Artist

Them Crooked Vultures

Los Angeles, United States • 2009 – 2010

Them Crooked Vultures is a music group from Los Angeles, United States, active 2009–2010. Their discography on Gatefold includes 2 records.

Start your shelf →Open in app
Photo of Them Crooked Vultures

2

Albums tracked

75

In collections

2009

Since

Biography

Them Crooked Vultures is an American rock supergroup formed in Los Angeles in 2009, consisting of Josh Homme on lead vocals and guitar, John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards, and Dave Grohl on drums and backing vocals. Alain Johannes has performed with the group as a touring guitarist during live shows. The band began recording in February 2009 and played its first concert on August 9, 2009, in Chicago, followed by a European debut on August 19, 2009, in the Netherlands.

The Arc of Them Crooked Vultures

The pivots — what forced Them Crooked Vultures to reinvent.

  1. The Burbank Secret Sessions

    They spent most of 2009 hiding in Pink Duck Studios under total secrecy to avoid the standard supergroup hype machine. Homme handled the production himself, stripping away the polished arena-rock sheen of mid-2000s Foo Fighters and the heavy stoner sludge of Queens of the Stone Age. What came out was dry, hyper-compressed, and rhythmically complex. You can hear the isolation in the tracks. The songs are built on weird time signatures and sudden, jagged tempo shifts that required three master players in the same room to even pull off.

Influences

  • Led Zeppelin — John Paul Jones literally wrote the book on heavy, syncopated blues-rock basslines in this band. You hear his signature groove-heavy arrangement style all over 'Scumbag Blues,' which directly mirrors the clavinet-and-bass interplay of 'Trampled Under Foot.' It is the rhythmic DNA of the entire project.
  • Cream — Homme has repeatedly cited the classic 1960s power trio format as the ultimate test of a rock band's chemistry. The relentless jamming and shifting improvisations on 'Elephants' directly echo the live, runaway-train dynamics of 'Spoonful.' They took the blues-rock trio blueprint and just turned the distortion up.
  • The Jimi Hendrix Experience — Grohl has spoken about studying Mitch Mitchell's jazz-influenced, heavy-handed drumming style as a primary inspiration for his work on this record. His riding on the crash cymbals and fast tom fills on 'Mind Eraser, No Chaser' are straight out of the Mitchell playbook. It keeps the heavy riffs from sounding too stiff.
  • Kyuss — As Homme's first major band, this group pioneered the low-tuned, generator-party desert rock sound that defines his guitar style. The massive, down-tuned main riff of 'No One Loves Me & Neither Do I' utilizes the exact same C-standard guitar tuning Homme used on Blues for the Red Sun. It is the raw dirt beneath the band's technical chops.
  • Queens of the Stone Age — The band functioned as a direct evolution of the robotic, driving rhythms Homme developed on Songs for the Deaf. Alain Johannes, a frequent Queens collaborator, joined as their touring rhythm guitarist to help recreate the dense studio tracking on stage. The mechanical, hypnotic guitar loops on 'Gunman' are pure Rated R era songwriting.

Discography

Their records — most-collected first.

Related artists

Members

Around the web

Follow every record they touch.

Start your shelf and Gatefold tracks Them Crooked Vultures's new pressings, tour dates, and the whole discography — automatically.

Start your shelf →

Free forever. Works with 10 records or 10,000.