Josh Homme explains his love for Roy Orbison
The blend of music and circumstances that made Josh Homme the person he is today comes from an eclectic background. The most obvious is his hometown – Palm Desert, California. Affectionately known as just “the desert”, the area is a sun-scorched and burned-out part of the state that grows little in the way of crops. The people there tend to be even crustier, without a ton of options in terms of entertainment.
Through those harsh realities, Homme and some of his friends formed a band to blaze through the monotony of the desert. Kyuss took inspiration from the scorching heat and barren landscapes of their hometown, often playing in the wide open spaces of the desert with just generators and beer. That atmosphere shaped the music that the band played more than any other factor.
“It was the shaping factor for the band,” Homme told Billboard in 1994. “There’s no clubs here, so you can only play for free. If people don’t like you, they’ll tell you. You can’t suck.”
Orbison found the bludgeoning sounds of doom metal, stoner rock, and even polka music to be a balm for the scathing heat of Palm Desert. But there was another uncompromising music figure that fit right into Homme’s love of resilience – rockabilly balladeer Roy Orbison.
“I hate it when people play the victim, and Orbison was never like that,” Homme told Rolling Stone in 2003 when asked to name some of his favourite albums. “He was like, ‘You’re leaving me?’ His only reaction was surprise. And when you read about Roy Orbison, you realise he got pounded his whole life.”
“Stuff like, he’d go on tour, and there was a fire at his house, and his wife and kids burned (to death). Then he spent three years in his room in his mother’s house and wouldn’t come out,” Homme added. “Until Johnny Cash actually went over there and said, ‘Roy. Come out of here.’ And people don’t cover Roy Orbison because it’s simply that they can’t sing it.”
Homme couldn’t choose a single album from Orbison to name as his favourite, so he simply cited a box set containing all of Orbison’s biggest hits, including ‘Crying’, ‘In Dreams’, ‘Blue Bayou’, and ‘(Oh) Pretty Woman’.
In fact, a bit of Orbison’s signature pleading vocal style can be heard in Homme’s voice if you squint your ears hard enough. Try to find it next time Queens of the Stone Age come through your speakers.
