There is a new feature on Queens of the Stone Age and Josh Homme in Q magazine. Below is an excerpt:
While QOTSA were working on Villains, the only people that heard any works-in-progress were Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins. Everyone else – managers, labels, wives, girlfriends, children – had to wait. Foo Fighters were making their own new album one building away and the two groups would gatecrash each other’s sessions for dinner and drinks together. One day, Homme was frustrated about a track and Grohl said to him, “You know, not every song is gonna be your best song.” “I thought that was good advice,” says Homme. “But I said, ‘Why? Why not? Why can’t every song be the best versions of itself?’ I think both of those are right.” He has been friends with Grohl since he was 19 and considers him a “generous, cool, great guy.” “If ever he and I are discussing something,” he says, “I just always assume, You’re probably right and that’s fine.”
One night, a tipsy Grohl turned up at the studio as Homme was struggling with a lyric in the vocal booth. Grohl had been “enjoying himself” and, cautious of making a tense situation worse, producer Mark Ronson turfed him out. “I didn’t see it because I was [in the studio] wrestling an alligator, but in this case Ronson is the new guy and he was very sweet and was protecting me. Maybe in his own mind he thought he was protecting Dave too.” The song Homme was wrestling with was Fortress, an affecting anthem he wrote for a loved one, “The chorus is almost as inspirational for me and that’s harder to do. It’s hard to say ‘I love you’ sometimes, without sounding really saccharine and like a goof, there is a way to say all things.”
