Dec 14

Kyuss

KYUSS
 
 
Kyuss  was an American rock band, formed in Palm Desert, California, in 1987 by Josh Homme (guitar), John Garcia (vocals), Brant Bjork (drums), and Chris Cockrell (bass).  After releasing an EP under the name Sons of Kyuss in 1990, the band shortened its name to Kyuss and recruited Nick Oliveri.  Over the next five years the band released four full-length albums, and one last split EP in 1997 as Kyuss and the newly formed Queens of the Stone Age.  This tied up the loose ends of Kyuss and introduced the new band Queens of the Stone Age, which was at one time composed entirely of ex-Kyuss members.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
I told the story of seeing Queens of the Stone Age with my wife Peggy in my last post; but their third album in 2002, Songs for the Deaf is probably when I realized that something was really going on out there in the larger world:  rock music with a modern sound but with garage-rock roots.  The Queens had a rotating line-up of like-minded musicians and grew out an earlier band with similar sensibilities called Kyuss; while they didn’t sell a lot of albums, they were a pioneer of the stoner-rock scene of the 1990’s.  As the Allmusic article (by Eduardo Rivadavia) describes the band:  “[T]he signature sound [of] Kyuss [combined] the doom heaviness of Black Sabbath, the feedback fuzz of Blue Cheer, and the space rock of Hawkwind, infused with psychedelic flashes, massive grooves, and a surprising sensibility for punk rock, metal, and thrash.”  The connective tissue between the two bands is multi-instrumentalist Josh Homme, who also founded the popular Eagles of Death Metal. 
 
(January 2013)
 
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In the same time period, Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider contributed to another of my favorite albums of the early 2000’s, Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age; Johannes co-wrote one of the songs on the album, “Hangin’ Tree” with Josh Homme.  Alain Johannes played guitar and bass on the band’s next album, Lullabies to Paralyze (2005); he and Natasha Shneider were also in the touring band that supported the album.  Alain Johannes apparently became an official bandmember in QOTSA for the Lullabies album; as best I can figure it, he basically replaced bass guitarist Nick Oliveri (who had also been in Kyuss with Josh Homme).   

 

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The formation of Queens of the Stone Age grew out of a series of pick-up concerts between 1997 and 2003 that were documented in a series of 10 albums called Desert Sessions.  Josh Homme organized the concerts at a ranch near Joshua Tree, California after the breakup of his band Kyuss, and the rotating line-up of musicians who were in Queens of the Stone Age mimicked the large number who were involved in the Desert Sessions.

 

Josh Homme is quoted in Wikipedia as having said of the Desert Sessions:  “At Desert Sessions, you play for the sake of music.  That’s why it’s good for musicians.  If someday that’s not enough anymore, or that’s not the reason behind you doing it — that’s not your raison d’être — then a quick reminder like Desert Sessions can do so much for you, it’s amazing.  It’s easy to forget that this all starts from playing in your garage and loving it.”  

 

(April 2015/2)

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021