JOHN PAUL JONES Says THEM CROOKED VULTURES Debut 'Rocks Like F**k'

Australia's Nova919.com.au recently conducted an interview with LED ZEPPELIN bass player John Paul Jones about THEM CROOKED VULTURES — his collaboration with FOO FIGHTERS frontman Dave Grohl on drums and QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE singer/guitarist Josh Homme. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

On how THEM CROOKED VULTURES tried to steer clear of press and promo through the creative process to avoid unnecessary hype surrounding their highly anticipated release.

"We kept it quiet so there wasn't all the speculation and the pressure. There was enough pressure between ourselves to do a really good record, and we did try to impress each other. We just didn't want everybody to go 'What's it like? What does it sound like? When's it going to be out? What are they doing?' There will be time for all that. We just wanted to get on and concentrate on the music."

On touring without an album release for fans to familiralize themselves with:

"Touring's been fantastic considering nobody really knows — apart from a few camera phone renditions on YouTube — what we're doing. It's 90 minutes now and it's all new stuff. To have an audience just stand there and listen, and take it all in — it's just amazing. They're reacting really, really well and it's new for them because normally they would have heard the record first and know the lyrics. It's a new experience which they look like they're enjoying and they sound like they're enjoying, certainly."

On what the album sounds like:

"Do you want me to hum something? It rocks like f**k. What can I tell you? When people ask what it sounds like, it sounds like me playing bass and Dave playing drums and Josh singing and playing guitar. It's very obvious. It's just us — it's straight-ahead, it's very honest and it really rocks. It's multi-layered and sounds fantastic. We love it. We play it and we're like 'Wow, this is really good.'"

On how the bandmembers' years of industry experience has proven to be invaluable through their creative process:

"We all listen to each other. With the experience (we have) nobody has to explain anything to anybody else. If something's not working, everybody knows it's not working. And also, when you're with experienced musicians, you can fail. You can try something out knowing that it might now work.

"There are so many parallels with the old ZEPPELIN days. Again, we're making music that we want to make. You're not thinking 'What's going to sell? What is everybody else going to like?' We're making music for ourselves and ZEPPELIN was exactly the same. We never thought 'What's the new record going to be like?' We just got the songs together. It's all an organic process. None of it's manufactured."

On how when they decided to get together they didn't realize the true extent of what their union has come to mean to the music world:

"We knew we would create some sort of splash and it would be noticed but you never really know the circumstances. It's the same as ZEPPELIN. People would say 'Did you realize when you were writing 'Stairway to Heaven' what a huge song it was going to be?' Well, not really. To my ears there's not much around that actually excites me, and this music that we're making excites me. So I assumed it might excite other people too. That's the only way you can think of it."

Read more from Nova919.com.au.