Them Crooked Vultures winding down temporarily

Just before Them Crooked Vultures took the stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London last night, Ben Jones of Absolute Radio conducted a revealing interview with the band in which John Paul Jones, Josh Homme and Dave Grohl had nothing to hide.

There were no secrets as the three of them answered questions about what plans are still ahead for the band. Their current touring takes them through the beginning of August, after which point the two younger members of the group are to tackle other projects. Ben Jones didn't ask John Paul Jones what was in his own future, and there was no suggestion of a Led Zeppelin reunion either.

A concert review for NME reports on the event, the first night of a week of shows benefiting the Teenage Cancer Trust, whose patron is Roger Daltrey. TBL/Web provides a rundown of last night's proceedings from the perspective of superfan Dave Lewis, who contrasts the Royal Albert Hall then and now, weaving in the fact that the venue was home to one of Led Zeppelin's most famous gigs 40 years ago.

A second Them Crooked Vultures album has not been recorded by this point and no one should expect a second album this year, the interview for Absolute Radio makes apparent. Reuniting their band eventually to go about another set of tour dates in support of a new album is still in the cards, as they've long said. Homme employed an interesting turn of phrase, saying it was like playing a game of calendar roulette to see when all three would be available again.

At least 15 shows remain before the band's current bout of activity winds down, and announcements of added shows within the pre-August time frame have been popping up in the past week. Fans in the Los Angeles area can now expect to see the group at Club Nokia on April 14. A third Canadian date, May 16 in Windsor, Ontario, was announced to complement the previously announced pair of dates in Quebec City (May 11) and Montreal (May 12). Further shows in the United States and Canada in April and May might be announced as well.

This band's planned hiatus comes at just about the right time for Rodrigo Davies, who covered last night's gig in an article appearing this morning on the Web site of BBC Radio 6 Music. That writer suggests that Them Crooked Vultures is on the verge of wearing out its welcome riding on the coattails of the music from its one brilliant album:

Now we're seven months and an album on from the initial impact of such an imagination-capturing musical experiment, one can't help wondering whether stages like this would be a fitting moment to wrap up this round of solos, however impressive they are. ... [I]f the talent of its members is proven by anything, it's the way in which their musical projects have evolved so impressively over time. More Grohl, Homme, [supporting onstage musician Alain] Johannes and Jones please, just maybe not more of the same.

For anyone who was looking to the "Fresh Pots" video released online last week for clues as to whether the band had been recording a second album -- and some news sites reported the video proves they were -- Grohl confirmed that not only was all that footage from the 2009 recording sessions but the bit about seeing a doctor related to his coffee intake was true.

The video states:

Two weeks after this video was shot, Dave was rushed to doctor due to the onset of unwanted physical effects caused by too much caffeine.

For reals. He was kind of a mess.

Since then, he has reduced his intake of the super delicious hot beverage to a healthier level.

Interviewer Ben Jones asked whether that actually happened. Grohl wasted no time in saying, "Yes." He followed up with:

"'Fresh Pots' -- that was a year ago. The 'Fresh Pots' thing was about a year old, and we were in the studio making our record, and I was drinking a lot of coffee. At one point, I was doing Vultures stuff at night, Foo Fighters stuff during the day, and I had a newborn at home. And so, I was sleeping maybe, like, two or three hours a night on an air mattress in a guest bedroom --"

Homme interjected, "The air mattress was actually filled with coffee."

Grohl laughed and continued:

"Yeah, I had too much coffee, and I started having chest pains, so I went to the hospital, and they told me to stop drinking so much coffee."

For future reference, I suppose we should start taking the phrase "for reals" seriously.