Josh Homme and Queens of the Stone Age are back with a new live album and in a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music he explains the extraordinary nature of its recording and his own personal battle to get back out there following illness.
Thanks to being “old friends” the two slip and slide out on tangents and there’s extra helpings of mutual backslappery and in-jokes aplenty. Meanwhile Lowe’s familiar “Why are you so great and – by association – why am I so great too?” non-invasive questioning style threatens to turn the whole opportunity for a deep and insightful interview into something completely trivial.
And the section where Homme describes the process of eating an apple at 33:36 is… just something else…
Nonetheless – fortunately – there are a few limited gems (or at least ‘whadidhejussay?’ moments) on board its 49 minute playtime where Homme lets his guard down, forgets himself, and gives us some gold. If only for a moment.
Although both Homme and Lowe fail to adequately spell it out, the two are on camera and in public to promote Queens of The Stone Age’s latest live album, Alive in The Catacombs, recorded – inexplicably – beneath the streets of Paris inside its famous catacombs, the home to some six million of the city’s dead, with their skulls and bones neatly stacked after the city ran out of room in its cemeteries in the 1700s.
Why? We’re presuming the acoustics were good… And, given that no live audience was in attendance for the gig (or rather ‘alive’ audience) the existence of a recording of the gig and an accompanying film at least ensures that nobody wasted their time and Homme has something to talk about.
“There’s also an entitled, spoiled aspect to this,” Homme explains. “Somewhere around 19 years ago, on a day off in Paris, I tried to go into the catacombs, but the line was three and a half hours long… So I was like, how do I skip the line?” he jokes.
We look forward to his next album coming live from Alton Towers’ Nemesis…
“It wasn’t about attention. It was about trying to do something… This could be beautiful. This could be elegant.”
And as to the logistics of playing and filming a rock gig inside a subterranean mass grave?
“You can’t plug anything in in the catacombs,” Homme confirms. “We had a Wurlitzer hooked to a car battery. Everything was battery powered. So if I’m wearing a mic, like I’m on the telly… That means I can just go wherever I like in this place. So it opened up a bizarre possibility to take a tour. It allowed me to move in the moment, react in the moment.
“It felt like we were deep inside this organic thing.”
“When you’re playing something that’s stripped down to the bones… In front of people who are stripped down to the bones… When there’s almost nothing being performed, everything is more important somehow.”
“When the ceiling is dripping and the camera people are moving and crunching on the ground, it becomes part of the performance. There was a moment where it was ‘should we use an audio program to remove the crunching?’ and I was ‘I don’t even understand what that question is – that’s what happened’.
“It’s not meant to be perfect. You’re hearing take three of four or take two of three… That quest wasn’t for perfection. There are mistakes. This is how it was. It’s not my business to change it.”
“The medication wasn’t working…”
Elsewhere, Lowe touches on Homme’s health issues and his need to take a break and recover, following his 2022 cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatments. “What was the recommendation from on high, from those who love you the most?” ponders Lowe. “Just to go home. To stop,” replies Homme. “Everyone cancels, and I can’t stand it… It’s only a couple of extra hours, you know what I mean? But I’ve made a vow not to walk on stage injured any more.”
“How bad was the pain?” probes Lowe. “The medication wasn’t working. It was difficult for me… I would have preferred it if it was a lot less,” admits Homme.
“I knew when we went into the catacombs [for this album] that the tour was over. The band knew. But no-one else knew… Each time I’ve had something ‘oops, almost died’, I’ve never felt more alive. If given the chance to fix this and move forward, I will.”
And, to underscore the atmosphere and connection that Homme was feeling throughout the recording he goes further in-depth as to what he was feeling at the time.
“It’s no diss but this is not an MTV Unplugged. It’s not simply playing acoustically,” Homme explains. “We’re there and we’re playing but it felt, at all times, like we were just serving this audience that really deserved attention. This is for you… I got you this thing… Can I show it to you? It felt like we were having this moment together.”
So, with Homme back on form, is there a new Queens record on the way. “You know, once I got the all clear, you know I’m going to go back to work,” he confirms.
And it’s clear that Homme feels great regret at having to let fans down and cancel dates, with new dates both in Europe and the US upcoming to redress the balance. “I’m going to finish what I started,” he promises. “I’m going to finish what was left on the table last year and I’m going to enjoy it.”
“I feel like there’s closure now this is coming out. I’m not sick any more. I feel f_____g great. I’m being different to myself… I’m enjoying a new relationship with myself that was provided to me by this experience so I’m really thankful.”