Too much is not enough

Frequent touring for Rated R generated support for the band which grew when Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl joined in late 2001/early 2002 to record their third album. Songs for the Deaf was released in August, featuring former Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan, a floater since Rated R, as well as adding former A Perfect Circle guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen to the touring line up following the album's release. Although Songs for the Deaf gained major attention, Grohl returned to his other projects and was replaced on the European leg of the album's supporting tour by former Danzig drummer Joey Castillo, who joined the band full time. Also featured on Deaf for the final track Mosquito Song were former A Perfect Circle bassist Paz Lenchantin and Ween's Mickey Melchiondo on guitar.

Although the ongoing success continued to lift the band to new heights, the bands performance at the 2001 Rock am Ring festival in Germany was, according to Homme, "the worst show we've ever played and it was in front of 40,000 people." The band decided to tattoo themselves with the starting time and location of the performance, "Freitag 4.15":

“ Me, Mark, Josh and Hutch, our soundman, have the same tattoo, it's from Rock am Ring festival. The time we had to play was 4.15 in the afternoon and it was just a terrible show. It sucked, it was horrible. That's why I tattooed it on my ribs, where it would hurt, so I'd never forget.
-- Oliveri (2005) ”

Deaf's popularity peaked when it reached gold status in 2003, with sales peaking at over 900,000 copies. The singles "No One Knows" and "Go with the Flow" became hits on radio and MTV, with the former peaking just outside of the Billboard Top 40. Constant touring continued, culminating in a string of headline dates in Australia in January of 2004, after which Oliveri was fired from the band by Homme for what was said to be disrespect of the group's fans and excessive partying. In July 2005 however, Homme claimed in a radio interview that Oliveri was fired when Homme had become convinced that he had been physically abusive to his girlfriend.

“ A couple years ago, I spoke to Nick about a rumor I heard. I said, 'If I ever find out that this is true, I can't know you, man.'
--Homme (2005) ”

As of October 2006, Oliveri remains interested in rejoining the band.

In 2005, Homme, along with Eleven multi-instrumentalist Alain Johannes and remaining band members Van Leeuwen and Castillo recorded the Queens fourth studio album, Lullabies to Paralyze, a title taken from a lyric in "Mosquito Song" from their previous album.

The release featured the appearance of several guests, most notably ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons. Despite Lanegan reportedly turning down an invitation to remain with the band, he recorded vocals on new tracks and appeared with the band on the supporting tour as scheduling and his health permitted. It had been rumored that Homme fired Lanegan; however, this was subsequently refuted:


“ Basically, if there was a negative rumor that someone brought up to me I would just encourage it... like when someone was saying: Well, Mark got fired, Lanegan, you know. And I was like: Yeah, Mark is fired, too, yeah. But he was just touring his own solo record, you know.
-- Homme (2005) ”

Lullabies to Paralyze was leaked onto the internet in February 2005, and then officially released on Tuesday, March 22, 2005 in the USA, debuting in the number 5 slot on the Billboard Music Chart, the greatest initial success of any Queens record to date.

On May 14, 2005, the group was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, hosted by Will Ferrell. One of Ferrell's popular Saturday Night Live characters, fictional Blue Öyster Cult cowbellist Gene Frenkle, made a re-appearance on the show, playing with the Queens on their first song of the night, "Little Sister." Frenkle played the song's wood block part using a cowbell along with the band, drawing much applause.

On 22 November 2005, the band released a live album/DVD set called Over the Years and Through the Woods, featuring a live concert filmed in London, England, and bonus features which included rare videos of songs from 1998 to 2005.

In fall of 2005, the group supported Nine Inch Nails on their North American tour of With Teeth along with Autolux and Death from Above 1979 . NIN's guitarist Aaron North appeared as an onstage guest with the Queens for the songs "Born to Hula", "Regular John", "Avon", "Monsters in the Parasol" and "Long, Slow Goodbye" at the Wiltern LG in Los Angeles on December 19th and 20th 2005.

Another onstage guest for the December 20th performance was Homme's former Kyuss bandmate John Garcia, the first time that Homme and Garcia had played together since 1997. As a special encore they performed three Kyuss songs: "Thumb", "Hurricane" and "Supa Scoopa and Mighty Scoop".

Homme has stated that the band's lowest point was during the Lullabies era, but that the record "took the lead jacket off" the band following the firing of Oliveri in 2004.

In July 2006, in an interview with NME, Homme confirmed that the band was back in the studio, writing, but he remained unwilling to reveal who would appear in the band on the new record:

“ "We're back in the studio, writing", but when asked who's in the band this time around he said "That's not a healthy question. You'll ruin the surprise. We've gotta keep our cool.
-- Josh Homme 2006 ”

On Valentine's Day 2007, the band's official website announced the new album would be titled Era Vulgaris, and would be released in June. Later in February, teaser videos surfaced showing Homme, Castillo, Van Leeuwen and Johannes in studio, and several sites reported that the album would include many guest vocalists, including Trent Reznor from Nine Inch Nails, Julian Casablancas from The Strokes, Mark Lanegan, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, and in what might be an example of Homme's dry wit, deceased humourist Erma Bombeck. Former Death from Above 1979 bassist Jesse F. Keeler had been expected to play bass on the studio recording of the album, but not to tour, however due to schedule conflicts he stated he would not be appearing on the album. When questioned in an interview with Ultimate Guitar Archive about the band settling down with one line-up, Homme replied with the following:


“ Does it seem like there will be? I don't know. Long ago I lost the opportunity to be in U2 -- where it's the same four guys. I respect that, but at the same time this is the search to try to take advantage of playing with certain people, even if they can't stay, and then there's other times that you need to humble yourself at the altar of music, and if you don't (*makes a throat cutting motion*).
-- Josh Homme 2007 ”

A pre-release hearing of nine songs from the album for qotsa.com forum members and press was held at SXSW on March 15. Billboard.com commended the "fast, powerful riffs" and "psychedelic, boogie-ish rhythms" of the tracks, confirmed that Mark Lanegan would be appearing on the track "River in the Road" and that as with all of the previous studio albums, QOTSA would be re-recording a Desert Sessions track for the record, in this case "I Wanna Make It Wit Chu".NME.com described the album as "a step further into Pagan psychedelia, tighter and leaner than Lullabies to Paralyse (sic) while going yet further into Hansel and Gretelish strangeness." The album leaked on May 24, 2007. Homme has described the record as "dark, hard, and electrical, sort of like a construction worker". As of April 2007, former Wires on fire bassist Michael Shuman and keyboardist Dean Fertita (The Waxwings, The Raconteurs) have taken over touring duties from Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider respectively.

Originally formed under the name Gamma Ray by guitarist Joshua Homme, Queens of the Stone Age developed a style of riff-oriented, heavy music which Homme described as 'robot rock', saying that he "wanted to create a heavy sound based on a solid jam, and just pound it into your head". The band is frequently described as stoner rock, although they reject the term.

“ The term sucks. The only element of the audience I want to get rid of is the shirtless, sweaty, maxi-mullet jock dudes. We want sex to bleed into the music. At our shows, we want to see half boys and half girls in a utopian world, dancing and drinking. ”

Their sound has since evolved to incorporate a variety of different styles and influences.



Queens of the Stone Age began with Joshua Homme in 1996. Originally called 'Gamma Ray', Homme changed the name to 'Queens of the Stone Age' in 1997 as German power metal band Gamma Ray were threatening to sue:

“ When we were making a record in 1992, under the band Kyuss, our producer Chris Goss, he would joke and say "You guys are like the Queens of the Stone Age." The band was originally called Gamma Ray, but we got threatened with a lawsuit because someone else had it. So we were Queens of the Stone Age.
-- Oliveri (2000) ”

On why the band chose the name 'Queens of the Stone Age' rather than 'Kings of the Stone Age':


“ Kings would be too macho. The Kings of the Stone Age wear armor and have axes and wrestle. The Queens of the Stone Age hang out with the Kings of the Stone Age's girlfriends when they wrestle, and also it was a name given to us by Chris Goss. He gave us the name Queens of the Stone Age. Rock should be heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls. That way everyone's happy and it's more of a party. Kings of the Stone Age is too lopsided.
-- Homme (2000) ”




The band released their self-titled debut, Queens of the Stone Age (1998) on Loose Groove records (the album was also released on vinyl by Man's Ruin Records), which was recorded with Homme handling both guitar- and bass guitar-playing duties, Alfredo Hernández on the drums, and included several other instrumental and vocal contributions by Chris Goss and Hutch. Prior to forming Queens of the Stone Age, Homme had played with the Screaming Trees as a backing guitarist for two years of touring and asked Screaming Trees vocalist Mark Lanegan to appear on the record, but he was unable to due to other commitments. Soon after the recording sessions were finished for the album, former Kyuss bassist Nick Oliveri and guitarist Dave Catching joined and touring commenced. A recording of a phone message which plays the voice of Oliveri stating his decision to join the band can be heard at the end of the album's final song, "I Was a Teenage Hand Model".



From this point forward, the band's line-up would change frequently. By the time their second album was being recorded, Hernández was no longer in the band.

“ It really is more of a musical experiment... It keeps moving and reinventing itself. That way we never get painted into a corner.
-- Homme (2000) ”

“ I'd like to keep it loose, open and free, I just think that if we can expand and contract, then there's nothing we can't do, and even the old songs will never be something like, 'Oh, let's not play that any more.'
-- Homme (2000) ”

2000's Rated R featured a plethora of musicians familiar with Homme and Oliveri's work and "crew" of sorts: among others, drummers Nick Lucero and Gene Trautmann, guitarists Dave Catching, Brendon McNichol, and Chris Goss contributed, and even Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford, recording next door, stepped in for a guest spot on "Feel Good Hit of the Summer". The album received positive reviews but found little commercial success, aside from scoring the band notable opening slots with the Foo Fighters, Hole, and at Ozzfest 2000.

During the Rock in Rio 2001 show, bassist Nick Oliveri was arrested for going up to the stage naked, with only a bass guitar. In an interview he said: "Whoa people in Carnival here dance naked why I can't do the same?"