There is apparently a new Them Crooked Vultures album in the works. But when can we expect the new Them Crooked Vultures album to get a release date?
Them Crooked Vultures, a super-group of epic proportions, featuring members of Led Zeppelin, The Foo Fighters, and Queens of The Stone Age, is apparently looking to sit down and do a new record, according to members of the band – specifically Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones.
The band’s first and only album to date, the self-titled, Them Crooked Vultures, was initially released in 2009. The band toured it, played a bunch of festivals, and put together a very special record that has not only stood the test of time but still sounds as fresh today as it did in 2009.
I recently started listening to the album again. I forgot how good it was; it pulls together all the best and weirdest bits of QOTSA and mixes it all up with one of the best rhythm sections on the planet. Grohl’s drumming, as ever, is brilliant too – it just pummels you from the get-go and doesn’t let up for one second. Josh Homme was truly on fire on this record too.
Listening back, I think Them Crooked Vultures is easily Homme’s best work since Songs For The Deaf. The riffs on this record are just bonkers-good, completely avant-garde, and are incomparable to QOSTA’s later output on albums like Villains. To my older ears, Them Crooked Vultures’ first album feels like the natural sequel to QOTSA’s seminal Songs For The Deaf album.
Will There Be A New Them Crooked Vultures Album?
2009 was a LONG time ago. The members of the band, notably Homme and Grohl, are busy guys with their respective bands, Queens of The Stone Age and The Foo Fighters. John Paul Jones, now 76, isn’t showing any signs of letting up either – he has myriad projects that he’s involved in, including his new band Sons of Chipotle.
Both John Paul Jones and Dave Grohl have confirmed in interviews that they are very keen to get Them Crooked Vultures back together to record a new record. Jones said it would take a year to get all the ideas down and recorded, and that this process would have to fit in with the other members’ touring commitments. Grohl, as recently as 2021, said he wanted and was keen to do another record too.
The only outlier at the moment is Josh Homme; although given his current troubles, this is kind of understandable. Homme did say that he was 100% up for doing a new Them Crooked Vultures record back in 2019 but added that it would be up to Dave Grohl to get the band back together. According to Homme, it is not his role to “organize” the band but he’d happily get together for album number two.
I think everyone has certain roles they play in the Vultures, and in all honesty, I feel like part of Dave’s role — since he got it together the first time by saying, ‘Hey, do you wanna try this?’ — I feel like that’s part of in his job description in Vultures. I have my various things that I’m supposed to do I think, but that isn’t one of them. But I’m always ready to be in Them Crooked Vultures again. I don’t chase, you know?
I think, ultimately, these things happen when they’re supposed to, and I don’t have much experience in forcing things to happen like that. When you’re playing music, people come together because they want to and not from a sense of need or desperation. I think that’s the best reason to come together.
Josh Homme – Rolling Stone
New Them Crooked Vultures Album Release Date
Given all of the above, it appears that there is a desire and an appetite for a new Them Crooked Vultures album. Both Jones, Grohl, and Homme have said they’d be up for doing it – and they said this in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Nothing has happened yet, so a new Them Crooked Vultures album isn’t likely inside the next 12 to 24 months.
If Grohl does manage to get the band back together in 2022, a rather slim possibility, then it’d take 12 months to demo and write new material, then another six months to record it. This means, even from a conservative perspective, the likelihood of a new Them Crooked Vultures album dropping before 2024 is very unlikely – although I would love to be wrong here.
Does Josh Homme Want To Do A New Them Crooked Vultures Record?
The problem is that all of the guys in the band, including John Paul Jones, are busy. Finding time to cut another Them Crooked Vultures record isn’t something you could do in a month or two – it’d be a labor of love that occupies a solid year of their respective lives. Add in that both Grohl and Homme have young families and their own band commitments, and sandwiching in time for Them Crooked Vultures starts to look very tricky.
Another interesting nuance to the Them Crooked Vultures saga relates to Homme. He is not a fan of forcing stuff – a point he has made numerous times. He likes things to come together organically, he isn’t a fan of doing things because people HAVE TO. Even with his Desert Sessions EPs, Homme has stated numerous times that the modus operandi is ALWAYS the same: get people together because they want to create art together, not because they have to.
Beyond this, we also have the prospect – or lack thereof – of a new Queens of The Stone Age record. Again, Homme has stated that he is no longer interested in year-long touring schedules, so the next QOTSA album could be quite different from what came before. If we even get one; Homme could just as easily call it quits and work as a producer and collaborative artist.
Homme has even talked about doing smaller, more sporadic EPs with Queens – similar to Mastodon’s Cold, Dark Place – with a focus on using multimedia and video to promote the albums. This is an interesting idea and one that, given the stature of Queens, would almost certainly work. The music industry has changed a lot in recent years, the idea of full albums every few years, and extensive touring, while still fine and dandy, does now feel a little long in the tooth.
Why can’t bands like Queens release mini-albums, two or three times a year? Most people listen to music via streaming services these days, so the idea of listening to “albums” as they were intended is slowly dying out and/or changing to become something else entirely. When was the last time you bought a record on vinyl or CD for instance? Most people haven’t for years, sometimes decades.
At the end of the day, there is clearly demand for a new Them Crooked Vultures record. All the members of the band seem interested in doing it. But it will apparently take Dave Grohl grabbing the bull by the horns and organizing the respective members to make it happen. And he is a very, very busy man. But if that is the case, for the love of God, Dave! Make it happen… The world needs a new Them Crooked Vultures record now more than ever…
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