- 7 minutes ago
Josh Homme and Michael 'Mikey Shoes' Shuman sat down with NME's Andrew Trendell in London to tell us how love and life after near-death inspired their weird and wonderful new album 'Perfecth', as well as touring with System Of A Down, British TV, borrowing their song from Iggy Pop, and why this marks the start of their "third act"
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MusicTranscript
00:00three two one is that how you psych yourself up that seems so just for you
00:07everything because you were you were like this you're like hey you're gonna do great thanks
00:15man all right ready one two three I think you leave all this in yeah the kids are gonna love
00:21you because of it you'd be authentic life is not perfect my man
00:34hi I'm Andrew Trendle you're watching NME we're here today in beautiful London with Mikey and
00:39Joshua Queens of the Stone Age oh you you did fantastic what a great way to start a conversation
00:43you're very surprisingly good there it's been three years since we last spoke big question
00:49how have you been that's not that long actually this is the shortest of them all yeah yes need
00:55some time apart we're very busy boys but other than the shows with system serving the music
01:03industry tequila last night great service by the way thank you very much what have you guys been up to
01:07in
01:07London this week was a week in London look like for Queens of the Stone Age I like going to
01:11the clink do
01:12you know what that is on the yeah it's a dungeon right yeah it's the one of the first jails
01:18around
01:18air when when the banks of the Thames were not fully man-made and the tidal flow was drowning some
01:28of
01:29the prisoners there yeah there's lots of torture apparatus there I think you have really perfected
01:37lots of that machinery so I took my kids there and showed them what was possible oh wait I heard
01:44that you also recorded a goggle box of Jake she is that right I did yeah yeah that sounds fun
01:50I mean
01:52drinking and watching telly with with your mate it's it's a piece of cake what did they make you
01:58watch we have to watch the show okay it's too meta for you to do a thing about a thing
02:03a thing about a
02:03thing wait till you watch us watching something you guys are fae with much British TV I grew up
02:09watching Monty Python and and really loving that and I you know things like Mighty Boosh or Garth
02:18Merengue's Dark Place it's easy to sort of fall in love with Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade and
02:24Noel Fielding and that whole world of things those shows are so bizarre it's it's sort of astounding
02:34that that these shows were made at all I've been like Travel Man with Richard Ayoade oh yeah that's
02:40my comfort TV yeah you should be on that you guys should go well you don't do it no more
02:44oh no it's
02:45Joe Lycett now right yeah yeah yeah wait who's that he's the new guy uh comedian I've been on but
02:50real
02:50kunk uh trip oh yeah I've never seen so this this trip I've been kunk history earth yeah I love
02:59her
02:59yeah yeah but a lot of people calling this Josh Hong week so we had Shania Twain single Mastodon
03:06single Gogglebox is coming playing with this for the down a little song called Easy Street came out
03:12last night well did you intend to dominate the media uh funny thing is it's kind of just more accident
03:22that
03:22was all accidental I know it seems like it's not but I have no control over Shania and Mastodon and
03:29all it's just it just happened that way you know but I do think I've always had a fondness for
03:37sort
03:38of world jumping I like to go where I'm not supposed to go and um yeah so that that's the
03:45sort of things
03:47that make me happy it's just wherever I'm not supposed to be there I am you know is every week
03:53Josh Josh week Mikey does it feel like that don't I hope yeah three two two one see so I
04:03saw you guys
04:03with system so you guys were down on Monday night um and it was really really cool um the way
04:08you guys
04:09kind of added a really different type of energy to proceedings and I just wanted um how do you mean
04:15what does that mean exactly because like sometimes when it comes to an open they're like we're gonna
04:20fucking kill you whereas it felt like you guys let it breathe so no one died like the bangers were
04:24dispersed with like more esoteric weird shit but it still felt like a queen's gig how did it feel to
04:29go
04:29back to being an opening band and and why now well we don't we don't do it very much um
04:34I think the
04:35system scenario is much like their music it's very idiosyncratic and bizarre and this and I think
04:45we have that in common with them as sort of exacerbating your own individuality you know and
04:56that it just sort of felt like something that made sense for us to to participate in
05:02um yeah I mean the shows are awfully big I don't I don't know if I exactly love that part
05:09of it
05:10but I think the overall strangeness of the situation is it's very sort of contagious you know um
05:22what do you think Mike it's it's a strange scenario we've been you know we
05:28we build our show um with our lights and our set list um to do something very specific that we
05:36you know we put a lot of work into and we want to give to our fans so this is
05:40a different version that
05:41we don't really get to do that you know we get an hour to like kind of to like josh
05:46has talked about
05:46like when when over 40 000 people while the other 40 000 you know uh might know who we are
05:54or or are
05:55enjoying the show but I will say the other night in London uh was my favorite of them all and
06:00I
06:01think it felt a little bit like coming home and um by the end watching um the whole place you
06:07know
06:07sing along with us um was amazing and and I think it's a testament to um to our to our
06:16UK fans um it was
06:18my it was my favorite of the bunch for sure it's also cool to just play
06:23really esoteric bizarre stuff in front of a big audience I don't know I like button pushing and I
06:30think uh I and I like it because I I feel whether it's true or not that people want to
06:38be surprised
06:39and want to feel a little out of control I think the point of going to a show is to
06:47to get out of
06:48control in in a myriad of ways and I think we have to initiate that sequence so playing our pulling
06:59from our more bizarre and deep cuts it's just funny yeah in a world of setlist.com you know where
07:08you can
07:09what's that setlist.fm you can see every gig you've ever played every gig every setlist so a lot of
07:16people will will go look at the setlist and know you know when to go get a beer during because
07:20I
07:20don't like this song so I think it's fun for us that you kind of got to stay seated because
07:25you
07:25might miss something you know um a lot of thirsty people or just go get a beer and whatever
07:33but it's cool it seems that you guys really sort of thrive when you're out of your comfort zone and
07:37that's why I really enjoyed about the Royal Albert Hall show was just not knowing what was coming next
07:41and again watching the Catacombs film the documentary that came with it and that was like
07:46being surprised by how that felt like a kind of sharp intake of breath and like a
07:53reconsideration of everything you guys were doing in the face of mortality this is a long question
07:56but I just wanted like in terms of the Catacombs everything you went through in that like
08:01how did that reconfigure you as a band?
08:04I think you know in your own life you search for stability and a sense of peace in your own
08:15home
08:16and things of that nature and but when it comes to performing music I never look for that at all
08:23I want chaos and and uncertainty those are those are moments to experiment and and sort of almost
08:35you know feel underwater by those emotions it's the right place for that and the Catacombs
08:45tour and those shows were terrifying to do because they were there was nowhere to hide
08:51and so that's exactly the sort of thing
08:54that I think we're looking for and I think it's important to to
09:00to explain to your audience that sometimes we're loud sometimes we're soft and I don't really know
09:07why I just know that that's how this goes it's there's an ebb and a flow to
09:14to especially as as we've been around for so long you know I think our consistency is in our volatility
09:23which I know it doesn't make sounds like jumbo shrimp or central intelligence but that but that's
09:29that's what we have to offer you know is is the uncertainty of of an experience but now one thing
09:37that came out of the catacombs film that really sung to me was the kind of family bond within
09:42queens do you feel that that whole experience you know everything you went through with your health
09:48issues which is documented in there staring death in the face and then coming back of it do you feel
09:52like your kind of chemistry as a band was tighter going into this record obviously there's all types
09:57of bands and the relationships they have we're looking for a you know we're sort of like a gang you
10:05know that's what that's where our desire is is to figure out how to communicate to understand each
10:13other better and it allows us to start to when it's time to make music we get to skip a
10:21bunch of
10:21steps because they're already understood and but the goal for of music is for us is to
10:35be able to play things that are difficult to say you know and it requires that sort of bond to
10:44get closer to the essence of of playing how you feel about something whatever that topic
10:51is and and so i think we it's become a necessity for us as a band you know um to
11:01if we have any
11:02differences to figure them out you know especially if as i said if if if if that topic is chaos
11:11we need
11:12to know that we're ready to go if you're bringing the chaos you know and and you know um after
11:20all this is
11:22just this is an experiment and trying to do something you think is cool if you really were
11:26just trying to simplify it you know and um it's better when we're kind of on the same page you
11:33know
11:33and here we are on album number nine i have never that's jesus that's a lot of records i've not
11:38said
11:38it out loud and what's the point i've never said it out loud and i've not heard anyone say it
11:43out loud
11:43yet are we calling it perfect perfect there you go perfect close how would you do it
11:50i loved how you did it oh man cool yeah three two one no i would say it's perfect perfect
11:57i would say perfect as well oh my god this is one of the best parts of that word
12:06i mean it's funny when you're in a room together with people it's not as funny when you're alone
12:13but i think that's the nature of you know there is no perfection it's it's perhaps an ideal you
12:20strive for but not something to expect and i think that's you know that's the human side of all this
12:30is
12:30that there is no perfect and and that's okay and when we spoke last you said that in times new
12:38roman
12:38was you trying to write your way out of your troubles what do you think you guys were
12:44angling for this time what was music to you honestly this is a record about the the all the
12:49facets of love i don't think that we could have or i could have written about that exclusively in the
12:55years previous but we're here now and um i think writing about family friends significant others
13:07insignificant others the immense um soul-crushing brutality of heartbreak and love as the only
13:20conduit to some semblance of hope those are there are so many facets to the mental health issue that
13:29is that is love that um and it's it's nice to be able to
13:38finally participate in something as simple as that conversation i think when it was announced that
13:44you guys were going on tour with system and queens and you know with people saying there's a bit of
13:50a
13:50rock renaissance going on you haven't made like a this isn't a rock record as such it's like drawing
13:54on the weird we always seem to be in the wrong spot of all this trending shit we really need
14:01to pay
14:01attention more and capitalize on our market share well yeah unfortunately we we already made the record so
14:08um we were late to the party but that's not really that's not unfortunate at all yes that's not what
14:15we're trying to do um when we're going to make a record we're just we're trying to challenge ourselves
14:24um you know go past the boundaries and go past the walls um you know josh talks a lot about
14:30the wall
14:31of fear actually on the on the record and that's that's exactly what we did and we we discussed that
14:35a
14:35lot as we as we went past it um so it felt like the right record to make especially like
14:42living in the
14:43catacombs world as we were for for that year um it just felt the most natural yeah what kind of
14:50conversations do you have about the kind of it's a very atmospheric record how would you describe the
14:54temperature in the room well i think that if you're if if what you're doing is enjoying trying to figure
15:03out how to sonically play an emotion and you you get obsessed with that and that's your art project
15:13it's like how do you play what it feels like to let go how do you feel how do you
15:20play some how do you
15:21play heartache and make it sound as close to that as possible when you're getting sort of swept away
15:26and figuring out those things you don't really give a fuck about if there's a rock renaissance going
15:35on because that just sounds like a sticker someone would put on a piece of ham to try to sell
15:43it
15:43before it goes bad and i so i i i think it's okay to allow yourself to enjoy the gift
15:52of doing this as a
15:53job and i think there's an obligation to try to um mine the bizarre recesses of your personality and
16:04the experiences that we all go through people die people are born people people walk away people come
16:11close and examining that stuff feels interesting and complicated and um and you know the rest of
16:22the rest of the parts of this sort of melt away thankfully when you when you really focus in on
16:29you know on those types of things you know so understand like a concept of the chorus album is
16:35kintsugi which is the japanese art of taking broken pieces of pottery and connecting them back together
16:41with gold leaf gold liquid gold gold leaf what the fuck are you looking
16:48you can't see this guy looking for a ham oh my god look at bring me oh my god look
16:52at all those
16:52people i'm freaking out now um so the broken parts become more beautiful in the act of them being
16:57broken yeah i yeah i i think you you know you you look for inspiration and it sort of shows
17:06up
17:07you know um a lot of times where you least expect it i was at a exhibit when we were
17:12on in times new
17:14roman we were in japan and i went to a kintsugi exhibition and it really just spoke to me that
17:19something broken could be repaired and somehow become something more um and you know it just only takes a
17:28little spark like that to you know to begin an album or a project and when you have that inspiration
17:38you really end up just following it you're not really leading the charge of this you're really
17:45sort of obligated to listen instead and you know you end up wandering you you go this way and have
17:53something fails there and so you change direction and find a simple thing like this concept of kintsugi
18:01and you start wandering in that direction and i think um when you allow yourself to just listen to
18:08things like that it makes this there's a lot of joy in making things when you when you sort of
18:13follow
18:14them instead of try to control them did you try and do kintsugi how are the band arts and craft
18:20skills
18:23no we're doing it sonically instead you know i mean yeah yeah no kintsugi for me that's and when it
18:32came to doing it slightly how would you describe the kind of the inner band chemistry mikey i read that
18:36you like you're a named producer on this record so is it all like was it all in on this
18:40one i don't know
18:42josh and i just spent a lot of time together in the studio um coming out of in times new
18:47roman
18:48and into this record and
18:53we spent a lot of time discussing and um
18:59things were also kind of recorded all over the place and so they needed they needed to be kind of
19:05tied together and that finished work of bringing it together you know we just spent a lot of time
19:13figuring out how to pull all these disparate corners of music together you know i think that
19:22ironically that the sort of consistency there's a lack of consistency it's like that you would just
19:29say well it's just sort of a quilt of things you're just sort of you know bringing this patchwork of
19:36of different sonic things you know no song sounds this from the same there's no you know it's not
19:45like it's one sound all the way through it in fact it's more like a beastie voice record
19:49you know where it's it feels like listening to a mixtape yeah yeah i get that i think if you
19:54just allow
19:55that and say okay that's fine you know that's okay too um you know it needed to be brought together
20:01so all right the album started in mardi gras and then went everywhere which kind of sums up the
20:07feel of the album i definitely need to romanticize something to for it to feel important and we went
20:14to new orleans at the beginning of mardi gras when the locals are practicing their parades and when it's
20:20just the locals it's really zesty it's really filled with strange characters we were walking home from
20:29the studio one night and uh we had about 12 blocks to walk at night you know and um we're
20:36walking there's
20:37this guy with a medical halo it's almost like a tube that has these you know screws into his arm
20:46oh it's
20:47like protect yeah it was in this fixed position and he had a styrofoam takeaway thing and he was walking
20:56up and he goes man you got a fork and i was like the would i have a fork for
21:02but i i think we went
21:04there just for that type of interaction you know that's just the sort of question that i'm interested
21:11in um at the time with speaking easy street came out last night a beautiful song why launch with with
21:20this one i have no idea honestly i don't think there's a good no it was it was easy because
21:25we
21:25played in the catacombs oh yeah so there was a bit of familiarity we we don't we don't you know
21:31the
21:31last time we were playing songs in advance of them coming out was go with the flow and it's kind
21:36of cool
21:36to do that it just and we were maybe going to cycle in a another song or two in the
21:42catacombs but easy
21:43street i think because there's this kind of thing that everyone can sing at the end and because it
21:50was clapping it really kind of brought everyone closer it seemed really immediate and during that
21:55tour and at the end of the day the goal is to pull people tight and get bring them in
22:02closer with music
22:03you know and um and it just sort of did that not very naturally without you know it just did
22:11that on
22:12its own and so it was like oh oh this makes sense what do you think it tells us about
22:18the world of
22:18perfect i think there's a bit of gallows humor in the song but it really is just a wish to
22:24you know a wish to end up on easy street yourself and and that you could share that location with
22:31the
22:31people you care about you know i mean a girl's got a dream you know what i mean yeah yeah
22:37i'm hearing
22:38some cool um berlin bowie on the guitar is that fair to say or is well i think that that
22:47era of bowie
22:48is amazing and that song came together so simply and it was almost like a demo um i i think
22:55you got
22:56to rejoice when something just falls together um you know troy those are two ebos he just laid one down
23:04after the other and it was like there's no need to do that again it's just it is what it
23:08is um i think
23:11you sort of long for things to to piece together so simply you know um and you have to have
23:18the
23:19the ability to know when not to finger something but one thing you did finger was this new version of
23:26sunday from uh immaculate post-pop depression but this is also this is an amazing version what made you
23:33want to revisit it for this record well that was a song that um that i just sort of
23:44came walking away from recording at night from one building to the next one we're in joshua tree
23:50and i really liked it and i thought for a second oh i like this so much i'm going to
23:53keep it to myself
23:54you know and but i realized with the iggy session that that that's in the morning i said hey this
24:00thing came to me last night and i almost kept it for myself but but that's not the point of
24:06this you
24:07i want you to know you have everything that i have to give you know for post-pop depression and
24:12the way
24:12of proving it was saying let's it's not mine or yours it's just ours and if we ever need to
24:17we'll just
24:18cover it you know um i think you know there was sort of a road map there in china girl
24:24that that
24:26um that already showed this pathway you know and you know the record really needed something jiggly
24:37yeah that sort of bubbles like like 70s french disco or something and that song really
24:46does that thing you know what does iggy think of your new version he hates it
24:53no i mean we got his his blessing and you know i mean in all of rock and roll to
25:03me there's just iggy is
25:07um really something special and individual and i think it's amazing that how he's the one that's
25:17outlasted them all i think there's just something of a road map there for being yourself and even when
25:27that is a very lonely journey that you just you're you must sort of move forward uh at being yourself
25:35i
25:35think um he's the you know did inhabiting that mindset and this song again give you the hunger to make
25:44another record with iggy or is that just like always on the table i mean my door is always open
25:48to you
25:49you know but they're not these things can't be forced they just they happen when they're supposed
25:56to happen and it's that's the way it goes i mean one of the most interesting songs on the record
26:02is
26:02mono that's like a kind of expansive in a way that you guys have never really gone to the nth
26:09degree before
26:10i mean yeah i mean mono is uh you know well it's mixed in mono actually um for for most
26:21of it and
26:23i don't know i think again it's how do you sonically get as close to a feeling as possible that
26:29song is
26:30about almost feeling insane with heartache and and you have to try to find a pathway sonically to get
26:38close to the the center of that and that was just recorded above my garage and i think if the
26:47feeling you're having if you know that feeling is a shitty feeling and so you also have to be willing
26:53to almost mix it where it's kind of shitty in a way or i mean it doesn't sound terrible it's
27:00just
27:00it's uh it needs to be fragile enough to fall apart you know you figured out how to play it
27:09live
27:09because it seems like it's going to be not at all but we will find a way you know i
27:15i think out an
27:17album is one example and then playing it live is left to be moved around what do you have in
27:25mind for
27:25the shows for this record is it going to be like part catacombs part arena rock what do you what
27:30do
27:30you think it's going to be like obviously the the albums sound vibe doesn't it so well there's a
27:34lot to cover i think the catacombs have changed us forever and so there is no going back there's only
27:43a way forward and i think we're going to put i think we're going to do something
27:53that's beyond what we've ever done before surprise you know i think we learned something about the
28:01theatrics of all that um and almost like vaudeville and magic you know um
28:09um yeah but that was the first time we kind of like thought about putting on a show whereas
28:16that could save the town
28:20it'll save the youth center yeah i don't know what
28:25we're going to do something that i really don't want to talk about josh i watched an interview the
28:29other day where you described um this era of queens um as the beginning of the third act um
28:36um what does that mean to like how you approach the music and where you where you guys see things
28:41going from here well i just felt that if the catacombs should ever happen that it would signal
28:55a moment to pivot you know i think i've always i i don't know if it's right or wrong but
29:01it's just
29:01i've always felt there's every artist has sort of three phases that you go through and and it's
29:07important not to rush through them and um you know when you're when you're starting out and you're
29:14you think you're doing things which the world has never seen before which is which is a thought
29:19that only someone in their 20s could have you know and then in the second phase of this you understand
29:26sort of where you're at and you you see that you could really um you start to understand what's
29:35possible and how to push boundaries but for me personally that second phase was always like war
29:41like attack and push buttons and and look for chaos you know um and sort of thrive in that
29:49but i think that third act is is about searching for
29:54peace somehow and like um taking part in being a part of of not just your own piece but but
30:04others as
30:04well you know and um and allowing um things that were maybe terrifying previously to just be terrifying
30:16and accept them you know um but what do i know what are you guys going to do when this
30:23interview's
30:23over what's the rest of your day look like in london that's for me to know and you to find
30:27out
30:30yeah thank you for talking to us amazing josh thank you so much thank you