Queens Of The Stone Age took the decision to head back into the studio last year, ending a period of silence that stretched back to 2007. Fresh from numerous side projects, the band could perhaps be forgiven for assuming that the process would be fairly easy. “We ended up waiting for a while, waiting for the lightning to strike like it has in the past and that never really happened,” explains Troy Van Leeuwen. “So instead of waiting we just kind of jumped into the studio, just to work. And work is what we did. It was constant work for six months, hence the name of the record is pretty ironic because it was not like clockwork at all!” Instead, the making process behind the new album resembles another kind of clockwork. Clocking in and clocking out, Queens Of The Stone Age bullied their creative muse into submission, carving out the new material from hours upon hours of blood and perspiration. “It’s not really staggered, it was pretty much every day. I mean we had days off here and there, sometimes the weekends or whatever,” the guitarist explains. “It was pretty much full on, everyday. When ideas are easily coming to you, and you’re used to that happening, sometimes you just have to put yourself to work. And what that means is just going into the studio and trying to write stuff.”