QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE

On their tick-as-a-brick album, desert warrior Josh Homme and his bandmates have achieved maximum density

By Dan Epstein

You don’t need to drive very far in Joshua Tree to feel like you’ve arrived in the magical middle of nowhere. Just a mile or so north of Highway 62—the main drag that runs through the middle of Joshua Tree and its California desert neighbors Morongo Valley, Yucca Valley, and Twenty-Nine Palms—a narrow, curving dirt road leads Revolver to a small, solitary house surrounded by cars in various states of disrepair. Off in the distance, the sinking sun turns the Bullion Mountains various shades of pink and purple; in the house’s backyard, a couple of well-placed garden lights illuminate a “tree” made entirely out of discarded Patron tequila bottles. The evening air is thick with the smell of baked enchiladas, grilled meats, and other fragrant substances. They don’t call this area “the High Desert” for nothing.

The idyllic abode belongs to Hutch, a hospitable, long-haired gent who also happens to be the soundman for Queens of the Stone Age. Tonight, Hutch is hosting a cookout for Queens and a number of their friends and colleagues; despite the fairly altered state of many of the guests, the whole thing is running so smoothly that one has to guess that such soirees are a regular occurrence at Chez Hutch. Of course, it helps to have a guy like Josh Homme working the grill.

“Those steaks gotta be ready by now,” suggests Queens drummer Joey Castillo, who’s chilling out on Hutch’s back porch with guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, while their towering, red-headed frontman stokes the flames. “They still need to go,” Homme insists. “It wasn’t hot enough when Hutch threw them on. I’m telling ya, I know my meat,” he laughs. “That’s how I found you guys!”

Normally a prickly interview subject with a tendency to favor ironic asides and evasive metaphors over revealing answers, Homme seems significantly more relaxed than when he and Revolver last crossed paths, right before the release of 2005’s Lullabies to Paralyze. Perhaps becoming a father has mellowed him somewhat; he and his wife, Distillers/Spinnerette frontwoman Brody Dalle, had their first child back in January 2006. Or maybe it’s the tequila, or maybe it’s just being back on his home turf, a mere 45-minute drive from the Coachella Valley where he grew up and earned his musical chops as the guitarist of Nineties sludge lords Kyuss.

Homme doesn’t live out here in the desert anymore, but the desert still quite obviously lives within his music. Like all of their records, Era Vulgaris (Interscope), Queens’ fifth album, almost palpably radiates the brutal heat and inscrutable mystery of the desert, even though it was actually recorded at Cherokee Studios in Hollywood. “I’m from here, and this place had a huge impact on shaping me, in ways I’m not sure I totally understand,” Homme says. “And in ways that cannot be yanked out like a bad tooth, you know?”

But with each release since the band’s self-titled 1998 debut, the wide-open spaces of Queens’ music have gradually vanished under increasingly dense layers of intertwined instrumentation. The melodic hooks and semirobotic guitar riffs that drove such Queens classics as “Feel Good Hit of the Summer,” “No One Knows,” and “Go With the Flow” are still very much a part of the equation, but on new tracks like “Turning On the Screw,” “Sick, Sick, Sick,” “I’m Designer,” and “Run Pig Run,” they’re bolstered by (if not totally buried under) jackhammer drums, swirling lead runs, whining slide guitars, squelchy synthesizers, massed backing vocals, and blasts of pure noise. If Lullabies saw the band teetering on the edge of such barely controlled sonic chaos, then Era Vulgaris finds it gleefully cannonballing into the deep end.

“There’s always been a push in this band to make the 37th listen [of our records] as good as the first listen, or even better,” Homme explains. “And this is the most dense thing we’ve done—both in the manner of stupidity and in the manner of stacking things, because I like both forms of density. The music on all of the other albums—you could play any of those songs on acoustic guitar, because primarily they were written that way. But you can’t play ‘I’m Designer’ on acoustic, because it takes four riffs to make it go. It takes two guitars, bass, and drums, and they all play riffs. Musically, this is a very Joey-and-Troy-oriented record—those cock-sucking bastards,” he laughs.

As anyone who’s followed their unlikely saga over the past decade knows by now, Queens of the Stone Age operate more as a fluid collective than a band. Era Vulgaris is the third Queens record to feature Van Leeuwen (who was previously in Failure and A Perfect Circle) and only the second to include former Danzig skinsman Castillo, though both men have long since established themselves as integral parts of Queens’ musical infrastructure. In 2004, Homme made the unpopular decision to sack charismatic bassist Nick Oliver, whose raucous personal behavior was becoming too much of a distraction from the band’s music; as a result, the bass duties for Lullabies and the subsequent tour were handled by longtime Queens friend Alain Johannes. But this time, well…

REVOLVER So who played bass on the new album?

VAN LEEUWEN Us and Alain.

CASTILLO [Raising his hands like an impatient student] I did! I did!

HOMME You’re such a liar!

VAN LEEUWEN There’s a bass war going on, and it’s not like a Guitar Hero guitar war; it’s serious, and it involves maneuvering and strategy.

CASTILLO It’s like, Who’s gonna get to the bass first?

VAN LEEUWEN It’s like, You’re such a good guitar player, I’m just gonna play bass on this…

HOMME It is a bit coveted because we all want to spoon up with the drums, you know what I mean? I’d pick up the bass, and Troy would go, “Thanks, man,” and then just grab it, like I was picking it up so he could use it.

CASTILLO And then Al would go in there with his headphones on and just start playing.

HOMME The problem with Al is that he’s better than all of us at all of our instruments, so he dwarfs the psyche.

VAN LEEUWEN It’s hard to be around.

HOMME He’s a psychic dwarf!

CASTILLO He’s not intimidating. He’s just fucking…uh, intimidating. [Laughs]

But since the intimidating Johannes has apparently decided not to go on the road again with QOTSA, Michael Shuman of the L.A. band Wires on Fire will be filling the bass slot for the Era Vulgaris tour. The first Queens album came out before 21-year-old Shuman was even old enough to be Bar Mitzvahed, but Homme says “Mikey Shoes” impressed everyone with his thorough mastery of the group’s back catalog. “We knew he was the guy when he knew all the songs at our first rehearsal. I told him, ‘You’re in Queens now—you’ve gotta do it for performance or blood.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Which one do you want first?’”

Shuman was actually supposed to be here at the cookout, but he grievously injured himself the night before at the video shoot for “Sick, Sick, Sick” and is now resting back in L.A. with a head full of stitches. “He conked his melon off the fucking interior [of the set],” says Homme, obviously pleased at the level of commitment exhibited by his young charge. “So I told him, ‘I guess blood second!’ Because we’d already played—to an audience of none!”

In addition to their revolving membership, Queens have also roped in an impressive array of guest stars over through the years. Some, like Dave Grohl (who laid down the drums for all of 2002’s Songs for the Deaf) or ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons (who appeared on Lullabies, have dropped by for only one album; others—like Fatso Jetson steel guitarist Dave Catching and former Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan—have become de facto members of the band. Lanegan’s dusky croon can be heard once again on “Into the Hollow” and “Make It With Chu,” but the guest list for the new record is somewhat smaller than in the past, with Julian Casablancas of the Strokes being the most recognizable name of the bunch.

“Julian and I were talking about making records,” Homme recalls, “and he said he’d never made a record where he didn’t feel like it was all on the line. And that’s when I invited him to come out, because I was like, ‘I’ve never done that before. Come on out and check this out!’”

Casablancas sings on “Sick, Sick, Sick,” the album’s first single. “It’s an examination of one note, like a Morse-code telegraph to the drums, which then comes back with a retort by having no fills and only an ever-changing kick-drum, and then Troy is supposed to kill drunken robots over the top of it with his guitar,” says Homme, describing the music. “The lyrics were about 80 percent done when Julian came in. Julian’s lyric, which is, ‘I’m gonna change, and I don’t wanna change,’ was totally perfect for the song, and there’s no way he could have known it at the time. Things like that are why I like to collaborate with people.”

In turn, people seem to like to collaborate with Queens of the Stone Age because there’s always plenty of room for experimentation. “Nobody’s trying to give us a Queens of the Stone Age–style thing, because it doesn’t really exist,” says Castillo.

“We’re just asking for the best thing from them,” adds Homme. “It’s all about setting up the tee so that someone can smack it and be the best version of themselves. That’s the best Queens of the Stone Age style—not emulating anyone but trying to do yourself some justice, you know? I’ll take justice over equality any day.”

REVOLVER Because with equality, you run the risk of mediocrity?

HOMME Absolutely. That’s what equality is—it’s the dead middle. Fuck that noise, even on paper. Burn it!

REVOLVER Have you ever had collaborations that didn’t pan out or that backfired somehow?

HOMME I think we choose pretty carefully. It’s like contracting—measure twice, cut once. Because when someone comes in, you don’t know what’s going to happen, and that’s why you want them to come in. But I think you should think about who that is, and whether on paper that chemistry set works properly or not.

REVOLVER Has anyone ever been like, “Dude, I’d love to play on your next record,” and you’re totally like, “Um, no thanks”?

HOMME The answer to your question is “Yep.” And the answer to your follow-up question is “Nope.”

REVOLVER What’s my follow-up question?

HOMME You’re gonna ask me to tell you who they were.

REVOLVER What if, say, Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy wanted to play on a Queens track?

HOMME You mean, Fall In Boy? That’s what I want to do when I see those photos—fall right in! [Laughs] You know those pictures of his cock? I took ‘em. I’d never seen one that short before. Speaking of which, let me check the meat again…

In typically perverse Queens fashion, the most high-profile collaboration from the Era Vulgaris sessions is the Trent Reznor–sung title track—which isn’t even on the album. The band intentionally leaked the song “Era Vulgaris” on the Internet months before the album’s June release date, and there are no plans to officially release it in any format. “That’s just one of the funny things we tend to do,” shrugs Van Leeuwen. “You see that giant piece of meat that you want over there? We give it to the dogs.”

“Trent’s on it, so it’s potentially a big marketing thing for Interscope,” Homme explains with a chuckle. “They’re like, ‘You know what?’ And we’re like, ‘Nah, too late!’”

Some people might view such antics as self-destructive, but Homme has always been unapologetically chilly to the idea of record-company involvement in Queens’ creative process or commercial presentation—which is why, he says, he didn’t tell anyone at Interscope that there was a new record on the way until they’d already been in the studio for three months. “It was, ‘No one thinks we’re going to make an album right now,’” he laughs. “And that’s always the perfect time to make an album, because that way you don’t have to include the people that sell stuff until it’s time for them to be included.”

The album’s title, Era Vulgaris, is Latin for “Common Age,” an expression favored by adherents of Thelema (the philosophical school established in the early 20th century by notorious English mystic and occultist Aleister Crowley, the most famous precept of which is “Do What Thou Wilt”) to denote Gregorian calendar years following the birth of Christ. Though Homme says he chose the title because it fits the music, he also admits that he’s very much into Crowley’s work. “I’ve been using it for years,” he says. Given the mischievous and infuriatingly convoluted nature of Crowley’s writings, this might go a long way toward explaining the Queens leader’s fondness for playing provocative mind games with his label, the press, and even his fans. It might also even offer a clue as to why Queens’ music has been getting more complex with each album.

“One of the things that I’m into about Crowley is his use of confusing multilayers, because that’s where the real magic occurs,” Homme reveals. “Plus, my theory has always been, if you want to break the law, you should be the sheriff. And I just feel like that’s a slow process. But if you do it right, it’ll last twice as long as it took to get there. That’s why I’m not in a hurry. I’d rather work hard and patiently, and then hopefully…” Homme takes a swig of beer and sighs wearily.

“You can’t buy freedom,” he says, “but you can rent it. And hopefully it’ll get me to the point where we can make art without even having the discussion of, ‘You know what you should do?’ Just eliminate that completely. I still have to have those discussions with my ‘financiers’ [at the label]. They’re afraid of this record. They love the songs, but they’re afraid of how it sounds—as if you could purchase ‘cool’ for the right amount of money!” He snorts derisively. “And there’s no chance for that. That idea, from its inception, is so categorically wrong…

“But I also think Era Vulgaris is a very modern title, because of its own definition,” he continues. “The only thing that’s very old school about it is the Latin part. This is a modern record for us, no matter how coughing, crippled, and wheezing it sounds. And I want to talk about ‘now’ because I don’t fucking care about yesterday, and there’s no way to get to a good tomorrow without doing ‘now’ right.”