The album that made Josh Homme avoid grunge: “I didn’t want to get too close”
He might be hailed as one of the progenitors of stoner rock and all its sludgy offshoots, but Josh Homme is a punk at heart. Suppose you fused the genre’s ethos with a penchant for classic Californian songwriters such as Jackson Browne, and the facilitatory essence of narcotics thrown in, you’d end up with a result resembling the Queens of the Stone Age leader.
Whether it be his work in Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age, or his many other projects, Homme has established a legacy that has influenced everyone from longhaired stoners to the most entry-level rock fans who never veer away from stadium shows. Despite his many different undertakings, he also has a definitive sound, that of the scorching Palm Desert from which Kyuss and a host of other cult acts emerged on the back of their towering riffs.
Notably, Homme is a lifelong fan of the sounds of the 1980s underground, particularly that of hardcore punk. It was Black Flag’s Greg Ginn with his challenging work on My War, and Colin ‘Jock’ Blyth of British powerhouses GBH on efforts such as their 1982 debut City Baby Attacked by Rats that propelled him towards conceiving his unique sonic character.
The former release proved to be spiritually vital for Homme and Kyuss as it taught them originality, how to covet it, and how to stand up on their own. This notion nestled perfectly with the reality that groups would be ridiculed for sounding like another outfit in the tight-knit desert scene. It’s no surprise then that Homme has carved out a space that is his own.
The latter title was also incredibly influential for him. It authenticated the fact that melody could be heavier than the sounds of the metal lords of the day, who were famed for concocting screeching solos that were nothing more than a means of overcompensating. Sonically and emotionally, Black Flag and their ilk hit listeners who had never heard anything like it, like the proverbial freight train.
Yet, given his age, the era in which he emerged, and the fact that he is a purveyor of resounding, fuzzy riffs, some rather misled commentators have positioned Homme as a disciple of the grunge movement. He discussed this when listing his favourite albums for SPIN in 2003, which included his favourite Black Flag and GBH efforts.
Naturally, Homme and all his circle were massive fans of Nirvana, their innovation, and what they represented. However, they were more deeply ensconced in their music when it was sludgier and still had a tangible underground feel. For him, the trio’s 1989 debut Bleach, another album famed for its heaviness but astute weaponisation of melody, is the one.
Forced to pick between the trio’s three albums, Bleach pipped their era-defining major label efforts Nevermind and In Utero. To Homme, the group appeared as a bridge between the future and where Black Flag and GBH left. It also made him avoid dipping his toes into the nascent grunge sound, as he deemed Nirvana’s efforts untouchable and, given his background, didn’t want to rip them off. This is the type of sentiment seldom felt by fans in the contemporary era.
“By 1989, it seemed like punk rock had sort of died, and I thought Nirvana were picking up where Black Flag and GBH had left off,” Homme explained. “I remember thinking I didn’t want my band to sound anything like Nirvana because they had set the bar so high. I didn’t want to get too close.”
