Rising from the ashes of stoner rock pioneers Kyuss within the late Nineties, Queens Of The Stone Age shortly grew to become 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, Traditional 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 Periods, occasional Eagle Of Dying 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 having 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 at all times have you ever considering: “Rattling, I want I had mentioned 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 way in which to outstripping its million-selling predecessor Songs For The Deaf.
Evaluations of the album within the mainstream press had been virtually universally optimistic, 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 route wherein the band have gone, and likewise a way that others, outdoors the slender 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 individuals with me and make data that had been like a combination tape that you’d make for a buddy,” 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 data.”
It’s not solely the music, it’s additionally Homme’s new standing as a star 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 individuals, you already know, 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 file and so they’d be like: ‘Pshaw! Fairly light-weight, huh?’”
Queens have at all times 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 quilt 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 bought Billy Gibbons from ZZ High within the room enjoying guitar and singing harmonies with Mark Lanegan. I imply, God, how typically does that occur? I used to be, like, sporting diapers through the recording,” Homme enthuses.
Former Screaming Bushes 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: ‘Quite a lot of incidents occurring over the past 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 mentioned on his web site. “A rock band: selfless, senseless, ego-free, unprotected, about hazard, intercourse and no-bull rock’n’roll. You recognize 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. The very best frontmen are chosen by their followers. And no matter occurred to loyalty?”
Then, only some weeks after this, Oliveri and Homme had been noticed collectively at a gig. Oliveri then began telling everybody who would hear that he actually needed again into Queens; he admitted that he had “fucked up” and was ready to do something to reclaim his outdated job.
“I instructed him final time I used to be hanging out with him: ‘If something falls via and also you want anyone, you already know the place your bass participant is, dude – you already know the place the bass participant for that band is. So choose up the cellphone,’” Oliveri instructed 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 occasion 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 file [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 in regards to 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 certainly 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 question very real – affection for the person. Like Sid Vicious, Oliveri’s position in Queens was extra than simply his capacity to play a number of bass strains. He was in some ways soul of the band. Regardless of how severe issues bought, 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 one doubts that Oliveri might 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 like him, man.”
However would you might have him again within the band?
“I by no means say by no means. However I’m additionally the type of man that can at all times stand on his personal two toes and rise up when he’s knocked down. The one time I received’t rise up is after I’m lifeless. So all of us want to face up, as a result of that’s what I’m about. And Nick is that means 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 exhausting: “I feel that is probably the most collaborative file that I’ve ever made – however The Desert Periods, which is solely everyone. 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 mentioned 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 attempting to get again to the place we had been at initially.”
However, that means that whilst you’re not precisely a management freak, you do wish to name the photographs and say who’s in and who’s out.
“I feel individuals have a notion that I steer the ship like a Nazi basic, and that that’s an important position. Nevertheless it’s not. It’s a complete household of artists that features Chris Goss, Ween, Alain Johannes. And my position contains loads of the stuff that sucks. We’ve a saying within the band: You fireplace your self, however I inform you.”
Maybe there can be fewer detractors had been it not for Homme’s illustrious rock’n’roll previous. It’s mentioned that though of their day The Velvet Underground offered only some thousand albums, everybody who purchased a duplicate was impressed to exit and kind a band of their very own. The identical might be mentioned 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 numerous legendary ‘desert jams’ in and round their dwelling city of Palm Desert, California.
“Typically they had been so lovely that you simply’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 track – 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 demise 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 really awe-inspiring stay 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 after we regarded up we mentioned ‘Fuck!’ and realised that we had been painted right into a nook of our personal making,” Homme says. “I cherished Kyuss. I wouldn’t change a second of my time in that band, however I left as a result of I cherished 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 Bushes as second guitarist. By 1997 he had rekindled his friendship with Oliveri (who had been enjoying in sleaze-punk band The Dwarves underneath the identify Rex Every 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 grew to become the earliest manifestation of Queens Of The Stone Age.
It was an unbelievable U-turn for Homme: the place Kyuss was – even throughout their brief tenure with Elektra data – 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 strategy of Queens is apostasy. From the get-go, Homme has taken a perverse enjoyment of rubbing the purists up the improper means.
He admits to a slight unease at his new standing as a ‘movie star’. Individuals who have by no means heard a word 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 exhausting,” he says. “It’s solely good for collaborating with different artists and for getting a desk in a restaurant. My persona is just not geared for it. I really feel like I give sufficient via the music, and if you would like further you’re not going to get it and not using a combat. I don’t like individuals understanding about me. Some issues are non-public… y’know, fuck off.”
He’s, nonetheless, conscious that intrusions into his non-public 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 performed each. I went from a hard-working job to working exhausting at this job, and I do not forget that. I simply like to play and I like individuals, and to me issues have simply bought extra easy as time goes on.”
It’s ironic, significantly in the meanwhile, 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 reality is that the purists and the true believers want a band like Queens extra now than they may ever want them.
“I doubt that a few of our detractors would have the balls to do what we’ve performed, as a result of it’s not straightforward. I feel you must humble your self on the altar of rock’n’roll. You set the music first after which realise that you simply’re not entitled to play music. It’s a present. You’ve bought to be actually cautious. You spit within the face of music and you’ll be gone. Music is a complete collection of steep stairs on the way in which up, but it surely’s a fireman’s pole on the way in which down.”
Initially printed in Traditional Rock journal problem 80, Might 2005
