The New Desert SESSIONS
Josh homme on the method and the music on Iggy’s new album. As told to Keith Cameron.
“your life Converges at this moment you’ve thought about, all of a sudden. you know it Will never happen again.”
WHEN I got Iggy’s initial text message, it made me think: what do you say to that? It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Iggy’s. But I had to look for the right words. I finally replied: “That would be wonderful”. When we spoke, everything changed because we kind of set some ground rules. He’s 68, at a spot in his life where dynamic is more important than brutalising somebody. So, let’s not make a heavy record, let’s make a content-heavy record. Let’s not tell anybody. That way, if it sucks we can bury it in the desert. Like, I literally will dig a hole and put it in there. So there’s no jeopardy, it’s safe. And we’ll pay for it ourselves, that way we can just do it, enjoy it. It was all a little hard to get your head around. It would keep me awake. Then he sent me this package. He knew that Lust For Life was very big for me, and he said: “I’ll send you some stuff to get started, some lyrics and things that are important for me… and I’ll send you a breakdown of Lust For Life, song by song.” I was like, “Holy shit.” That willingness to give an insight into something that I love really meant a lot. But what do I send back? For two or three months I didn’t send anything. eventually I went, “Here are some of these pieces I have. There’s going to be mistakes, they’re going to be awful-sounding.” I sent some lyrics too. Then I realised, I just sent shit on purpose as a way of saying let’s do something! But he got it. At every recording session, the beginning is very important because it sets the tone. It’s like an omen or a talisman. You need that first song to blow up. So I have this thing, Break Into Your Heart – I was like, “You shot a bullet from The Stooges and then pierced Lust For Life, and the trajectory fell 40 years later”, like a distant cousin. It had that drama. We got excited. It was keyboard-centric, and that
one went really well. So we were off to the races. The first couple of days at Joshua Tree it was just the two of us. It would have been awkward otherwise. It was obvious that we needed the fewest amount of people possible. Thinking about who else to bring to this, that selection of chemistry, was important. I had a lot of ideas and I wanted to enjoy it. Matt had never played with anyone else other than Arctic Monkeys, and Matt is searching to be a great drummer. He would be a little intimidated, a little conscientious, but he’s got all the ability in the world. And Dean is just a level-headed awesome motherfucker. He can play everything, but he’s like, I want to listen. He’s trying to play the least amount necessary to do the right thing. So that was all the band people we needed. After two or three days of just me and Iggy, I said to them come on up. We knew it’s not going to be guitar-heavy – so what’s the answer to that? Why don’t we start taking genteel instruments, like a steel drum, and pervert it? Dean and Matt understood. There’s this thing called zero dynamic, where you play in the middle so you can get quieter or louder. You can’t teach that. You have to know that’s how it is. And Dean and Matt played the whole record that way. The record goes up and down, and the songs go up and down. It’s fucking awesome. Your life converges at this moment that you’ve thought about for a long time, all of a sudden. You know it will never happen again.