Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs For The Deaf producer Eric Valentine discussed working with Josh Homme in a new Appetite For Distortion interview. Alternative Nation transcribed his comments.
“Josh was never really driven by what’s going to be a radio song. He’s not driven by anything other than what he thinks is going to be cool or not. One of his sayings throughout that – because people hear a lot what their fans want. They’ve done records in the past, and there were particular songs on previous records that were standouts that people were really into.
Sometimes you would hear from the record company: ‘Your fans really love this.’ His response was, ‘Fuck the fans.’ Straight up. ‘Just fuck them, because they’re not here to tell me what kind of music to play, I’m here to make cool music for them to listen to, so fuck them.’ (Laughs) It was so stark. I think there’s actually a lot of value in that. I think there’s an aspect of that that’s wonderfully honest.
If you end up just falling down this path of just giving your fans what they want, which can only be based on what you have already done, it just really limits the vision that you can have for your band to evolve and grow, and continue to bring your fans exciting new stuff. You get caught in a feedback loop of your own shit.”
Listen to the full interview below, and if you’re interested in hosting a podcast email altnationadvertising @gmail.com.
Listen to “Ep. 63 – Eric Valentine, Producer” on Spreaker.
