Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme and Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready are featured on Ozzy Osbourne’s new album.
“Mike McCready’s on a track, Josh Homme, my neighbor from Queens [of the Stone Age] solos on a track,” says Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith in a new Talk is Jericho interview. “And then Zakk Wylde is on the record as well, all over it, so it’s like if you’re a guitar player, it’s pretty fucking good.”
Anthony Kiedis from RHCP discussed Rick Rubin in a new Apple Music interview with Zane Lowe, “He is in a constant state of change. He’s still Rick, he’s always going to be Rick, but he is that guy who does not arrive somewhere and say, “Oh, I’ll just be this guy for the rest of my life.” He arrives someplace, he digs in, he’s that guy for a while. But then two years later, he’s discovering something new about life, about himself, about how he can approach his job, which is his life, and he loves very much.
Not to over harp on the listening thing, but he is the end all of listeners. And that is what has made him one of the greatest producers of all time in any genre of music is his ability to hear things. He listens, and he walks away, and he knows the drum pattern. I’m like, how do you know that? He hears it all. And sometimes it would appear like he’s doing very little in the studioBut not for me because I know him too well, but I’ll see people look at him like, “Shouldn’t he be getting to work now?” Oh, he’s there. He’s there.
Because he’s going into a new place, an abstract place, a “What if we tried it completely different?” And then we have to go, whoa, okay. Let’s let go of everything that we had in mind, and try something that we could not have predicted or thought of ourselves. And then there’s the day-to-day grind with him, which is quite lovely, because he is a presence and a very calming presence and I love him. He’s such a good friend and not in the way that the rest of my friends are, but in his own special way.”
