How Josh Homme turned turmoil into an album he thought people would hate: “In my own head”
As a journeyman of rock and roll, Josh Homme knows better than anyone what makes a good bandmate.
From Kyuss to Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures and even the unpredictable Iggy Pop, Homme has worked with some of the biggest, most respected names in music and rarely found himself having a problem.
But in 2004, when his most well-known band, Queens Of The Stone Age, were hitting their stride as one of the most exciting bands in the world, Homme was confronted with the sort of behaviour that even the hedonism of rock and roll couldn’t paper over.
In January of ‘04, following a string of dates touring in Australia, Homme had to uncompromisingly fire bassist Nick Olivieri, after accusations of domestic abuse came to light. Homme recalled. “I said, ‘If I ever find out that this is true, I can’t know you, man.’ Because music and my life are the same thing, there’s no rules until something massive happens.”
Oliveri was reported to have said to have come clean to Homme during a soundcheck at a show in Spain, claiming that a night spent getting too drunk on wine raised tension between the two and subsequently saw the bassist get physical. Homme had no time for it, setting a clear precedent that swiftly resulted in Olivieri’s firing and marked a new chapter for the band.
Naturally, it embroiled the band in a salacious media storyline. Their follow-up to Songs For The Deaf was now less about the music, but rather how the band would pivot following such a dark chapter in their history. Moreover, would fans exercise their right to step away from the band completely, hearing the ghosts of Olivieri’s influence haunt the new music? A lot of it was on Homme’s mind and began polluting the entire creative experience.
“There was so much personal turmoil and stuff that got brought to the forefront, and at the time, I was like, ‘Fuck, no one’s even listening to this. It’s too much about other stuff,’” he explained. “And it would have been easy to make Songs for the Deaf 2, which is basically all I heard in my own head. But I can’t do that. You’ve got to shake all that shit away… [Lullabies to Paralyze] cut the lead jacket off my shoulders. It wasn’t Songs for the Deaf 2, and it felt like we weathered all that shit.”
But by rather easily proving that Olivieri’s contribution wasn’t required to capture the gritty Queens of the Stone Age sound, the band moved on to their new era. Fuzzed-out guitars, met dark psychedelic melodies on Lullabies to Paralyze, led even more boldly by Homme’s brooding voice.
While the turmoil of Olivieri’s actions weighed heavily on them in 2004, by the time ‘05 rolled around, they were set free from it all and proved to themselves they could remain the same band they always were, whilst being deeply principled in an era that seemed to be devoid of bands acting as such.
