Booker & Stryker chat with Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right. You got a booker and a striker and.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
A guest josh Hamie Joshua, Queens of the Stone Age.
Great to see you.

Speaker 3 (00:06):
It's funny like booker and a striker. It's like you
book somebody and then they go on strike and they
don't show up.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
We see it as more like a bad cop show,
you know.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
It sounds like something CBS Friday Night, nine o'clock.

Speaker 5 (00:21):
Who slides over the Hood? Which one of it?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm the Hood Slider. It's like a combination of Starsky
and Hutch meets Duke's and Hazard without Yeah, yeah, I
mean both cars are pretty awesome.

Speaker 6 (00:32):
Yeah, which car do you like better of those two shows?

Speaker 1 (00:35):
He likes the General League.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
No, I think I would take the generally if I'm honest. Yeah, okay, yeah,
it's it's a it's a more quality vehicle that.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
He's a muscle car guy. I know, talk cars with
him all day long. And you've had the same car for.

Speaker 5 (00:48):
Since I was fourteen.

Speaker 6 (00:49):
Yeah, yeah, is that right?

Speaker 5 (00:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:50):
We drove it around like Palm Springs and Palm Desert
and everything.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Yeah, once I drove to high school and that thing
I still got it.

Speaker 6 (00:56):
Oh, very nice.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
So we both watched and love alive in the Catacombs,
thank you. It is amazingly well produced and shot and
lit and the sound is fantastic. But the Catacombs, can
you just explain for everybody exactly what it is and
how it ended up in your radar while you love it?

Speaker 5 (01:14):
Well, it was a coal mine underneath Paris.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
It goes for you know, two hundred plus miles and
somewhere in the seventeen hundreds the overflow of deceased French
were it was overloading the cemeteries and so they slowly
took the painstaking process of relocating six million bodies. And

(01:42):
the interesting thing is that it would be easy to
sort of say how goth it is, and and you
know say that, I know there's a lot of two
French people that think it's cursed and things like that,
but it's not, because it's you don't relocate six million
people and stack their bones, you know, with in this

(02:03):
respectful you know, ornamental style. You know, there's sculptures and
things in there, unless you're kind of doing it with
love and reverence. So it's kind of it's a very organic,
magical place.

Speaker 6 (02:17):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Then, why or what led you however many years ago
it was, and how many was it that you said,
I think I'd like to play some songs in what's
these tunnels here?

Speaker 3 (02:28):
And I mean I think when I first saw it
in a book when I was eight or nine, it's
just I was like, I'll go there someday, and then
flash forward to about some are like eighteen twenty years ago,
on a day off in Paris, I attempted to go
to the catacombs with the line was like three and
a half hours long, and so I asked a very

(02:49):
spoiled and entitled question like how do I skip the
line here?

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Don't you know who I am?

Speaker 5 (02:55):
Yeah? No, I never said that. I was like, don't
I do?

Speaker 6 (02:58):
I know who I am? And I have a fast
don't they there?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Well but it was fast.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
It's funny how it starts with something kind of shitty
like that, and then it then it moves into, oh,
would be great to play here, you know? And I
think the luxury have been in a bandit you get
to ask, you know, you see a beautiful location and
I think, oh, wow, we should probably tried to play there.
I tried to play a volcanic vent once too, in Iceland.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
Was it something when you were down there that because
I got to think as a singer, you're always somewhere
looking or you're like, oh, this room sounds good. Was
it a thing when you spoke and said, wow, sounds
pretty cool in here.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Well, the thing is I didn't make it in that day.
I didn't wait in that line, and I thought, I
won't go in there until we play oh wow.

Speaker 5 (03:47):
So I didn't.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
I didn't actually go inside until and you know, I've
seen countless videos, I've I've read all these books about it.

Speaker 5 (03:54):
But.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
You don't really It's one of those things you don't
understand till you go in. And so I just sort
of swore off going in there until I said I
will wait till this happens. And you know, every couple
of years we would gain a little momentum and then
it would go away, and and I just thought, oh,
I'm gonna I'm gonna keep going. You know, a girl

(04:17):
can dream. So I was like, there's no reason for
me to give up. Even though we hit a dead end.
I thought, this, why give up?

Speaker 5 (04:24):
It just seems like a cool project, like a pet project.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
You know, well, it sounds like though it's not just
like hey, fill out a piece of paper and in
two years you can get.

Speaker 5 (04:33):
In it is it is not like that at all.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
I mean, no one's ever legally played there. There's stories
about no raves and I know the authorities came in
one time and there was a fully set up dinner
table with a bar and a movie screen in there,
and then that the authorities came back the next day
it was all gone and there was a note that said,
don't try to find us. So I know that, you know.

(04:56):
And there's cataphiles who searched the thing and film it,
and people have got law in there, you know, And
so there's of course this long storied history there. We're
just the first people to ever legally do it. And
it really ends up coming down to a guy named
Stefan Sannier who's there was a show called Album of
the Week and you just play your album on Telly.

(05:17):
That was and it was long running cool, but he
kind of knew he had enough connections.

Speaker 5 (05:24):
You know.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
It's kind of a bureaucratic nightmare a bit in France,
the government, so there's a lot of run around and
he just played cupid and solved that problem for us.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Finally, was there ever a feeling when you went down there?

Speaker 4 (05:35):
Because there is a lot of history and a lot
of old souls, if you will, and bodies and millions
and millions of people down there. Did you ever have
a feeling of going down there like maybe this wasn't
a good idea or is that dream fully imagined?

Speaker 1 (05:50):
We're doing this?

Speaker 3 (05:52):
No, If I'm honest, I feel like this is the
most succinct thing we've ever done, because we went down
there with nothing but respect and sort of reverence for
the place, and you start asking strange existential questions like,
you know, it's just like what would I want to
hear if I was stuck here? And so it helped

(06:13):
our song selection and things like that. You know, we
ended up playing stuff about that was like, you know,
stuff that was more introspective and more about family and
longing and acceptance and overcoming tough stuff, and so every
step along the way really helped to sort of figure
out how to do it. And you can't plug anything in, right,

(06:36):
So although I never imagine playing loud in there, you
know it just that doesn't that feels bizarre to me,
And you know, we never we never thought about like
playing the hits or something either, because that felt that
it quickly became it's not about us. Once you go
in there, that space is so dominating that the real

(07:00):
sort of star of the show is that place, right
and you feel you feel it, you know, it felt
very much like we should sort of get on our
knees and put your head down and say I promised
to do.

Speaker 5 (07:11):
A good job. You know.

Speaker 6 (07:12):
It was like.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
It has that sort of weight in there.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
You know, Josh, how easy or difficult was it to
figure out within your band and the three stringed instrument
players you brought in, like who's going to stand?

Speaker 6 (07:25):
Where to make this sound the best? Was that?

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Hours and hours and hours of figuring that out? And
where are you going to stand when you sing?

Speaker 6 (07:31):
Like that?

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Just seems as an outsider it could be complicated.

Speaker 5 (07:35):
Yeah, it was as the opposite. You know. It's a
lot like.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Whatever plans, It became clear even before we went in there,
whatever plans you make, they won't You'll as you descend
the ster it won't matter. So I was part of
why we chose the director and the production team there too.
Their not only because they were French and it required
that sort of French hand to do this, but also

(08:00):
we wanted someone we could collaborate with in the moment
because you go down there and because nothing's plugged in,
it's all battery powered. So I'm wearing a battery powered
mic like a TV show or something. Right, But then
you start saying, oh, so I can go anywhere, so
I can move around. I can I'm not chained to

(08:20):
a wire, And because because you're not chained to a wire,
it's like there was a freedom. And once we got
in there, it was like more it was more improv
like moving at the speed of inspiration because you you
you say, okay, we could do this here, and then
the director Thomas is going, yeah, and I could come

(08:41):
through here and maybe we'll set up here, and you know,
and I like working like that because you have.

Speaker 5 (08:47):
To let go.

Speaker 3 (08:49):
You're not in control and you're not overthinking it.

Speaker 5 (08:54):
Know, those things are better to me.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
So did you have to find a sound in there,
like where there's places you walked in and you said, no,
this doesn't this isn't conducive for what needs to come
out of me, or you just more were worried about
the shot. No, I mean, however it sounds is fine. Okay,
that was our that's that was our take. Was like,

(09:18):
you know, the ceiling is dripping in many of the
areas there, it's it's it's.

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Very like it's very much like a living place. A
lot of shows you're playing and I'm facing the audience,
they're facing me, and it's very just back and forth.
But this was like being inside the belly of something.
But we're deep inside this thing, and uh so we
we made this kind of agreement right away. You know,

(09:45):
nothing is cavernous sounding like cathedral like, it's the air
is wet, it's it's dense in there. You're walking on gravel,
it's crunching around it. And so we were like, we'll
record it as it lay. However it sounds, it's going
to be fine. And so, you know, some of the
songs were so quiet and stripped back that you the

(10:05):
ceiling dripping and the cameraman walking on this gravel is
in the yeah, in the soundtrack of this, and I
think that I think those things are okay. At one
point it was like, we have a program that can
take out the steps of the camera, and it was like,
for what, I don't think that anyone's going to say
you had me until I heard someone walking around and

(10:27):
then fuck that.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
That gravel just took me out of it.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
But instead of doing that, admitting the reality of it
and saying, no, this is actually what it is and
you're you're hearing, you know, take three of four, take
two of three, take one of two, take two of two,
and then take three of four. So we did We
didn't overplay, we didn't over rehearse. We just you know,

(10:52):
there are mistakes. There are moments we almost get off
of each other for a sec. And I think, you know,
I want to to be real like that, so I don't.
I don't see I don't see those. It's not supposed
to be perfect. It's supposed to be classic, no, right.

Speaker 6 (11:09):
Imperfect art's the best art. Also, yeah, it's like people
are right.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
No.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
I think there's a notion about correcting everything that can
get a bit addictive in the modern way, but I
think that sterilizes everything. You know, nobody's perfect, so why
pretend to be one, right, you know? And I just
I'm not that interested in that.

Speaker 5 (11:30):
So it did. None of that mattered.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Mikey Shoes in the behind the scenes piece that I
watched of the whole filming really was making me tear
up as a result of him talking about you and
the health struggles that you were going through leading up
to that. So I guess my double question is how
do you feel right now from a year ago or so,

(11:54):
and like what got you through that time to film
and sing and get it done? Because it looked tough
and you look sad, but you also looked very determined.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
Yeah, I mean, I wasn't sad. I just I think
what's interesting is that that place because it's so dominating
and because it felt like we're there to like to
serve the place.

Speaker 5 (12:17):
And.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
I think that it's not depressing or sad, but it's
not happy either.

Speaker 5 (12:25):
It's just intense.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
And I think the fact that I was having some
health straw I feel great, and I was told, you know,
that I would be out of commission for a long
for a while, and I'm not and so I'm I'm thankful.
So and I think the fact that I was dealing
with some serious health things at the end of the day,

(12:50):
it actually makes it better. It's better because like things
that are good are not simple, and and also like
the pain inside of that, the physical side of that
is momentary because I never think about that anymore, and
I don't and even in the moment, it's like, so what,

(13:10):
so it hurts? So what like every you know to miss?

Speaker 6 (13:13):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
I just I wanted it so bad. I've been working
out so long, right and we're so close, and I'm
gonna turn and I'm gonna quit because it's hurts. It's like,
I just don't. What would I do then if I quit?
Like what am I supposed to do? Like get up
in the morning and fucking make coffee? And what do

(13:34):
I do?

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Right?

Speaker 5 (13:35):
You know? And I think.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
It's a it's a it's not It doesn't always come
up that you get to like show what you're made
of and who are you? What are you willing to do?
And so I do think that that it makes it
more intense and it makes it worth it, you know.
And I know that there's like people that care about

(14:01):
you and things like it's wonderful to have them say
we shouldn't do this and we should go and I
understand that, yeah, but I'm just sort of like, oh no,
we're we're here. Yeah, And this I like moments where
it's like are you gonna fucking do it? Or not
no more talking. It's very much like shut up and

(14:21):
fuck me, like, you know, like are you going to
do it or not? And I think those moments are
actually I sometimes I long for moments like that, where
where it's like are you going to do it or not?

Speaker 5 (14:34):
I just think they're important.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
You know, when we get older, and we're all getting older, thankfully,
it means we're still here. We really are more cognizant
of our mortality. And you know, for me, I don't
know why, and I can only speak for myself, but
the idea of going underground to a space that's cavernous
and small and shrinking would take a little bit of
the air out of me. And I hear the determination

(14:58):
in you. So maybe that wasn't a thing or thought
that could happen to you, that they would that fear
of space and being so far underground, it didn't overtake
you at any point.

Speaker 5 (15:07):
I'm a little claustrophobis I am, for sure? But again
it's like.

Speaker 3 (15:13):
What would I What am I supposed to do?

Speaker 5 (15:16):
I'm like, sorry, I can't do it, you know. I
just I think.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
It's okay that things are difficult sometimes and it's okay
that like I had a number of moments where I
just was like, I'll be back and i'll be back
in a minute. I have to just like walk off
and I'm just and but also had I enjoyed being there,
you know, And I think it's okay those things exist
at once, and like and I I think the main

(15:45):
part of this isn't if I was ill or not
feeling well or not.

Speaker 5 (15:48):
It's that there's this moment that's up for grabs and and.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
It's kind of like like I've been dreaming about this,
It's been an idea dream of mine for years, and
it's it actually is like I'm thankful that I.

Speaker 5 (16:04):
Was not well because I learned so much.

Speaker 3 (16:09):
We came together, we got closer because of it, and
we did it had strange benefits, Like we just agreed
because it was just this type of environment. Let's not
say anything, he'll say action. Will just sit there for
thirty seconds and you're listening to the ceiling drip and
you're looking at everybody and you're and I mean, I

(16:31):
just remember thinking like.

Speaker 5 (16:33):
I'm gonna, I'm gonna fucking do this. I'm gonna this
is this is the moment now.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
And I and I I think I wasn't thinking about
anything else. There was nothing else, and that moment of
being present is a good moment. So I'm glad to
have moments like that because that's what I'm looking for.

Speaker 5 (16:55):
I'm looking for that.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Right alive in the Catacombs. You Gotta watch is awesome.
When we listen to Queens of the Stone Age and
we do a lot, and I'm listening to like Better
Living through Chemistry or the Lost Started keeping a secret,
little sit whatever.

Speaker 6 (17:10):
The songs sound like they came out a week ago.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
When you listen to your music, and I don't know
if this is easy to answer or not, Like what
are you most proud of with your catalog? Not individual songs,
but just the overall package of songs.

Speaker 3 (17:24):
Well, I mean, I don't you know, I wouldn't change anything.
I you know, I think I wouldn't change all my
mistakes and fuck ups too. I just that's that's the
only way for me to get anywhere.

Speaker 5 (17:41):
You know.

Speaker 3 (17:44):
So I h you know, we're just were rehearsing and
I had to listen to a couple of things just
to figure out like what really, Yeah, it's been a
year or without really doing much and I don't know,
but I like, oh, this it sounds it sounds okay,
it's you know, I do think that if you we're

(18:06):
a band that definitely when we make something, you empty
the tank and you kind of you keep we don't
you know, I don't reckon we're overthinkers or something like that.
It's just you kind of it feels good to have
something that you can give yourself to completely, and then
you're exhausted and you're like, h like you know, like

(18:28):
costin powers, you're like I spent. And so I think
in making things that way, we don't stop till we
really love it, and that that helps it to like
age well in my own mind, yeah, because you know,
I mean, those are big moments in our lives, and

(18:51):
so I'm not interested in like glossing.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
Them over or rewriting them or I'm just like, I'm
glad those happened.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
I think his fans, the best way to put it
that I could say as a fan is I'm so
happy that you were just a meat and potatoes rock
band back then and you never over tinkered, never overproduced,
never overlayered, because when you listen to it today and
everything else is so I don't know, crunchy or something.

Speaker 6 (19:20):
Trying to be trying to be too perfect, maybe.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
Something I don't know what it is, but like the
music still holds up. It's incredible. How well it may
be even better. I don't even know. If you know,
we were young men, we were doing our own things
on the radio and trying to you know, gain our
own star and whatever. Sometimes we didn't really pay as
close attention to the art as.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Maybe we should have, even and we were super fans.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
Now I look back, I'm like, oh my god, status, Yeah,
it was really great stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
So that just thanks for the music.

Speaker 6 (19:51):
It's always been such great, good shows.

Speaker 5 (19:53):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
I think that it comes from liking I like things
a little more raw, like I'm a little underproduced. That's
why if if you listen to Creedence Clare wat a revival,
we'll he're like, sounds sounds great and I so I
think those things that are more natural. And again, just
you know, it's nice to have a plan because that

(20:16):
gives you the chance to let go and not be
in control because you know a little bit. We have
enough of a plan where I'm going to take a leap.
But I think obsessing. There's a difference between giving all
you've got and sort of obsessing. And I just think
not knowing when to stop touching it is not a
good thing. Kids, No matter what it is, I've got

(20:40):
to know when to stop touching it.

Speaker 5 (20:42):
I think it's more important to understand when.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
To let it be and and because then it's got
a better chance of just just sound wise, not sounding
so dated.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
Well, you had your own studio. I only know that
because I was in it, And I would think having
that at your disposal would make you almost want to
over tinker because it's there and it's yours, and it's
your space, and it's almost like an office. You go
there to work every day, and yet you never did.
You always bring other people in and they record their stuff.

Speaker 5 (21:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
I mean I think I think, you know, I'd like
to do something that I just think is cool.

Speaker 5 (21:21):
Yeah, And that isn't something.

Speaker 3 (21:24):
That's super labored over, you know.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
And I think if something sounds you can always if
you're painting, you can always keep painting, you know, when
do you stop?

Speaker 5 (21:35):
And I think.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
When something sounds cool, I feel I feel comfortable saying
like that's enough of that.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, you've always had a good sense of that.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Yeah, because again the goal is and to make something perfect.
This just makes something cool and I and uh, and
it's nice to get onto the next thing, you know.
But if you just you know, eventually dry hump something
to day and it just crushed it, you know, it's
not a good look and very uncomfortable. Remember that kids. Yeah,
other one just have a lot of tips for the

(22:07):
kids today.

Speaker 4 (22:07):
On the Booker and Striker Josh interview with Just the
Welcome to the kid Tips.

Speaker 2 (22:12):
Welcome to Just the Tips, Josh, you mentioned the rehearsals
going on. How important is it for you personally to
make a new song or twenty songs in the next
one month, ten months, two years, Like, is it important
for you to constantly create or is rehearsing it's the
scratch for you.

Speaker 5 (22:30):
I like to make stuff, you know. I think that's
where the.

Speaker 3 (22:36):
That's where you can you know, improve your life and
leave baggage behind and figure out a way to play
what's hard to say. And so I like to make stuff.
And touring is fun too, it's just not quite the
same experience as what making creating something which was not there.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, No, do you have ideas floating around right now?
Do you sing into a phone? Do you write stuff down?
Do you hear phrases like is it different for you
in twenty twenty five than eight ten, fifteen, twenty years ago?

Speaker 3 (23:11):
No, I think it's important to be able to whenever
you know. This is all a bit like catching smoke.
It's it goes away if you don't try to capture something.
So I think you know, you whenever an idea comes,
you try to get a piece of that down, you know,
and then you know. From there you take all these

(23:32):
little pieces and you start quilting. Right, kids start quilting.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Let's go back to childhood. Since we keep bringing up
the kids. When did you know you could sing? Or
when did you know that you had found your voice
to sing? Is maybe a better question. Well, I mean
not till I was been playing for many years. Yeah,
I was for my first mancias I didn't sing, and
then I was in the screaming trees for a little bit.

(24:00):
There was there was no way I would mark singer.
So that's a definite show.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
But as a kid, did you did you sing in school?
Did you you know? Did you have any interest in singing?

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Not just I and I heard I heard music in
my head, and I thought that that that's what everyone did.
You know, I did a lot of life soundtracking, like
you know, you're walking down the street at a tempo
and you're like just and that just always felt natural.

(24:35):
And so I think that's why I think of making
music as chasing it, because you're it was chasing the sounds.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
In your head.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
And you know, I'm sure now there would be a
diagnosis for that, but I don't give a fuck about that.

Speaker 6 (24:50):
Right on that note.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
On that note, kid should wrap it up.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
Kids, remember not to give a fuck about that.

Speaker 6 (24:56):
And don't manipulate it in public.

Speaker 4 (25:01):
We're going to radio hell.

Speaker 6 (25:03):
That's called I think you mean holiday radio hell.

Speaker 4 (25:06):
Yeah, been there, you there entire life, Josh, your career
has been astounding, and it's awesome that you're now a filmmaker.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
You can add that to your resume.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Yes, yes, well lookout, kids, this resume is gonna knock
you down.

Speaker 2 (25:24):
Thank you for joining us, and we really appreciate you,
and his booker said, hopefully you got it. We're grateful
for the music and the shows over the years.

Speaker 5 (25:31):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 6 (25:32):
Thank thank you, of course. Cool my kids, see you guys,