Monkey Queen

Josh Homme speaks of Arctic Monkeys' album sessions

17 January 2009 - 
Josh Homme has given the BBC a brief update on the production of the Arctic Monkey’s third album.


He announced exclusively to The Music Week programme on 6Music in August last year that he would be working on the album and that the band had chosen to go to Joshua Tree in California for the sessions.

Speaking to Biffy Clyro on their Radio 1 takeover show this week, the Queens Of The Stone Age frontman gave this report: "Oh man, it was great. We spent most of the time in Joshua Tree and it was really cool to be present and watch them go nuts."

So it sounds like things have been going well for the band and that’s despite some extreme weather conditions. Homme said that there had been lots of snow in Joshua Tree over Christmas and that the whole place had looked beautiful. "It feels like its Mars there when it snows,” he said.

"We spent most of the time in Joshua Tree and it was really cool to be present and watch them go nuts." Josh Homme

When Homme first broke the news of the collaboration to 6music he spoke of the Arctic Monkey’s decision to record out in the desert: "Being Arctic Monkeys, the polar opposite would be Desert Monkeys, so they're gonna come out and just experience that, and their idea is to submerge themselves in something else and do some tracks," he said.

"I think they just want to experience something that's opposite to what they're used to [in the UK] and it's a good place to go to ... make some music for the sake of making music."

Homme has worked with several musicians in Joshua Tree including Mark Lanegan and PJ Harvey. But whereas Lanegan and Harvey's recordings were part of Homme's collaborative Desert Sessions series, the Arctic Monkeys' songs are for their own albums only.


Elizabeth Alker