DESERT TRACKS

Point your car east, drive 150 miles or so out of Los Angeles and, soon enough, with a little help navigating the nothingness from the locals, you might just stumble across Rancho De La Luna. It is here that JOSH HOMME has assembled possibly his most ambitious, weirdest DESERT SESSIONS project ever – and reconnected with his true self…

- MATT ALLEN

If Josh Homme – Queens Of The Stone Age’s totemic frontman and creative lightning rod attached to Kyuss, Eagles Of Death Metal and Them Crooked Vultures – were to detail his job description on paper, it would probably run along these lines: To bring mystery and surprise. To catch people off guard. There would be one or two interesting responsibilities: To put a tent pole up and then expand what is thought to be possible, or normal. Some controversial duties: My job and art is to elicit reaction, even if it’s negative. And finally, a typically antagonistic disclaimer: Whenever people say, ‘Don’t do that part,’ my response will always be to say, ‘No.’

“It’s great I don’t work for you,” he laughs, talking to Kerrang! about his new Desert Sessions album – the latest instalment in the long-running collaborative outlet currently featuring the likes of ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and Royal Blood frontman Mike Kerr; the 11th and 12th volume of a project that very much ticks all the boxes within his imagined contract. “I urge people to understand that I’m not here to do what you think is supposed to happen. That’s really not my job. And I don’t mind being provocative. I don’t care about that part, I never have. If you go into a hotel room and you don’t notice the painting on the wall, well, that’s a shame. The painting sucks if it doesn’t elicit some kind of reaction from you, whether that’s negative or positive.”