Josh Homme responds to new QOTSA album rumours

Looking to boost their traffic and hits, music sites around the world have been set ablaze with rumours of a new Queens Of The Stone Age album, saying the band are back in the studio and hard at work on album number 6. It’s hard to say whether this is fuelled by excitement and enthusiasm or greed and lazy journalism (speaking from personal experience it’s usually both), either way no one really knew what was going on until Josh Homme, QOTSA frontman and driving force spoke about the rumours with Zane Lowe on his BBC Radio 1 show.

Speaking to Lowe, Homme said that the work on the next album is still in the embryonic phases, pointing out he is in no rush to finish the album and wants to take his time and not have to work under pressure. Telling Lowe he had only just returned from the desert where he’d been playing music, attempting to reconnect “with playing just for playing’s sake, and falling back in love with the music.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve been able to just enjoy playing without any sort of modicum of pressure, and I like to take it back to that,” Homme explained. “I think the key, really, is to sort of be in love. For me, it’s all about the love. I need to be in love with the music, and sometimes you need to take some time away to appreciate what it is.”

As Lowe wrapped up the interview though Homme dropped a little treat mentioning that “it will be this year” that we’ll hear new music from the band.

In further news on the album, speaking to Fasterlouder, QOTSA guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen recently discussed what the new album would sound like, echoing Homme’s comments from last year that album number 6 will be “all about wiggling hips.”

“We all love the blues, and we all love to boogie,” he said when asked the direction the work was taking. Going into further detail he offered that “on the other side, there might be some new scenes,” pointing out that “it’s really early in the process and it’s not too defined what it is. We’re at the early parts of the record, there’s still some writing going on. We’re a band that doesn’t push things, things naturally happen, and they are.”

Still despite the band’s apparent obsession with underplaying the work done on the album so far, Van Leeuwen was very enthusiastic about what has been done. “We’re all feeling really great about it and there’s no shortage of ideas. We’re trying to filter the best of the best.”

With the album left to finish, plus the upcoming re-release of their self-titled 98 debut after Domino picked up where others left off over the past year, the band are set to be very busy in 2011. “We’re kinda sprinkling this year with some touring for the re-release of the debut and then doing some recording. It’s going to be a creative time, and that’s good, but we’re still early on.”

The re-release which has been re-worked from the original tapes will also feature three bonus tracks, The Bronze, These Aren’t The Droids You’re Looking For and Spiders and Vinegaroons, which you can listen to at Antiquiet.

You can listen to the full BBC interview here.

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