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 Φyster 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.
Post je objavljen 07.06.2007. u 23:08 sati.