Bassist Mikey 'Shoes' Shuman tells Gigwise about the future of Queens Of The Stone Age

Fans may be waiting a little longer than they first hoped for a new Queens Of The Stone Age album, with bassist Mikey 'Shoes' Shuman revealing that the band are currently 'taking a break'.

It took QOTSA six years in between 2007's Era Vulgaris and their astonishing 2013 comeback ...Like Clockwork. Last year, frontman Josh Homme revealed that the band had new songs ready and were hoping to enter the studio as soon as they could.

Now bassist Mikey 'Shoes' Shuman, currently preparing to release his new album with Mini Mansions, reveals that they're instead taking some time apart.

"Mini Mansions is my focus right now," Shuman tells Gigwise. "There will be future stuff with Queens, we're just taking a break since we had a long, long two years of touring. We'll take a break to do other stuff."

Speaking of the QOTSA's initial urgency to re-enter the studio, he said: "We were eager because we were in a good spot, having fun and the record had done really well. But we decided to take a break because we had been going so hard for so long, and we really worked on that record for a long time. It's not like we're sick of each other and don't want to do it - it's just better to step back for a second and come back once the world has had a little bit of a break from you."

He added: "I think music and working with different people is the kind of process where you gain things along the way. Whether it's a big band, a small band, a different production or crew - you learn something from everybody, well I do. By the time you're older you've figured it out, and that's what's great about Queens - it's a very open family and everyone is free to do what they want and bring different aspects about what they do to the table."

- Check back soon for more of our interview with Mikey Shuman

Mini Mansions' new single 'Vertigo' has helped to launch their new album, The Great Pretenders. The track in question features no less than guest vocalist Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys.

"We thought about a couple of different things, and we were in the studio looking for some kind of different character that hadn't yet been touched on by Tyler or my voice and we actually heard some kind of British-type thuggish kind of voice in the track, on that second verse," Mikey 'Shoes' Shuman told Gigwise.

"I always thought it as some kind of character out of a guy Ritchie movie, that's how I always saw that voice coming in. It's a very West Coast hip-hop-influenced song, so we wanted to give it that sense of different dudes coming in and giving it that different verse. Alex has more of like a sexy, swagger that what we were initially going for, which turned out better than anything we could have imagined, really."

Listen to 'Vertigo' by Mini Mansions featuring Alex Turner below

Mini Mansions recently completed a UK tour with Royal Blood, and will release their debut album The Great Pretenders on 23 March.