[Senator Clay Davis]

“Now that you’re all greased up, how about ‘Lust for Life’?” Iggy Pop said in a voice that was part Midwestern twang, part grizzled prospector to his new band as they rehearsed at a North Hollywood studio. Although it was Mr. Pop’s first time singing with the group, which had been preparing on its own, the mood shifted quickly from tension to elation. After each song, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age, who assembled the musicians, asked Mr. Pop if he wanted to wrap up, but Mr. Pop kept calling for more: first new songs and then oldies from “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life,” his two late-1970s collaborations with David Bowie. Mr. Pop, 68, wore a dark, patterned shirt, baggy black pants and sandals. He had started the rehearsal seated, conserving his energy, but by the end he was strutting.

“We’re hanging on by the skin of our teeth, but we’re making it through,” Mr. Homme recalled of the group’s initial practice with its singer a few days later. “And by the time we get to ‘Lust for Life,’ we’re all sweating and dancing around with this moronic look on our faces. Iggy looked over at me and …” Mr. Homme mimed a wink and a half-concealed thumbs up. “With Iggy, compliments are not forthcoming. It was a real moment.”

The new songs are from “Post Pop Depression” (Loma Vista), an album Mr. Pop and Mr. Homme wrote and recorded together with utmost secrecy and full independence, which is scheduled to be released in March. Its music shows both songwriters’ clear fingerprints: the pithy, hard-nosed clarity of Mr. Pop’s lyrics and the unflinching tone of his voice; and the crispness, angularity and deft convolutions of Mr. Homme’s chords and melodies. (The group will be making its debut on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” Thursday night.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/24/ar...pgtype=article