The desert can do things to a man like Josh Homme.

One day you're playing in a legendary indie pseudo-metal band, the next you wake up with a cheap weed buzz hang-over from an overdose of stoner riffs and way too many effects pedals.

"It's like a cross between trance and prog," said Homme about Instrumental Driving Music for Felons (Nov. 7), a 10" album about to be released on the Man's Ruin label of rock poster artist Frank Kozik. Then, struggling a bit more to describe the sound, he tried "It's like Can meets something really prog rock, but prog in a good way. Like some Link Wray, weird garage changes type of shit. But Prog."

Suffice it to say Homme isn't alone in having a hard time nailing just what kind of magic he and his desert island crew captured. What is translatable is that Homme brought a mix-and-match group of fellow open-minded experimentalists out to the Rancho De La Luna studios in the desert town of Joshua Tree, Calif., over the summer and the cactus have never been the same. The clan included ex-Soundgarden member Ben Shepard, former Kyuss drummer Brant Bjork, former Monster Magnet guitarist John McBain, ex-Kyuss drummer Alfredo Hernandez, former Wool guitarist Pete Stahl, who is also in the shady desert experimental crew the Earthlings with Fred Drake and Dave Catchings, who just happen to own the Rancho studio.

There's a lot of formers in the group, which makes sense, since, from the sounds of it, they were busy channeling sounds formerly associated with the '70s. "I guess you could describe it as good pot music," said McBain, currently working on a new album from his band Well Water Conspiracy, which also features former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron. "We knew about half- way through that we had a great '70s cannabis vibe, which we didn't force. It just went that way. Lots of instrumentals," he laughed.

Since the break-up of Kyuss two years ago, Homme said he's just wanted to play as much as possible, and the desert sessions idea, suggested by Kozik (who also designs graphics for ATN), seemed like the perfect way. "I hate the word 'side project'," Homme said. The concept for the Desert Sessions is to release a series of six 10" singles, three of which are already done and all of which will be compiled on CD at the end of the run.

"The idea was to get people together who don't normally play together," Homme said. "It also gave me a chance to get behind the board and not play for a second. Instead of a side project, this is just people playing and lifting the regular constraints. 'You're a guitarist, here, play drums or play keyboards.'" Homme said Drake and Catchings' studio were perfect for the mix-and-match vibe, since it was packed with dozens of oddball and homemade instruments, "drums, toothbrushes with strings on them, anything."

Homme isn't the only one at a loss to explain the sound of the Desert Sessions. "It's all over the map," offered Kozik, who said he was happy to just hand over the dough and let Homme go off. "They went in and had a big freak-out and recorded it." Included on the first single are the songs "Girl Boy Tom," "Monkey in the Middle," "Coward's Way Out" and "Robotic Launch."

"Loose is a good word," said McBain, finally hitting on the vibe. "Loose yet professional." McBain traded his usual guitar for a variety of ancient keyboards and Hammond organs, including something called a "Crumar." "Josh kept saying he had this thing called a Crumar under his bed," said McBain, who said he was glad to do the sessions as long as they were free and Homme kept him in cigarettes. "It was this ancient contraption that simulated strings, but didn't really sound like strings. I guess that's what's great about it. Having those odd instruments around really helped with the overall vibe."

As security, Homme had six or seven near-finished songs in his back pocket, but he said he barely had to dip into his stash. "I've never done this kind of thing before for release," he said. "I felt a bit of pressure when we started, but once the first hour went by I knew it would be cool. I had those songs in reserve, but whenever you put something in front of all these songwriters, it gets altered and varied in cool ways, but differently than you would do it yourself." [Fri., Oct. 17, 1997, 9 a.m. PDT]