Queens of the Stone Age recently wrapped their “Alive in the Catacombs” tour in support of their recently released concert film recorded in the famous Paris Catacombs – which is home to the remains of approximately six million people. In a recent interview with Stereogum, Josh Homme reflected on death and how it has shaped him as a person.
When asked to recall the first time he learned what death is, the frontman explained that his understanding of mortality came at a young age following a near-death experience.
Revealing that he’s actually had two near-death experiences in his life, Homme said that his first came at the age of 12 when he almost drowned in a boating accident.
“I was in northern Idaho on this lake, Lake Pend Oreille, and I got on a solo boating accident. Got thrown from the boat and had to swim this enormous distance, fully clothed with a storm raining,” he recalled. “I had to swim– It’s a couple miles in each direction and just sort of at one point thinking, ‘I don’t think I can swim. I think I can’t swim more than this.’ And then sort of being rescued right at that moment.”
“But the sort of calm of saying to yourself, ‘It’s okay. I think it’s okay,’ you know?” he continued. “And then the realization– this guy pulled me by my hair and my underwear. It’s all I had on. I stripped down to nothing in the water. And he gave me the most enormous wedgie that I’ve ever known. And I thought, ‘Wow, that’s interesting punctuation for this.’ [laughs]”
Homme went on to say that afterwards he felt “really positive about not dying” and that “for the next weeks, the afterglow of that, sort of radiating and saying, ‘Oh, I’m not dead and this is working out great.’”
Explaining how the experience shaped him, Homme added: “I remember it well and I remember thinking, I’m just going to do what I want to do. I’m not going to– I don’t think I should wait and just do what everyone else says.”
When asked if he thinks nearly dying at such a young age changed the trajectory of his life, Homme agreed.
“It messed with the sense of timing of life,” he stated. “There’s no real reason to wait. You think people are thinking about what you’ve done when you feel embarrassed or shy, but really they’re not thinking about you at all. So you should just do whatever you want to do. […] Life seems like it’s super long until it almost isn’t. It’s actually so short.”
(Transcribed by Alternative Nation)
