Stone Age Romeo

You'd be hard pressed to read a feature surrounding Queens Of The Stone Age's sixth studio album …Like Clockwork without there being some mention of the almost-exactly six years between releases for the band. Let's not forget that frontman Josh Homme is in Eagles Of Death Metal and Them Crooked Vultures – the supergroup trio rounded out by bassist John Paul Jones and drummer Dave Grohl. On how it felt to look across the stage and see JPJ during TCV shows, Homme enlightens, “I was just always like, 'Thank god he's good lookin'.' If he was an ugly-ass troll I'd be like, 'Oh, Jesus!' I'd die, you know?” When a fantasy, triple-header line-up of QOTSA, Them Crooked Vultures and Eagles Of Death Metal is suggested, Homme points out: “I would never leave the stage and I'd be a midget by the end of the show, I'd sweat so much.”

When it comes to musical collaborations, Homme shares, “I think it's okay to pass on a certain potential collaboration if the situation isn't right, because I'd rather work with someone when the timing's right, and the situation's right, than try to forcibly work with someone just to work with them. I'm not a massage therapist. I don't have to rub somebody.” He's proved to be quite the remixer and if you haven't yet heard Homme's remix of Mickey Mouse And The Goodbye Man by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, do so sharpish. “There's something wrong with those guys,” Homme says with affection. “I recorded, like, 20 clocks [for the remix] because there's a lot of clocks at the house. But it's funny, though – I don't ever know what the fuck time it is.” Recording 20 clocks! Is Homme winding me up (pardon the pun)? “Um, no, and I did it in a timely fashion.” (Badum tish.)

Homme also factored co-producing Arctic Monkeys' third studio album Humbug into his QOTSA 'downtime'. Does The Ginger Elvis find that producing other bands makes him critique the modus operandi of his own, Queens Of The Stone Age specifically? “No, because this band operates from watching how other bands worked for years before,” he considers. “Like, we don't have passive aggressive bullshit and [everyone] says what's on their mind and it makes it so much easier… I've been around so many musical relationships where I'm like, 'Why don't you just fuckin' say what you mean?'... We have an expression that's: 'This is where most bands stop.' We acknowledge this'd probably be where most bands would stop and that's where we put in the detailed work and the little quirks to try to make it different.” …Like Clockwork is an exceptional body of work and also the first Queens Of The Stone Age album to top the charts in the States. With six albums to draw from when putting together their setlists, Homme says QOTSA needed to tap into a particular “headspace” when rehearsing material from their self-titled debut album (1998). “Everything was so on purpose and meticulous on that first record and it sounds really good when it's played that way,” he stresses. “The white man's groove is to play stiff, and when everyone plays stiff it gets groovy.”

The frontman believes it's important for listeners to be able to find their own meanings within song lyrics. “Early on, in order to not crush someone else's interpretation of my own music – someone asked me what the lyrics meant... So I said to this person, 'It doesn't matter,' which immediately [he] took as that our songs don't mean anything. But, I mean, I probably should've guessed that he would do that: this guy wasn't gonna do my math homework, you know what I mean? The point is that, um, they really do mean something and if someone really pressed me and really wanted to know, and we were alone, I'd be happy to say something… [The lyrics] mean the world to me, that's why I don't wanna just spill my guts all over you. Like, in the most respectful way,” he laughs.

And Homme doesn't downplay the songwriter's privilege of being able to process feelings through song. “I dunno what I would do without music,” he admits. “I feel really blessed that I've never had to have an alternative. I started playing young and that's just how I dealt with my own feelings and I mean, I reckon if you put everything of yourself into a record you can actually become a better person from doing one. And that's more important than, like, a 'kick out the hits' for me, you know?” So what of those unlucky souls who don't have a creative outlet? “They make war, they fuck shit up, they ruin things because they're not as productive,” Homme replies without hesitation.

When Homme articulates his experiences as a music listener, his passion is palpable. “I love that song – it's called Sleepwalk [Santo & Johnny], it's an instrumental and it's so dreamy and far beyond me, and I listen to that and I'm like, 'Fuck, if I can just touch that for ten seconds'. Good music is like trying to hold beach sand; it just slips outta your fingers. You only get a couple of seconds with it before you're doomed to chase it again. That's what makes it great; it's never over, that chase, you know?”

Being able to hear different nuances with every listen is something that Homme defines as “the benchmark of something really great… something that's so goddamn good that hearing what it really is is just too much to bear. I listen to Roy Orbison sometimes and I'm just like…” The tears well up? “Oh, fuck. Are you kidding me? Yeah. You know, I've been listening to tonnes of Dean Martin lately and there's a couple of songs where I'm just like, 'Oh, god! Fuck! It's so good!'” 

You wouldn't catch Homme listening to a song and trying to channel the energy from it while he's recording, however. “There's a menagerie of dumbarsery there and that's why it's important not to concern yourself with bullshit like that… At some point, you realise that you shouldn't spend time on anything you don't like.” When it's suggested that there's also not enough time to put up with people you don't like, Homme agrees: “Oh, fuck yeah! It's comforting to be around someone I know I don't like, because I know I won't be around them long. I say, 'You know how you can keep an arsehole in suspense?' And then I walk away and I don't say any more.”