Kyuss - Queens of the Stone Age - The Invention of Stoner Rock

The Origins

It all begins in the late Eighties in Palm Desert, a small town in Southern California whose name alone hints at the humus from which the Kyuss sound would sprout—a band with the desert in its DNA. The group's first incarnation went by the name "Sons of Kyuss", back in the year of grace 1990, with John Garcia on vocals, Josh Homme on guitar, Chris Cockrell on bass, and Brant Bjork on drums—three quarters of what would become Kyuss, officially born the following year. Sons of Kyuss, released in a run of just a thousand copies on green vinyl (reissued on CD in 2000, though still far from easy to find), contains early, decidedly primordial versions of several songs that would later take their definitive shape on Wretch (1991, with Nick Oliveri replacing Cockrell on bass), the true debut of Kyuss.

The sound is not yet fully formed; it only hints, in flashes, at what would soon become the quintessential stoner sound, and the quality of the songs isn't exceptional yet—the execution still lacks certain elements, including "formal" ones, that would make Kyuss inimitable on their later albums. Wretch is their most straightforwardly hard rock record, in the classic sense of the term. Had Kyuss stopped here, or continued making albums in the same vein, they probably wouldn't have left much of a mark, and we wouldn't be talking about them today.

Blues For The Red Sun: Kyuss's Creative Peak

In 1992, by contrast, came what many consider their masterpiece, Blues For The Red Sun (which also marked the start of their collaboration with producer Chris Goss)—the album that stands to stoner rock as "The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn" by Pink Floyd stands to the psychedelic rock of the late Sixties. And it's psychedelia itself—more specifically that of the American scene, the acid rock of Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix—combined with the raw brutality of Blue Cheer and the heaviness of early Black Sabbath, that forges the sound. Add to this the inspired choice to use vintage gear, or at any rate equipment aimed at achieving a distinctly raw seventies sound, at a time—straddling the Eighties and Nineties—when the dominant trends pointed in an entirely different direction. Strictly valve amplifiers, Ludwig drum kits, effects pared down to the bare minimum and used to recreate the warm, essential tones typical of Sixties and Seventies rock (vibrato, flanger used almost like a uni-vibe, wah-wah, valve distortion), along with an emphasis on low frequencies and a corresponding cut of the highs to give the sound even greater weight: that's their recipe.

Nothing new under the sun so far, one might think—described this way, the band's work could seem purely revivalist. And yet, with Blues For The Red Sun, something different was born. Setting aside the clearly superior songwriting compared to the debut, the individual quirks of each musician, and the distinctive grit of John Garcia's voice, Kyuss's hard rock doesn't sound like a déjà vu. It's as if Led Zeppelin had gone back to their beginnings after having witnessed Metallica and everything that happened in between. This is stoner rock (a term, incidentally, coined by critics and never much loved by Homme and co.): a psychedelic hard rock that looks backward, that wants to do without metal and its offshoots, but which, whether it likes it or not, has passed through them.

To be fair, the band's members have often cited punk groups (though not only them—Black Sabbath too, for instance) among their mentors, even if the only element in their music that could genuinely be called punk is the rejection of the guitar solo as an act of virtuosic display. In some ways the comparison between stoner rock and the contemporary grunge movement—which took shape in the same period in Seattle—is inevitable, given the many similarities between the two phenomena, but, as has happened before, geography managed to stamp a fundamental difference between the two genres, one perceptible even on a purely emotional level.

After all, Kyuss's musical message is indelibly steeped in desert atmospheres, certainly not those of a metropolis like Seattle. And you can feel it. Kyuss are terribly brutal, heavy, at times acid-drenched, with the occasional pause here and there—but never a melancholy one, at most tinged with a sadness that evokes boundless open spaces (and here the thread ties back to psychedelia). None of this is found in grunge, which gave voice (albeit across a variety of styles) to altogether different situations and states of mind.

The Princes of Stoner Rock

In 1994 Scott Reeder replaced Oliveri on bass, and Welcome to Sky Valley was released—their most psychedelic record, yet one that loses none of the heaviness of their previous work. As on Blues For The Red Sun, the songs tend to run fairly long, enriched by numerous "lysergic" improvisations heavily steeped in hard blues. There's also room for one of the band's rare acoustic moments, the gorgeous "Space Cadet", clocking in at nearly seven minutes—a kind of "Planet Caravan" streaked with Eastern inflections, Garcia's voice at times filtered Ozzy Osbourne-style, a genuine desert ballad.

In 1995, following yet another line-up change (Alfredo Hernandez replacing Brant Bjork on drums), came their final proper album, And The Circus Leaves Town, which marks a partial softening of the band's psychedelic side. This shift is partly offset by the fact that these grooves contain some of Kyuss's finest compositions, including in terms of the relationship between vocal melody and song structure. Tracks like "Hurricane", "One Inch Man", "Phototropic" (with a long instrumental intro and vocals doled out sparingly across the track, building to a final litany) and "El Rodeo" have nothing to envy in the songs found on previous albums.

Finally, worth mentioning is the split album Kyuss / Queens Of The Stone Age from 1997 (though the Kyuss recordings date back to the previous year), on which the Palm Desert band laid down three tracks, including a cover of Black Sabbath's "Into the Void"—something of a tribute, in their swan song, to the band that, perhaps more than any other (if only in their early-Seventies output), had influenced them the most.

From Kyuss to Queens Of The Stone Age

This is where Kyuss end, and where Queens Of The Stone Age effectively begin, but all the members of the band went on to pursue their own paths in other projects: Bjork launched a solo career, Nick Oliveri formed Mondo Generator (a name borrowed from a song on Blues For The Red Sun), John Garcia founded Unida and, many years later, embarked on a solo career of his own. Josh Homme, the true creative hub of Kyuss, recorded ten volumes of the legendary "Desert Sessions", enlisting countless guests, and founded Gamma Ray, which soon became Queens Of The Stone Age after he discovered a band with the same name already existed (a German power metal act featuring Kay Hansen, the former Helloween guitarist). It's precisely Queens Of The Stone Age, featuring Nick Oliveri on bass and Alfredo Hernandez on drums (the latter only on the first album), that stands out among the various post-Kyuss ventures as the one that immediately proved to have the strongest potential, quickly stringing together a trilogy capable of redefining the coordinates of American rock in the new millennium.

But before getting there, in 1995 Homme briefly joined Screaming Trees as a touring guitarist: it marked the start of his fruitful collaboration with Mark Lanegan. In 1996 came the debut of the new Gamma Ray project, the self-titled Gamma Ray Ep, featuring contributions from Matt Cameron of Soundgarden (and Pearl Jam) and Van Conner of Screaming Trees. The first releases under the Queens Of The Stone Age name were the song "18 A.D.", included on the compilation "Burn One Up! Music For Stoners", and the already mentioned split Kyuss / Queens Of The Stone Age, which gathered three Queens tracks from the so-called Gamma Ray Sessions, and three songs recorded by Kyuss before their breakup.

The masterpiece of the 2000s

The first two albums immediately outline the Queens Of The Stone Age sound — the self-titled Queens Of The Stone Age, released in 1998, and Rated R, which came out two years later — but it's right after these that Josh Homme's new creature perfects what would go down in history not only as their finest album, but also as one of the most important and influential rock masterpieces of the 2000s. The monumental Songs For The Deaf hit the shelves in 2002, featuring Mark Lanegan (vocals on four tracks) and Dave Grohl, who left his Foo Fighters recording sessions to sit behind the Queens' drum kit for both the album and the tour. The record is a sort of radio concept piece: many of the songs are interspersed with amusing interludes featuring a fake radio host announcing the next track. The sound draws closer to that of Kyuss, with heavily tube-driven, very seventies bass and guitar tones, deliberately "raw", accentuated by the usual hard-psych component and slightly more urgent rhythms.

The songs, marked by shorter average running times and a greater attention to melodic lines, follow one another relentlessly, managing to contain and fuse all the elements needed to make a great rock record, with moments of pure power ("Six Shooter") alternating with passages tinged with a creeping sense of unease (the almost identically titled "A Song For The Deaf" and "A Song For The Dead"), episodes of pure fun ("Go With The Flow") and even an unexpected hit ("No One Knows") plus a delicate acoustic ballad complete with piano and strings ("Mosquito Song"). Amid nods to the past (grunge and post-hardcore in particular) and originality, it's especially the riffs that prove simple yet astonishingly effective: the record sounds so powerful that it becomes a benchmark for the future — just listen to the opening of "You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like A Millionaire", which crashes down on the listener like a hurricane, and shortly after things don't change much with "First It Giveth" or "Six Shooter". From this point on, this is the standard against which the band would have to measure itself.

Nick Oliveri's departure

Without the departed Oliveri, Queens Of The Stone Age released Lullabies To Paralyze in 2005, which offers calmer sounds than previous works and stays on already familiar tracks, frozen in a kind of déjà-vu. The album opens slowly, with a lullaby sung by Mark Lanegan, and fully shakes off its torpor with the "Stone Age" slap of "Medication", a minute-and-a-half flash. Then it settles into the gleaming slide guitar of "Everybody Knows That You're Insane", intense and enveloping, and halfway through the tracklist come the two long, decisive blows in the shape of "Someone's In The Wolf" (over seven minutes) and "The Blood Is Love" (over six), the most accomplished and fully developed moments of the whole record.

The "quiet" passages are far more numerous than usual, especially in the final stretch of the album, when "You've Got A Killer Scene There" (again featuring Lanegan on vocals) and "Long Slow Goodbye" slide by nonchalantly, altogether a worthy ending. There's also room for the most beautiful and engaging ballad Queens Of The Stone Age ever wrote, "I Never Came", catchy enough to try and win over a mainstream audience. The divertissements "Little Sister" and "Broken Box" are not missing either, pieces that Homme can write in just a few minutes of genuine inspiration. In the more "noir" episodes — "Burn The Witch", "Skin On Skin" — a sense of "already heard" surfaces instead, which overall makes Lullabies To Paralyze little more than an honest rock record.

In 2005 came the live album Over The Years And Through The Woods; two years later it was the turn of Era Vulgaris, widely regarded as a transitional work, but one that actually delivers several thrilling moments, such as "I'm Designer" or the final charge of "Run, Pig, Run", which brings the band's sound back to the rawness of their early days.

The recent years...

After many years of absence, ...Like Clockwork finally came out on June 3, 2013, with news about the recording sessions trickling out in the preceding weeks, hinting at the major collaborations involved, and even accompanied by a fifteen-minute short film made with Boneface's animated drawings (he also designed the cover) gathering excerpts from five of the ten tracks on the record. The core lineup features Josh Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Dean Fertita and Michael Shuman, while drummer Joey Castillo left the fold during the sessions, making way for the much-talked-about participation (on the album only, he wouldn't be part of the tour) of Dave Grohl on several tracks. The contribution of friend Mark Lanegan is confirmed, as is the return of bassist Nick Oliveri. The other notable presences on ...Like Clockwork include Trent Reznor, Elton John (the name that caused the most surprise), Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys, Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters and Brody Dalle, Josh's wife.

From a strictly musical standpoint, ...Like Clockwork is nothing other than what one could reasonably expect from a Queens Of The Stone Age record in 2013: a work in line with expectations, which lines up, alongside the usual charging riffs, the proud, doom-like stride of "Keep Your Eyes Peeled", the falsetto funk of "Smooth Sailing", the irresistible "alt" catchiness of "I Sat By The Ocean", a handful of superb noir ballads ("The Vampyre Of Time And Memory", the superb "I Appear Missing", the closing title track), as well as convincing reprises of their own highly recognizable trademark sound ("If I Had A Tail", "My God Is The Sun"). One of the record's high points is certainly "Kalopsia", with its constant swinging between moments of great calm and virulent outbursts, almost a mini suite, featuring an extraordinary appearance from Trent Reznor. Falling short of expectations is the result of the imposing array of forces assembled for "Fairweather Friends", with appearances from Elton John, Reznor, Lanegan and Oliveri. With ...Like Clockwork, QOTSA manage to retain the proper standing with both audiences and critics: by skillfully balancing tough rock rhythms with emotionally charged ballads — and trimming the tracklist down to just ten carefully crafted songs — they deliver a record that, while lacking the innovative charge of their earliest work, confirms their place at the absolute top of contemporary rock.

On August 25, 2017 came Villains, the seventh studio chapter, decisive in completing the gradual departure both from the rocky stoner sound that was Kyuss, and from the lysergic improvisations that made the legendary Desert Sessions famous. An album that's enjoyable to listen to, made by a less star-studded lineup than usual, but by now well-seasoned and cohesive: alongside Homme are Troy Van Leeuwen, Dean Fertita, Michael Shuman and Jon Theodore. The production by Mark Ronson (though Mark Rankin and Alan Moulder also lend a hand behind the mixing desk) gives the songs a clear direction, completing (without ever disowning the band's classic sound) the definitive shift toward easier, even danceable sounds, in what will be remembered as the most accessible Queens Of The Stone Age album.

The seeds of change were already evident in previous works, which is why the boombastic funk of "Feet Don't Fail Me" and the dancefloor boogie of "The Way You Used To Do" — placed at the start of the tracklist — are musical statements that set the mood for the whole album, yet can hardly come as a surprise. Thus the (presumably irreversible) shift from desert-rock to modern-groove is completed, but the riffs and epic atmospheres that make up "Domesticated Animals" and the more rhythmic, more intricate "The Evil Has Landed" don't forget their old flavors, even if cast in a more accessible format (I'd avoid using the word "pop" as much as possible). An "Un-Reborn Again" that loses bite because it's stretched out too long, the sweetness of "Fortress" and "Villains Of Circumstances", perfect in confirming the right attention to clever melodic hooks, the synths of "Hideaway" that evoke a certain Eighties vibe, the punky rock-a-billy number redolent of Elvis, "Head Like A Haunted House", which sounds a lot like Eagles Of Death Metal — these are further facets that make Villains anything but monotone, though among these grooves there's really very little left of past greatness.

After a break lasting a full sixteen years, two new Desert Sessions volumes were released on Matador Records on 25 October 2019 – recordings made at the Rancho de la Luna studios (in Joshua Tree, California) in which Josh Homme surrounds himself with musician friends to create pleasingly contaminated music, free of any set formula.

Between 1997 and 2003, 10 volumes had been released in pairs. Picking up the numbering where it had been left off, this time it's the turn of numbers 11 and 12, titled respectively Arrivederci Despair and Tightwads & Nitwits & Critics & Heels.

Among the standout guests are Les Claypool (Primus), Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint), Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters), Mike Kerr (Royal Blood) and Carla Azar (Autolux, Jack White).

For a new record under the Queens Of The Stone Age name, we have to wait until mid-June 2023, when In Times New Roman… arrives: ten new tracks that steer the American band back towards a sturdier groove. A good record that comes after the most complicated period the American band has ever been through, between the pandemic, battles won against serious illness (Josh Homme's own statements leave no room for doubt) and the loss of more than a few close friends (Mark Lanegan above all). In Times New Roman… is therefore an album that inevitably offers shadowy turns ("Carnavoyeur") and a desire to explore alternative moods ("Time & Place"), but also moments where the energy brutally spikes ("What The Peephole Say", "Emotion Sickness") or where killer hooks are honed to perfection ("Negative Space"). A project in which dynamics become essential and the moods keep shifting, housing both the grandeur of "Sicily", which leads the band into unusual territory, albeit adjacent to their own comfort zone, and the aggressive, breakneck sound that characterises tracks like "Paper Machete", designed to forcefully re-embrace that granite-solid roundness that defined their first three legendary records.

The closing guitar orgy captured in "Straight Jacket Fitting" provides the ideal conclusion, with the second half built on an atmosphere that turns placidly acoustic. Groove remains the essential ingredient, but this time what takes centre stage again is that genuine alt-rock, a direct offspring of the stoner hurricane that Josh Homme himself helped shape in the Nineties with Kyuss (who would have guessed back then that guy on guitar would become the leader of one of the most solid stadium rock bands in the world?). Self-produced and without guests placed there just to grab attention, In Times New Roman… confirms the authoritative status of Queens Of The Stone Age, even if – like most bands of their generation (Pearl Jam, Muse) who keep churning out respectable albums – it's hard to find among the new compositions moments we'd feel compelled to slot into a hypothetical greatest hits. I think we can be content with the fact that they're still here, despite assorted bust-ups and excesses: if it's hype or the latest new sensation you're after, well, I think we'd be quite happy to look elsewhere.

In July 2024, Queens Of the Stone Age performed in a location that was nothing short of singular: the Catacombs of Paris, a network of underground tunnels into which six million bodies were transferred from all the cemeteries of the French capital at the end of the 1700s. The city of Paris had never granted any artist permission to play inside these tunnels, and for Queens Of The Stone Age, going underground and finding themselves in that situation was an intense and meaningful experience. All this just a few days after the band had been forced to cancel their 2024 tour (four days earlier the Romano d'Ezzelino date had fallen through; in Rome and Milan they just about managed to deliver a hugely powerful show) due to health issues affecting Josh Homme, who decided to postpone an urgent surgical operation by a few days just to have the chance to complete a one-of-a-kind experience.

Accompanied by a string section and without the aid of electric power, Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Michael Shuman, Dean Fertita and Jon Theodore performed a selection of songs from their catalogue in a strictly unplugged mode, with acoustic instruments and only a Wurlitzer piano powered by a car battery, with chains and drumsticks used as percussion instruments: captured like you've never heard them before, in their most elemental form. It's possible to revisit the whole thing in the documentary film drawn from the unusual show, screened in the following months at a select list of independent cinemas around the world. The audio format, in the shape of an EP, Alive In The Catacombs, released in June 2025, captures the exceptional nature of the performance across five tracks.

Homme's voice stands out as the great protagonist, taking on previously unheard shades of expression; the setlist avoids the more famous, high-octane songs to focus instead on tracks suited to this particular setting. The selected material is stripped of any superstructure and rearranged for the occasion. Particularly telling is the total restyling undergone by "Paper Machete" (the only track drawn from the recent "In Times New Roman…"), rendered in dramatic form in a mash-up with "Running Joke". Another key moment is the performance of "I Never Came", the oldest song in the setlist, dating back to "Lullabies To Paralyze" (2005) but long absent from Queens' live setlists. The rest, stripped down to the bone, comes from "Era Vulgaris" ("Suture Up Your Future", 2007), "…Like Clockwork" ("Kalopsia", 2013, enriched by a wonderful violin) and "Villains" (the melancholic "Villains Of Circumstances", 2017). The strategic use of silences between songs, the ghostly setting, the at-times unsettling tones, the minimalist yet thoroughly moving performances: all of it contributes to defining a new concept of performance tied to the imagery of a rock project.

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