“Revitalised the search”: The album that made Josh Homme a better musician
We all have albums that changed our lives—records that found us at the perfect moment and resonated in all the right ways. These are the albums that left us feeling like entirely different people by the time side one, track one gave way to the final note. For most, they’re studio albums that echo our own emotions or live albums that immortalise the energy of a pivotal show we experienced. For Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, however, one of the records that shaped his life is an unexpected choice.
Few would dare to list a compilation album among their favourites—either out of fear of coming across too Alan Partridge (“I think I’d have to say The Best of The Beatles”) or for risking the appearance of indecision by not picking a ‘proper’ album. But in the pre-streaming era, money or availability often dictated what you could get your hands on. Maybe you couldn’t afford every release from your favourite artist, or perhaps your local record shop didn’t stock their full catalogue. This was especially true if your favourite band happened to be as niche and underground as Germany’s Krautrock pioneers, Can, whose official albums were notoriously difficult to find. In those moments, the oft-overlooked compilation could be your saviour—or your only option.
It was through the 1978 Can compilation Canibilism I that Josh Homme first discovered the exciting, experimental and avant-garde group. As he explained in a 2003 interview with Spin, “I began writing this angular, robotic guitar stuff, and I started to wonder if anyone had ever done that before, which is how I discovered Can. Their drummer was so straight and so groovy, and they’d play one note for six minutes, which I realised is actually hard to do. It used to be disheartening for me to discover that someone had already done something I was doing, but at this point in my life, I just wanted to do things I liked. So hearing Can revitalised the search. It was like an endorsement.”
It wasn’t just the far-out experimental sounds on Cannibalism I that captured Josh Homme’s imagination. Tracks like ‘Father Cannot Yell’—where Can sound like the band The Doors could only dream of being—or the frenzied, howling brilliance of ‘Outside My Door,’ which feels like Marquee Moon catapulted into the cosmos, inspired a profound sense of wonder. They shattered the limits of what Homme thought was possible in a recording studio.
Reflecting on Björk’s 1997 album Homogenic, Homme once said: “This is where I realised, ‘Wow, in the modern age of music, you can have a 53-piece symphony, someone playing champagne glasses, and a guy playing a nose flute, and you can still sound beautiful. Genres mean nothing.’ It really made us push ourselves in Queens.”
But while Björk and Can reassured Homme that he was on the right path and encouraged him to expand into whole new directions, helping him experiment further with his writing and playing, another album stopped him in his tracks entirely.
“I heard Lust for Life, and it actually made me quit Kyuss [Homme’s band before he formed QotSA],” he added. “I listened to it obsessively for two and a half years, and at the end, I thought, ‘there are just way too many bands out there, and if you want to know what I have to say, just listen to this record. It’s all here.’ I sort of went backwards with Iggy Pop”.
Having been drained of the desire to carry on by Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life, fans of Queens of the Stone Age will be grateful that Can came along and showed Josh Homme what he could do with just a handful of notes, a fair few minutes and a whole world of exciting experimental energy.
