Background, Recording and Production
Following their last record, the highly successful Odyssey Number Five, the band agreed that they wanted to continue in their musical careers, but wanted to have more fun with it. They were no longer dole reliant, as they had been when they made their debut album, Parables for Wooden Ears. Drummer Jon Coghill told The Sydney Morning Herald "we wanted to have more fun and enjoy that we were a band, rather than chase what you're supposed to do", and guitarist Ian Haug said "We all found that this is really important to us, but we wanted to make it more fun".
Powderfinger did not enter the recording studio with a specific plan on what they wanted Vulture Street to be, but that they "felt that wanted to write a rock album". In the end, the album became "stuff that makes you want to jump around and feel good about yourself"—guitarist Darren Middleton said this had not been the band's intention. Coghill said the band wanted to make an album that was fun to perform live and listen to—most of the songs on the album were performed and released live on These Days: Live in Concert.
Like Powderfinger's two previous albums, Vulture Street was produced by Nick DiDia. It was mixed by Brendan O'Brien, who had worked with Powderfinger inspiration Neil Young. The album was recorded over a seven week period in Sydney. Prior to recording, the band had written about 50 songs, which was trimmed to the final 11. A significant number of songs on the album were producing during jam sessions, with DiDia giving the band additional space to move in. Middleton said in an interview that the band "always start things spontaneously, because that's when you're thinking less and just playing."
In producing Vulture Street, Powderfinger moved in a different direction to their previous works, especially Odyssey Number Five, starting with opening song "Rockin' Rocks", which was written according to Middleton after "a couple of months trying really hard to write this new rock album" but not making anything they really liked. He also said the band could easily have written lots of "The Metre"-like songs, but didn't do that "for our own interest in the band and music".
In an interview with ninemsn, lead singer Bernard Fanning said the band "tapped more into that energetic rock thing and made it really different from our other albums" when creating Vulture Street. He also said the band were a lot more serious when making this album, and this was partly due to "the way we've matured as musicians".
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