Queens Of The Stone Age‘s Josh Homme has said that the band steered clear of politics on their new album ‘Villains’ to make it an escape from ‘the bullshit of the day’.
Last week saw QOTSA return with new single ‘The Way You Used To Do’ to launch their long-awaited comeback album ‘Villains’ – as well as details of a UK tour.
Asked about if he was influenced by recent political events while writing the album, Homme told NME: “Queens has always been like an ice-cream parlour or a video arcade, it’s safe from the bullshit of the day.
“I’m not interested in being topical in that way, yet at the same time it’s completely about now.”
Homme continued: “My philosophy, it seems ever more urgent, is that ‘now’ is all you’ll ever get. It’s all there ever will be. And you need to not wait and do whatever you want to do now. That is inside every moment of the record. It’s got an urgency without an emergency, you know what I mean? I feel the importance of it every minute. I don’t see the reason to wait, noone’s ever been able to give me one that’s worth a shit.”
Speaking of the sound of the new album, Homme added: “There are some slower moments but I like to dance, man, and whether it’s Eagles or Queens or Vultures there’s no reason not to conjoin rock’n’roll and dance and hallelujah and darkness and all that in one thing.
“In a world of desperately going for ‘likes’ I think ‘Villains’ is more like ‘we’ll take the dislikes, we’ll take all the outcasts’. This album is here to do bad guy stuff.”
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‘Villains’ will be released on August 25.
As well as opening up about his relationship with ‘Villains’ producer Mark Ronson and the ‘bad boy’ sound of the new album, Homme also revealed why there were no special guests on the album and told us about the meaning of ‘The Way You Used To Do’ – and how it’s ‘all about screwing‘.
November 19 – Manchester Arena
November 21 – The O2, London
November 23 – Usher Hall, Edinburgh
November 24 – 3Arena, Dublin