Josh Homme discussed how he has grown through difficult times and made a confession about his former band Kyuss in an interview with Apple Music. The Queens of the Stone Age frontman reflected on how he struggled with conflicting praise and criticism in his early career.
Homme spoke about how opposing feedback confused and frustrated him. He explained how he learned to channel these feelings into his songwriting and personal honesty.
“I would get confused, frustrated, pissed off, or or just not know, if somebody says you’re the greatest thing in the world, that just can’t be so,” Homme said. “And it just can’t be true. It’s almost a not successful way of admitting I’m a wreck. That can’t be true. And then if someone says hate you, you I think to myself, that can’t be true. You don’t know me.”
“And I think that confusing that confusion was frustrating to me and would make me lash out because there’s so much I don’t know it’s driving me crazy right I just feeling like a fool you know but and then saying well I’ll write about that and right around clockwork just saying I’m just going to let this fly you know I mean obviously say I’ve experimented with that sort of personal honesty in and many times prior to that but really saying how about this how about I’ll only go where it’s terrifying how about that maybe this should be that and I realized that I I started this you know um very armored up, you know.”
Homme then turned to his time in Kyuss. According to the frontman, the band faced significant rejection during its existence.
“In Kyuss you know, people really did not like Kyuss ’till it was over,” he said. “I mean in Europe towards the end, we largely played to an audience that their sentiment was, ‘Hey, can you don’t?’ [laughs] Or like, ‘Would it would it be all right if you stopped?’ And so, really only at the very end did we receive sort of, ‘Hey, you should keep playing for a while,’ you know.”
Homme added that he has learned to accept uncertainty as part of life and creativity. He said that trying to understand everything people dislike takes unnecessary effort.
“But all that seems unnecessary,” he continued. “It seems like so much effort to delve into what you do not like and what you do not understand. I mean, I think in figuring out how to just accept what is. You also accept. I don’t know almost everything and saying, ‘Yeah, I accept.’ I mean, I accept. What am I going to do? I’m I’m trying to you you make an attempt to figure stuff out, but largely you’re banging off of the things you don’t know most of your life, you know.”
Homme made these comments while reflecting on his personal growth and artistic journey through his early bands and career challenges.
Kyuss was formed in 1987 in Palm Desert, California, and became pioneers of the stoner rock scene of the 1990s despite limited commercial success during their existence. The band broke up in the late summer of 1995. Though early albums went mostly unnoticed, Kyuss gained a reputation as a powerful live unit and eventually earned a cult following by the early 1990s.
Homme formed Queens of the Stone Age in 1996 shortly after Kyuss ended. The new band achieved far greater commercial success than Kyuss, with eight studio albums including the breakthrough Songs for the Deaf in 2002. While Queens of the Stone Age reached mainstream audiences, Kyuss remained largely underground during its original run.
In November 2010, three former members of Kyuss reunited under the name “Kyuss Lives!” for a world tour. A federal lawsuit filed by Homme led to changes in the band’s lineup and name. The group eventually became Vista Chino, which broke up in 2014. Despite the legal disputes, Homme’s stance toward Kyuss has shifted in recent years, and he has indicated that a reunion remains possible.
