It felt like we could really smash you in the head with 'lovely.' That first jam was a baton pass between each person. The two guys would look at one guy and kinda say: 'Okay, go ahead and take the lead.' Everyone was sort of egolessly interested in what the other person had to play. And in that environment, you can actually do anything because there wasn't a musicianship or a language barrier.

"With this one, there was an extra hope that maybe isn't always there — that people understand it. I hope they listen with fresh ears and try to catch the excitement that we have, y'know?"

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