Rising from the ashes of stoner rock pioneers Kyuss within the late Nineteen Nineties, Queens Of The Stone Age rapidly turned an ever-shifting collective of musicians revolving round singer and guitarist Josh Homme. In 2005, because the band launched their fourth album Lullabies To Paralyze, Basic Rock sat down with Homme to speak a few band like no different.
Josh Homme, frontman and founding father of Queens Of The Stone Age, facilitator of the Desert Classes, occasional Eagle Of Demise Metallic, pal of Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, has a reasonably good declare to the title World’s Coolest Man. In fact, he’s so rattling cool that the suggestion of bestowing such a title upon him would make him blow chunks over the desk.
Off stage in addition to on, the man has charisma. He additionally has that high quality of with the ability to talk about something, from the deserves of pickled onion crisps to nice underrated albums like The Groundhogs’ Thank Christ For The Bomb, and all the time have you ever considering: “Rattling, I want I had stated that”.
Lullabies To Paralyze, the fourth Queens Of The Stone Age album, entered the US chart at No.5 and the UK chart at 4 and is already on the best way to outstripping its million-selling predecessor Songs For The Deaf.
Evaluations of the album within the mainstream press had been virtually universally constructive, even ecstatic, whereas the rock and steel mags gave it a a lot frostier reception. There’s a way that some followers and critics really feel betrayed by the course by which the band have gone, and in addition a way that others, outdoors the slim self-imposed stoner rock ghetto, are simply discovering them. If anybody regards the accessibility of current QOTSA albums as a ‘sell-out’ then Josh Homme isn’t involved.
“I needed to take folks with me and make information that had been like a combination tape that you’d make for a good friend,” he explains. “And this album is the primary time I really feel that we’ve actually achieved that. It’s an amalgam of issues realized on the primary three information.”
It’s not solely the music, it’s additionally Homme’s new standing as a celeb that riles them, in addition to his a lot publicised sacking final 12 months of Queens co-founder and bass participant Nick Oliveri.
“We’re gonna have detractors. There’s gonna be some folks, you recognize, there’s nothing that we might do that can take away from their maniacal readiness to assault with Nick gone,” he says resignedly. “We might have been like a fucking Slayer report and so they’d be like: ‘Pshaw! Fairly light-weight, huh?’”
Queens have all the time been a band with a revolving-door coverage for its members, and to some extent it’s that fluidity and uncertainty that has lent vitality to the band.
“I really feel just like the extra nebulous Queens Of The Stone Age is – from individuals who play on the album, to the duvet artwork, to the identify of the album, to the identify of the band – the extra freedom exists for us to vary, ought to we really feel the necessity,” Homme says.
In addition to a core that features Homme, A Excellent Circle guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, former Danzig drummer Joey Castillo, and bassist Alain Johannes (changing Oliveri), company on the Lullabies To Paralyze album included Polly Harvey, Rubbish singer Shirley Manson and ZZ High’s Billy Gibbons.
“We’ve received Billy Gibbons from ZZ High within the room enjoying guitar and singing harmonies with Mark Lanegan. I imply, God, how usually does that occur? I used to be, like, sporting diapers throughout the recording,” Homme enthuses.
Former Screaming Timber frontman Lanegan joined Queens simply earlier than Songs For The Deaf, and whereas he reportedly left after the recording of the brand new album, he has popped up at a number of exhibits on the band’s European and US exhibits.
However whereas the departure or non-departure of Lanegan is simply par for the course, the sacking of Nick Oliveri final 12 months got here as a shock to everybody. The assertion issued on the time learn: ‘Various incidents occurring during the last 18 months have led to the choice that Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri can no longermaintain a working partnership within the band.’
Oliveri hit again, claiming that the unique intention of the band had been compromised. “The idea was easy,” Oliveri stated on his web site. “A rock band: selfless, senseless, ego-free, unprotected, about hazard, intercourse and no-bull rock’n’roll. You realize what occurs when a pure and unique rock band will get polluted, poisoned by starvation for energy and by management points? Issues get actually uncontrolled.
“The strongest leaders are chosen by their followers, not self-appointed. One of the best frontmen are chosen by their followers. And no matter occurred to loyalty?”
Then, just a few weeks after this, Oliveri and Homme had been noticed collectively at a gig. Oliveri then began telling everybody who would pay attention that he actually needed again into Queens; he admitted that he had “fucked up” and was ready to do something to reclaim his previous job.
“I informed him final time I used to be hanging out with him: ‘If something falls by way of and also you want any individual, you recognize the place your bass participant is, dude – you recognize the place the bass participant for that band is. So decide up the telephone,’” Oliveri informed Billboard journal. “It ain’t a few cash gig factor for me. I do know which band I play bass in.”
Rumours abounded that he had been sacked for his penchant for celebration chemical compounds (one thing denied by Homme), with Oliveri himself claiming that he had left as a result of Josh had sacked Mark Lanegan with out telling anybody.
“Mark wasn’t sacked,” Homme insists. “It simply so occurred that the recording of the brand new album coincided with the discharge of Mark’s solo report [Bubblegum] and he needed to go off and promote that.”
Homme additional claimed that it was the band themselves who had been behind a marketing campaign of disinformation, spreading rumours concerning the departure of Lanegan. So if Lanegan wasn’t sacked, why would Oliveri go away if this wasn’t the case? If anybody was in on the ‘joke’ then absolutely it was he?
Even now, virtually a 12 months on, the explanations are unclear, and when pressed on the purpose Homme retreats behind vagueness and a professed – and little doubt very real – affection for the person. Like Sid Vicious, Oliveri’s function in Queens was extra than simply his means to play a couple of bass traces. He was in some ways soul of the band. Regardless of how severe issues received, the truth that there was a bald man with a beard enjoying bass stark bare tended to cease issues from getting too A-Degree. Off stage he was keen on a small sherry after dinner, because it had been. One have a look at him and also you knew that he was a previous grasp at lighting his personal farts.
Whereas no person doubts that Oliveri could possibly be a royal ache within the arse to have round 24/7, he stays a well-liked man with followers, different bands and with all of the members of QOTSA.
“As a result of Nick is the realest motherfucker in rock’n’roll,” Homme says. “I really like him, man.”
However would you will have him again within the band?
“I by no means say by no means. However I’m additionally the sort of man that can all the time stand on his personal two ft and stand up when he’s knocked down. The one time I received’t stand up is after I’m useless. So all of us want to face up, as a result of that’s what I’m about. And Nick is that manner too.”
All of which raises the query as as to if Queens Of The Stone Age are a band or Josh Homme plus some musicians. He thinks laborious: “I believe that is probably the most collaborative report that I’ve ever made – however The Desert Classes, which is solely all people. Songs For The Deaf I made roughly on my own, and that have was not good for me as a result of it was like being left alone. We labored with an outsider on Songs For The Deaf, and the very first thing he stated was: ‘I wanna research your vibe after which I canperfect it’. And I used to be like… fuck! So after he was fired it was all about making an attempt to get again to the place we had been at initially.”
Nonetheless, that implies that when you’re not precisely a management freak, you do prefer to name the pictures and say who’s in and who’s out.
“I believe folks have a notion that I steer the ship like a Nazi normal, and that that’s crucial function. But it surely’s not. It’s an entire household of artists that features Chris Goss, Ween, Alain Johannes. And my function consists of loads of the stuff that sucks. We’ve a saying within the band: You fireplace your self, however I let you know.”
Maybe there could be fewer detractors had been it not for Homme’s illustrious rock’n’roll previous. It’s stated that though of their day The Velvet Underground bought just a few thousand albums, everybody who purchased a duplicate was impressed to exit and type a band of their very own. The identical could possibly be stated of Kyuss.
Rising from the desert outdoors Los Angeles and that includes vocalist John Garcia, guitarist Homme, bassist Oliveri and drummer Brant Bjork, Kyuss performed a variety of legendary ‘desert jams’ in and round their residence city of Palm Desert, California.
“Typically they had been so lovely that you just’ve by no means seen something prefer it,” Homme recollects. “Typically somebody on acid was firing a shotgun, or some Mexican gang members had been throwing somebody onto the bonfire.”
At one present, Oliveri was so taken by the temper that hesmashed up his bass on the finish of the second tune – and didn’thave a spare or one other one which he might borrow. Doh!
Kyuss’s 1991 debut Wretch was poor, however follow-up Blues For The Purple Solar (produced by Masters Of Actuality frontman Chris Goss) is a traditional slab of area rock, blues and traditional steel. Misplaced within the maelstrom of grunge and the dying throes of big-hair steel, neither Blues… nor its equally good major-label follow-up Welcome To Sky Valley registered a lot outdoors of a small however vociferous clique of fanatical followers.
They had been a very awe-inspiring dwell band, however the tensions inside the band between Oliveri (who left and was changed by ex-Obsessed bassist Scott Reeder) after which between Garcia and Homme meant that they weren’t destined for the lengthy haul.
“I felt that in Kyuss we had been so fiercely defending one thing that once we seemed up we stated ‘Fuck!’ and realised that we had been painted right into a nook of our personal making,” Homme says. “I beloved Kyuss. I wouldn’t change a second of my time in that band, however I left as a result of I beloved it and I needed to protect it by destroying it.”
The dissolution of Kyuss in 1995 resulted in a confused interval for Josh Homme. He moved to Seattle the place he joined The Screaming Timber as second guitarist. By 1997 he had rekindled his friendship with Oliveri (who had been enjoying in sleaze-punk band The Dwarves beneath the identify Rex Every little thing) and Alfredo Hernandez, who briefly changed Brant Bjork as Kyuss drummer within the band’s dying days. They returned to the Palm Desert area and put collectively what turned the earliest manifestation of Queens Of The Stone Age.
It was an unimaginable U-turn for Homme: the place Kyuss was – even throughout their quick tenure with Elektra information – a defiantly underground band, the primary self-titled, self-financed QOTSA album had a ravenous eye on the mainstream. To this present day Kyuss have a loyal posthumous cult following, and for a lot of of those true believers the MTV-friendly method of Queens is apostasy. From the get-go, Homme has taken a perverse enjoyment of rubbing the purists up the unsuitable manner.
He admits to a slight unease at his new standing as a ‘superstar’. Individuals who have by no means heard a be aware of Queens Of The Stone Age’s music now know him as a part of that obscure aristocracy of people who find themselves well-known for being well-known. The truth that he’s a part of a ‘rock couple’ with Distillers frontwoman Brody Dalle helps to maintain him within the gossip columns.
“That’s the half that’s so laborious,” he says. “It’s solely good for collaborating with different artists and for getting a desk in a restaurant. My persona just isn’t geared for it. I really feel like I give sufficient by way of the music, and if you would like further you’re not going to get it and not using a combat. I don’t like folks understanding about me. Some issues are personal… y’know, fuck off.”
He’s, nevertheless, conscious that intrusions into his personal life go together with the job. “I’m not complaining. I perceive that. See, the ‘suck’ a part of being a musician is extraordinarily small. The ‘suck’ a part of being a roofer is extraordinarily giant. I’ve achieved each. I went from a hard-working job to working laborious at this job, and I keep in mind that. I simply like to play and I really like folks, and to me issues have simply received extra easy as time goes on.”
It’s ironic, notably for the time being, when the A-list of rock is so sorely depleted, that Queens Of The Stone Age ought to be taking flack for being profitable, when fact is that the purists and the true believers want a band like Queens extra now than they’ll ever want them.
“I doubt that a few of our detractors would have the balls to do what we’ve achieved, as a result of it’s not straightforward. I believe it’s a must to humble your self on the altar of rock’n’roll. You place the music first after which realise that you just’re not entitled to play music. It’s a present. You’ve received to be actually cautious. You spit within the face of music and you may be gone. Music is an entire collection of steep stairs on the best way up, however it’s a fireman’s pole on the best way down.”
Initially revealed in Basic Rock journal concern 80, Could 2005