Palm Desert, California is part of a chain of sun-baked communities (the most famous being Palm Springs) located in the Coachella Valley about two hours east of Los Angeles. Temperatures in the valley can climb over 115 degrees in the summer. It’s a dry heat. The restaurants set up outdoor misting systems to irrigate their customers like ferns. The golf courses are carefully maintained, but on the outskirts of town you won’t find a single blade of grass – just miles and miles of stony, colorless desert.
It was into this blank landscape that the young Josh Homme and the members of his band, Kyuss, would drive, loaded down with amps and guitars. When they arrived at the dead center of nowhere, they set up and played, blasting bass-heavy metal out to the desert over the hum of their generator, developing the sound that would make Kyuss a critical darling and a cult favorite. Kyuss became the leaders of a new genre of rock, dubbed “stoner rock,” a groove-heavy style of metal dipped in psychedelia and roasted in the desert sun.
The “generator parties” became part of the legend of Kyuss and condemned the band to a lifetime of critical reviews packed with desert-flavored metaphors like the one above. The press loves the generator-party hook (I couldn’t resist) because it speaks to the independent attitude that was key to Kyuss and later Queens of the Stone Age, and also because the idea just sounds so rock ‘n’ roll.
Homme’s (pictured left) feelings about those parties are more ambivalent: “They gave you butterflies at the time because they were really anarchy oriented. Whatever vibe each party took, it was definitely going there and there was nothing you could do to stop it.
“And sometimes that was really jubilant, and other times that was like ‘someone just shit on the windshield of my car.’ That actually happened.”
There’s the gritty side of anarchy for you. Kyuss had more than windshield soilers to overcome; although they endured through four albums, landed a major label deal, and released one widely acknowledged classic - Blues for the Red Sun – they never quite moved beyond cult status. Those who knew them loved them, but those who knew them were not that many. They went out with a whimper in 1995 with the album …And the Circus Leaves Town (one of the more knowing final album titles).
When Josh Homme returned to music with the Queens of the Stone Age in 1998, he found the world finally catching up to the stoner rock sound. The Queens quickly became genuine leather-pants-and-groupies rock stars. Rolling Stone, MTV – all the mass distribution forces were soon behind them, and a major label (Interscope) arrived right along with the momentum.
Their debut was hailed as the second coming of Nirvana, and their sophomore effort (their first on Interscope) was even more ambitious and arguably more successful. Homme & Co. had reached the position of being both mythologized for their past and quite popular in the present. Homme grants that the popularity required some adjusting.
“[At first] We had a lot more punk rock guilt, where you’re like, ‘I’m not interested in that,’” he says. “So you’re almost trying to stay out of that [success] and then along the way it’s like, ‘that’s stupid too.’ That’s too reactionary, like ‘You can’t jump off this cliff.’ ‘Yes I can!’”
“You have to play for respect, because that’s the only thing that lasts.” – Josh Homme
Queens somehow managed to have their artistic reputation and eat it too. They’ve become known as a “band’s band” – one that other musicians are eager to follow, get involved with, and emulate – while still notching hits with the fickle record-buying public.
“You have to play for respect, because that’s the only thing that lasts,” says Homme. “Look at the Stooges – people hated them. It actually took 35 years for people’s ears to acclimate to their sound.”
The critics love Queens of the Stone Age, partly because they’re unpredictable and partly, I can’t help but think, because they’re charmed by Josh Homme, one of the funniest men in rock ‘n’ roll.
I meet the famous Josh Homme and the Queens of the Stone Age – 2007 edition – in a practice space in a warehouse section of Burbank, California. They’re promoting their new album, Era Vulgaris. (Homme calls the title “pseudo-intellectual. It’s like saying buttfuck in German.”)
QOTSA are kicking back, passing around cigarettes, waiting nonchalantly for my questions, and trading indecipherable jokes. The three who’ve been around the longest – Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Joey Castillo – do most of the talking.
Van Leeuwen (pictured left) sits to my left, ghostly pale and full of dreamy, off-kilter remarks. He could do side work in vampire movies. Michael Shuman is mellow and amiable. Dean Ferita sits directly across from me, but doesn’t say a word. Some quiet people actually have nothing to say, although I suspect he’s not that kind.
“Oh, he’s talking,” says Castillo when I comment on the silence.
Where Castillo is raunchy and playful, Homme is wry. His answers run from flippant to prickly to thoughtful – often in the space of one sentence.
Taken all together, the Queens are quick, funny, and often difficult to follow. The vibe reminds me of any group of guys during the stoner years – insular, smart, a premium placed on the weird and surprising. Queens are experimental even in conversation, basically still jamming, and even though there is a lot of humor and a lot of giggling, there’s not a lot of mockery or any palpable paranoia.
The dumb things that get said fall to the wayside and they keep moving. And they’re quick to praise each other’s skills; though they’ll make jokes about the drummer (“Usually there’s all these musicians and then there’s a drummer there”) or the bass player (“If you blow ass on guitar, you can play bass”), they point out that those don’t apply here.
“No slouches,” says Castillo. “The one thing about this band is you gotta be able to play.”
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