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In the past, before I was married, [I was into] groupies. That shit, it was awesome. Anyone who says it isn't is totally lying. This notion that you could hook up with some beautiful girl, that's an amazing thing. It gets strange and old after a while, when you're like "Wow, this is just some weird warm hole," and that's it. -Josh Homme |
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Photo by Nick Wilson
Do you feel as a songwriter that you're looking to tell a story or tale? Or do you feel that your music is more of a strict expression of the way you feel at a certain moment in time or maybe a certain experience or theme at large, for that matter?
 Josh Homme |
I love to paint a picture more than anything else. I like the imagery side [of music], which is really all that there is to storytelling. I hate path of language, and when someone says, [sings lyrics by Stained] "It's been a while," all of that is too colorless to me; although, I'm having trouble being colorful right now. I'd rather have something like "Leg of Lamb" [by Queens of the Stone Age] where I can picture it. "I don't want to be some hanging leg of lamb" and instantly I can see what that means. For me, lyrically, it's got to be real or it isn't. It needs to be something that has happened or something that I have seen or that I have had a little experience with. Otherwise, it doesn't mean anything to me.
Is there anything in the past that you've utilized to help maintain the reality of your music when you may have felt that it was taking on a fake nature? What's something that you've used to help bring things back to Earth?
Ultimately, it always needs to have a root in something. The one analogy I've used a lot to explain, but never actually used in song, is the amount of time you sit around on tour or being in a band is amazing. The amount of time I look at a doorknob - or a door handle probably sounds better - and just stared at it and hoped it would turn so someone interesting would come through the other side, and I've always thought, "Man, I need to write a song about the door handle that turns and what's on the other side." And I never have. It doesn't have to be something with a resolve, where it goes "The end" and people live happily ever after. It just needs to be a representation of a real moment in time. When you start saying to yourself, "Here's this door handle and why won't someone..." it takes on another life. Why can't it be someone I care about on the other end? Why is it always someone I never know? That, to me, is a story in and of itself. So, I think what's important is that a song comes from something small because it usually has a shot at having a bigger connotation to it.
So for you a song has a snowball effect, in the sense that it starts out as something small and you build something bigger around it?
Yeah because I think that songwriting is chasing.
What do you mean by that?
 Josh Homme - QOTSA by Nick Helderman |
I mean a song like "Go With The Flow" [off 2002's Songs for the Deaf] came to me all lyrics, all music and all drums at once. I could hear the entirety of it. You don't always get the luxury of that, so you're trying to chase down a feeling. I try to make it so that songs leave me with that feeling. Like when you leave a first date with somebody and you get those butterflies. Those are the feelings I'm trying to chase with music. I want every song to give me that feeling. Once you reach that, it immediately goes away and you're forced to chase it down again. That's the bittersweet curse of music. It's a lot like beach sand in your hand. It doesn't stay there for long.
You're the only original member of the group now. Is it fair to say that the lineup you've got is something you're happy with right now? Or do you feel that the lineup of Queens of the Stone Age is something that's going to consistently keep changing?
To be honest, I never deliberately changed it. With each lineup, I've always thought, "I hope this one lasts forever." It's such a difficult thing to find really talented people that accent everything really well and you can live with after. Each time someone has stayed or been thrown from the cart, it's been a group decision. Whoever's in Queens that's the group, you know? I know it's got to look from the outside like I'm this tyrant who runs it but we don't play a song unless everyone supports it. There's no point in doing something if someone isn't backing it. You really have to develop that relationship of saying, "No, I really want you to say what you think. I really want you to add what you think to this mix." And when it comes to people, if I'm coming to your house to tell you it's time to go you've probably been fucking up for at least a year.
You just tossed out the notion that you're a tyrant ruling over the group with an iron fist. That seems far from the truth but is it fair to say that Queens of the Stone Age is your band?
 QOTSA by Matthew Field |
Yeah, but I think you live in the world that you create. I always wanted to play in an environment that's open to collaboration, and that takes its time to make a choice of who to involve so that when you involve that person you can really listen to them and rely on them to do more than just stand there and fill a space. In that world it's as creative as possible so you don't even mimic yourself, but you know how to make a new album that sounds strangely familiar at the same time. Really difficult things seem like the most difficult obligation of being in a band. I feel like you're supposed to make every record as original as possible, and you're not supposed to emulate even though you love other styles of music. That's just ground zero. That's what you're obligated to do. And if you can do more than that, then that's what you're really shooting for. If you can do more than that, that's how you make something classic that will never go away. I've slowly started to realize that. It's not exactly why I started doing it but it's why I continue to do it because I'd love to make something that lasts longer than I did. It would be great to have that sort of immortality mixed on top of your own mortality.
Continue reading for more with Josh Homme...
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