QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE Frontman Slams SHARON OSBOURNE Over 'Free' OZZFEST

Dave Pehling of KTVU.com recently conducted an interview with QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE mainman Josh Homme. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

KTVU.com: The new [QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE] record sound very much like QUEENS, but on some of the material you use a much different sonic template with a much grittier electronic element with more processed drum sounds than I've come to expect.

Josh Homme: The funny thing is, it's just one mic that's making all that explosion in the drums. It's not one processor; it's all actually genuine broken parts.

KTVU.com: So it's still mostly analog with no post-production fiddling that I might have imagined?

Josh Homme: There's a few broken computers in there, but mostly it's Troy [Van Leeuwen, the band's longtime guitarist/keyboardist]. He plays our resident drunken doctor broken robot.

KTVU.com: Are there reasons beyond Troy being good at breaking stuff that influenced you to go in that direction? I've read in other interviews about your admiration for PRIMAL SCREAM, who have kind of done the same thing with an electronic element to rock, and I know you're a fan of Peaches…

Josh Homme: Well, I think the thing that both PRIMAL SCREAM and PEACHES do is that they do electronic terribly, you know? They truly use the worst, most square-wave sounds and use them incorrectly. And it's what gives it such a romantic sound for me. It always comes off like 'I don't know if this is working right. Is this plugged in?' It's always got this almost naively destroyed element to it. I think what happened was this started — not on purpose — shaping up to be a modern record for us. For me and I think for Troy, that symbolizes so much technology, you know? I'm not a very technologically savvy guy and Troy has mediocre tech savvy at best. So it's me like the grampa going 'Well, I don't know. What the hell is this?' and him going "Well, I think that button does this…" I think knowing that we really haven't gone in that direction before and this started becoming more of a modern examination for us. Then, we stumbled on this dirty drum sound that sounded like little explosions all the time. I'm a fatalist; these things all started to converge, and I thought "Yes. This is an omen." I also think on the last record, I kind of foolishly didn't understand that people were going to compare Joey [Castillo, the band's current drummer] and Dave [Grohl] because it had been so long since "Songs for the Deaf", but of course they did. And I was asking Joey to hold back; it's what you don't play and using negative space, you know? So I really wanted this to be a record where people got a chance to see what Joey and Troy are really made of. One of the things was Joey deserves a sound that's identifiable; not just the band as a whole, but individually. My folks say you can see the dirt really clearly.

KTVU.com: Something that's been puzzling me ever since I got the album has which songs might have guest vocalists. Certain tunes like "Turning on the Screw" and "Into the Hollow" sound like they could be you singing, but not in a way I'm accustomed to hearing you sing…

Josh Homme: You're making me so happy. That's me. I'm singing every vocal that's on there. One of the main reasons to ask Chris to produce this album with me — other than because I love him and he's one of my dearest friends — is that I knew I was going to try to sing in ways I never have, and that involves a whole buttload of failure. It involves being totally embarrassed even in front of your closest friends. It doesn't define your character, but it sort of reveals it a little bit. If you have the guts to keep pursuing something that is utterly embarrassing and makes you feel like going "I suck at this." In the beginning I never really wanted to be the singer. Hence, I had other people sing. Now they're not here and at the same time I really love to sing now. So if there's not going to be some sort of ginger on the palette tonally, then I need to find spots in my throat that I've never used, and now seems like the right time.

KTVU.com: To get gossipy for a minute, I've been reading about a bit of animosity between you and Sharon Osbourne ever since your open slagging of Ozzfest in an interview, but you recently played VH1's "Rock Honors" special paying tribute to her husband. Was there some sort of reconciliation, or did the tribute have nothing to do with your feelings about her?

Josh Homme: It was a multitude of things converging at once. Like I said, I'm a fatalist and that was meant to be. What really happened — just to gossip even further, I guess — is we were asked to do a tribute to BLACK SABBATH, and it got switched to Ozzy. And I thought that is true irony. People nowadays seem to think that opposites are ironic, like "Look at the tall guy with the small guy." But that was true irony. Only in America [affecting Yakov Smirnoff accent]. It just made me laugh. Blender basically asked me what my worst summer job was and I told them Ozzfest. And they asked me what I thought of the free concert [no admission is being charged for this summer's tour], and I told them what I thought. And I know that to be my truth for this new Ozzfest.

KTVU.com: Yeah, I look at the free Ozzfest and I think you might not pay to get in, but you will pay, one way or another.

Josh Homme: You'll pay, and there will be only one person who will make any dough. And with the music industry the way it is with downloading, to ask artists to play for free … I might as well skip through the English countryside with a flute. One of the things about my generation is that there's this punk rock guilt where people don't know what they're worth and they're embarrassed to ask for anything for what they do. And that's something that we need to get over. I don't need to be the Sultan of Brunei, but at the same time, would you get your hand out of my crotchpouch please? Or at least be sexy about it. So we play this "VH1 Rock Honors". And they [the Osbournes] can't all be Jack or Ozzy, you know what I mean? The question is, do I actually care if Sharon likes me? And the answer is no. It's sort of like, "Hitler doesn't like you." Big deal. What's she going to do, breathe on me? The people that I've had troubles with are RANCID, THE DWARVES and Sharon Osbourne. I definitely feel OK about it all.

KTVU.com: And really, Ozzfest needs to be taken to task for its abuses, and I'm glad that at least you and IRON MAIDEN haven't held back as far as criticizing her.

Josh Homme: I wrote "G-U-N-T" on my arm during our performance at "Rock Honors", because it's an uncensorable word. Censorship isn't about intent, it's just about words that we universally agree are bad. Since "gunt" is uncensorable slang, they actually focused in on my arm. A friend of mine was standing right behind Sharon and she said "Gunt? What the hell is that supposed to be?" I heard that and thought "My work for the day is done."

Read the entire interview at KTVU.com.