Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme would like you to know he is officially sick of discussing three topics: 1) Nick Oliveri, his former bandmate with whom he parted ways in early 2004, 2) Brody Dalle, the Distillers' lead singer and his long-rumored girlfriend, and 3) a much-publicized brawl he denies ever happened at a Lower East Side bar in April.

"I'm really f---ing sick of talking about all of that," Homme snarled. "All three of those topics, I'm sick of. It seems that whenever I do something in real life, and there are people there to witness them happen, they end up retelling the story and it's anything but the truth. The whole thing has made me feel like a kid who keeps putting his hand in the fire. I'd rather just explain everything with my playing."

And he does just that on QOTSA's new album, Lullabies to Paralyze, where his guitar sounds at times venomous, sometimes world-weary and other times a little bit of both. It's also the band's most adventurous album, with somber horns, spooky vocal effects, zippers, and even cowbell scattered all over the place.

"When we were making this record, it just felt like it was based on all the things we'd learned making the last three albums. We did this one in five weeks, and we just played whatever we wanted," Homme explained. "With [2002's Songs for the Deaf], everything was a huge pain in the ass. We were surrounded by idiots, and we acted like idiots. We rarely work with outsiders, and for that record we did, and it was terrible. I ended up having to fire some of the people involved. With this new album, we didn't want to make the same mistakes."

So Homme holed up in Rancho de la Luna studios in Joshua Tree, California (see [article id="1493574"]"The New Queens Of The Stone Age Album: The Inside Scoop"[/article]), working with longtime associates Troy Van Leeuwen (who played a whole bunch of everything), drummer Joey Castillo, bassist Alain Johannes and a host of Rancho studio hands. Former Queens member Mark Lanegan also makes a couple of appearances on Lullabies, including an 80-second acoustic ditty that opens the disc and "Burn the Witch," on which he adds raspy-voiced backing vocals along with ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons.

"Lanegan and Billy have gargled enough glass to bury you with the shards of their throats," Homme laughed. "We were recording overdubs and I realized that compared to them, I was sounding like [singing in an ultra-high falsetto] 'Burn the witch!' So on the beginning of the song, we tacked on this part where I'm trying to make my voice sound like Lanegan's or Billy's. And it sounds pretty f---ing ridiculous."

Also making appearances on the album are Dalle and Garbage's Shirley Manson, though their backing vocals appear so briefly on one of the album's final numbers that you might just miss them if you're not paying attention -- which is just the way Homme wanted it.

"It's almost funnier to have a song where you've got Brody and Shirley singing backups and you can't hear them. People assume that if you've got both of them on a track, like, you have to crank their vocals to the hilt," he said. "So they're on a song, near the end of the album, but you only hear their voices for like five seconds."

Homme's strange sense of humor also shows up elsewhere, including Lullabies' first single, "Little Sister," which rocks more cowbell than the Blue Oyster Cult and packs some amazingly elastic guitar solos into just under three minutes. But the majority of Lullabies to Paralyze is shrouded not in humor, but in a fog of mystery. As Homme puts it, it's an album about "the unexplained."

"Rock and roll is supposed to be mysterious, like the Brothers Grimm. You know, 'Don't go into the woods!' " he said. "I'm just following what I consider to be my obligation to music. You have to respect music or it takes itself away from you. Sort of like making sacrifices to the Sun God, because you're afraid he'll burn you if you don't."

Certainly the gods of rock would want the Queens of the Stone Age to tour, and thus, they will oblige, launching a North American jaunt March 15 at Stubb's Bar-B-Q in Austin, Texas. Homme promises he'll be there, as will Van Leewun and Castillo. But aside from that, he's short on details. Just expect a lot of surprises.

"It's going to be an extravaganza!" he laughed. "There will be anywhere from two to 17 other people onstage with me, which means we're going to need really big stages. Maybe we should just keep it simple. Simple and extremely stupid. That's my comfort zone."

Queens of the Stone Age tour dates, according to the band's Web site:

• 3/15 - Austin, TX @ Stubb's Bar-B-Q
• 3/16 - Dallas, TX @ Gypsy Tea Room & Ballroom
• 3/19 - Atlanta, GA @ Earthlink Live
• 3/20 - Norfolk, VA @ NorVa Theatre
• 3/24 - New York, NY @ Webster Hall
• 3/26 - Hartford, CT @ Webster Theatre
• 3/27 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
• 3/28 - Boston, MA @ The Roxy
• 3/30 - Toronto, ON @ Kool Haus
• 3/31 - Montreal, QC @ Metropolis
• 4/2 - Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues
• 4/3 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
• 4/5 - Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
• 4/6 - Minneapolis, MN @ Quest
• 4/8 - Winnipeg, MB @ Burton Cummings Theatre
• 4/10 - Calgary, AB @ MacEwan Hall
• 4/11 - Edmonton, AB @ Red's Entertainment Complex
• 4/13 - Vancouver, BC @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
• 4/14 - Seattle, WA @ TBD
• 4/16 - San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
• 4/18 - Los Angeles, CA @ Henry Fonda Theatre