KYUSS LIVES!: Two U.S. Dates With THE SWORD Announced

KYUSS LIVES!, the project featuring three-quarters of KYUSS — the influential American stoner rock/metal band, originally from Palm Desert, California — will unleash its desert rock fury on the U.S. for the first time in over 15 years this fall. The eagerly anticipated near-total return of the California rock pioneers follows the blanket success of the group's sold-out spring European tour which has proven to be a feast of recognition for the band. Due to unprecedented demand, the legendary musicians — bassist Nick Oliveri, drummer Brant Bjork and singer John Garcia along with guitarist Bruno Fevery, who most recently played with Garcia in the GARCIA PLAYS KYUSS project — have announced two very special U.S. shows to take place this fall in New York and California. Openers THE SWORD will get each evening started before KYUSS LIVES! delivers its titanic grooves.

The dates are as follows:

Sep. 23 - New York, NY - Terminal 5
Oct. 08 - Pomona, CA - The Fox Theater

In a recent interview with UGO, Oliveri was asked how the idea for KYUSS LIVES! came about. "MONDO GENERATOR was on tour — we went to Europe and did a festival in France called Hellfest, and John Garcia and the guitar player, Bruno Fevery, were playing a version of KYUSS called GARCIA PLAYS KYUSS, and he was going out," he replied. "He hadn't toured for a bit and wanted to go out and do some KYUSS stuff. They were headlining one of the side stages, and Brant Bjork's band was playing, and MONDO GENERATOR was playing on the same day. John asked us to come up and play some songs with him, so me and Brant up and did it, and it felt really great. It was great to play those old tunes — we hadn't thought about them for a long time. I think Brant being the first drummer that I ever interacted with as a musician — I played in their bedrooms playing these songs — kind of just felt normal and natural. I got a call from him when I came home, saying, 'Hey man, do you want to do some more shows?' And I said, 'Yeah man, that sounds cool. Let's do it.' So that's how it started — John was doing it and it was getting good response from people that never got a chance to see any version of KYUSS at all. We didn't realize there were so many people that wanted to see it, so it's been a pleasant surprise and it's been a lot of fun."

Regarding why KYUSS guitarist and founding member Josh Homme is not involved in the reunion, Garcia told Rock Sound, "I have nothing bad to say about Josh — he's extremely intelligent, very smart, a great guitar player, great songwriter, a great vocalist — he is a bad-ass, there is no question, and I love him dearly but he is busy with his own thing. He has THEM CROOKED VULTURES, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, he's a father, a businessman and even if we asked him to do it, I don't think he'd say yes, so I don't want to set myself up for a big fat no which is 99.9 percent what he would say."

KYUSS LIVES! recently revealed that it will record a new studio album following the band's current tour.

KYUSS, the inventors of Desert Rock, have been in the last ten years much more popular than when they were still around in the early Nineties. So, due to massive public demand over the years to play songs from his old cult band KYUSS, John finally made the decision to give the fans what they want.

Video footage of KYUSS LIVES! performing on April 2, 2011 at The Forum in Kentish Town, London, England can be viewed below.