The band Josh Homme mimicked to inadvertently create desert rock: “I’d never heard them before”
As much as we open-minded critics like to remind ourselves that music is a subjective art form, there are in fact some objectives that exist within its realms.
While I would be keen to label myself a competent guitarist, one who can, if requested, string together a rendition of ‘Wonderwall’ around a campfire, I would also happily resign to the fact that my skills are objectively bad in relation to music theory.
Because despite the obvious expressive freedom that exists within music, there are some structural rules which to follow. Even The Beatles’ most nonsensical songs were still loosely linked to an inherent musical structure that has existed since their very inception.
Ultimately, musicians have to swiftly learn how to play between the lines, a lesson Josh Homme gleaned during the early days of his musical childhood, when amidst guitar lessons, his imagination was desperate to run wild.
He explained, “I was like, ‘I wonder if you just do this, what happens?’ If I’d had a guitar teacher [at the time], the first thing they would have told me is, ‘That’s not allowed’. But it is allowed. It’s allowed, because that’s what I want to do and because I simply can do it. So, everything is allowed.”
But that doesn’t automatically mean that Homme was consigned to a four-chord future. Within the lines drawn out by theory are a myriad of possibilities and adaptations that can ultimately make for a fresh soundscape. Tuning is perhaps the best example of this and was a method Black Sabbath used in order to create such a distinctly fresh sound in the 1970s. And over 30 years on, when Homme was playing in his own band Kyuss, it was a method that could be reimagined to eke out an extra sense of freshness.
“In Kyuss, one of the reasons why I wanted to detune is because I wanted something that was mine, and there was no example of tuning down to B and C. There was no such thing. I think maybe Black Sabbath was downtuning some songs, but I’d never heard them before. I was just a kid in the desert, with a very small record collection.”
Sure, Homme would be willing to admit that at one point, detuning guitars became somewhat of a saturated trend, but in comparison to more well-trodden musical paths, it’s still a method that plays host to a whole load of innovation.
“It became such a thing,” he said, “Now there are seven-string guitars with Bs on them. It sort of gave way to a lot of heavy metal, some of which I like, and much of which I don’t. But it doesn’t matter if I like it or not; it sort of opened the doorway to this thought.”
While many other bands adopted the alternate method, Homme was perhaps the first to make a distinct new sound with it since the days of Sabbath. When Ozzy and co burst onto the scene in 1970, their detuned guitar sound was imperative in starting what many described as heavy metal. Now in the modern world, Homme has become the prince of Joshua Tree, creating heavy, brooding guitar sounds that many have dubbed ‘desert rock’. I wonder, what world will next be forged in the obscure realms of detuned guitars?
