“No One Knows”—Queens of the Stone Age

What's up everyone? I'm Nora Prinziati. And I'm Nathan Hubbard. And we're coming in like a wrecking ball to announce a brand new series. That's right. It's every single album, Miley Cyrus. Deep dive with us into the career of one of our most creative and confounding pop stars. We're starting, of course, with the best of Hannah Montana. And ending with her brand new album, Something Beautiful, in June. And don't forget about Miley Cyrus and her dead pets. We certainly will not be doing that. So listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. A railcard can help you save on train journeys all around Great Britain. Find the one for you at railcard.co.uk. Teas and seas apply. You want to hear my all-time favorite joke when I was a kid? It's the early 90s. I'm 12 years old or so. I'm watching HBO. HBO back then is the cable channel that shows three amigos during the day, Predator 2 in the evening, and the porn adjacent adult shows Real Sex and Dream On late at night. That's about it. Content-wise on early 90s HBO. The nudity offered by the porn adjacent HBO shows Real Sex and Dream On very rarely rewards the effort of staying up that late and sneaking back downstairs or sneak programming the VCR in advance. It's not worth it in my 12-year-old opinion. Just get Cinemax. Or better yet, just go to bed. You pervert. But nonetheless, HBO second coolest cable channel after MTV because one day here comes this guy. What's this guy doing on HBO? Older white guy. Black leather jacket. Long, poofy, black hair, but also giant bald spot. His bald spot is visibly expanding. It is gentrifying the rest of his head, even as he speaks, or rather, even as he mumbles, because this dude is half awake at best. He is a stand-up comedian who can barely stand. He had evidently been violently roused from a decade-long stupor 15 seconds before I turned on the TV. He's looking straight down at the microphone he's holding on one hand, and he's clutching his head with the other hand like he's got a migraine. And this is his exact posture when he tells the funniest joke I have ever heard in my life. My uncle was a clown for Ringling Brother Circus, and when he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car. Stephen Wright. God-tier stand-up comedian Stephen Wright. Coolest-ever guy from Boston, with apologies to some people I work with. Yes, to answer your question, Stephen is the radio DJ voice in the unnecessarily violent Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs. He plays the host of Kay Billy's Super Sounds of the 70s. This is Stephen Wright appearing on the 1987 comic relief charity special, and he has just presented me with the funniest, the most profound, the most objectively perfect series of words I had ever heard in my entire life. I'm like 12. But still, my uncle was a clown for Ringling Brother Circus, and when he died, all his friends went to the funeral in one car. Just the beauty, the deadpan absurdity, the sublime morbidity of this image. All the clowns piling out of the funeral limo, wearing suits. It's like a black Sabbath riff. This clown funeral image. Siffused as it is with both silliness and bad-assness. This joke's like a riff from one of the softer and chiller black Sabbath songs, one of the ballads. Yeah, Stephen Wright's clown funeral joke is like the first 11 seconds of the 1971 black Sabbath song, Solitude. It's the hypnotic lull, the euphoric stupor of Tony Iommi's guitar and Gheeser Butler's bass, waltzing together in the somehow audible Dead of Night on the phenomenal 1971 black Sabbath song, Solitude. I hear this song and I watch the black clown car pulling up to the funeral. I watch the clown car door solemnly open. I watch the clowns emerge. I don't know if this is going to work. This can see where I connect stand-up comedy jokes with heavy metal guitar riffs. We're going to find out together if this bit makes any sense to anybody, myself included. And if it doesn't make any sense, too bad. So now I'm locked in on Stephen Wright. This is the funniest dude who's ever walked the earth in my 12-year-old opinion. I am paying the maximum amount of attention a 12-year-old can pay to anybody. Sir, please tell me another joke immediately. About a year ago, my girlfriend was on the pill using a diaphragm in an IUD all at once. Recently, she had a baby. Baby was born wearing armor. I love this joke, too, but I'm 12 years old and I have, let's say, a 65% logistical understanding of precisely what Stephen Wright is referring to here, contraception-wise. I got to watch more real sex, I guess. I get the gist. This Stephen Wright joke is quite a bit rowdy-er and bawdy-er and more adult. So we need a much rowdy-er and bawdy-er black Sabbath riff for this one. Preferably punctuated with a classic, oh yeah, from black Sabbath lead singer Ozzy Osbourne. I got just the thing. Oh, hell yeah, this bit is going awesome and makes perfect sense to me. Stephen Wright's baby-wearing armor joke is like the malevolent bounce of the 1970 black Sabbath song N.I.B. with the rad bass line and the Lucifer falls in love lyrics, both supplied by black Sabbath bassist, Giezer Butler, there is nothing more dangerous and therefore nothing more metal than letting your bassist write lyrics. That's why black Sabbath are the best. Stephen Wright's flat-lined, drowsy, head-clutching, deadpan vocal tone does not change...ever. The monotone, the monotony is central to the majesty. This word hypnotic, I overuse the word hypnotic as a dorky, rock-critic adjective, right? But I do think there's a profound element of hypnosis to Stephen Wright, a compounded, soothing, ridiculousness. He coaxes you onto his wavelength. He physically slows down your heart rate. It's like you're listening to him at 0.5 speed. If we're doing black Sabbath, we got to deal with the quite famous black Sabbath song Iron Man. I suppose, speaking of babies wearing armor, what's the Iron Man riff of Stephen Wright jokes? What we need from Stephen here is something short, punchy, and eternal. We need something worthy of this. He lost his life. Deadly is he or is he blind? Then he won't get off. Or if he moves, will he fall? The silliness and the bad-assness of Ozzy Osbourne, of black Sabbath, of heavy metal, it all peaks here, in my opinion, with Iron Man, with the fearsome delight of just doing that and doing a microphone right now. I feel like a total dork, and yet I also feel invincible. Okay, I found the right Stephen Wright joke for this. Hit the deck. I've been making wine at home, but I make it out of raisin, so it'll be aged automatically. Anytime you can get drugs, alcohol, intoxicants, whatever in the mix, that's the right call. That's what heavy metal is all about. Yes? So, all right, Stephen Wright making wine out of raisins is his Iron Man moment. Simple, short, punchy, eternal. Fantastic work by everybody, myself included. But I find myself returning to the first joke Stephen Wright tells on stage at the 1987 comic relief special. This joke is quite a bit weirder and spacier, and, dare I say it, stonder. When I was out in the middle of the desert, a UFO landed. Three one-inch tall guys get out. They walked over to me. They said, are you really one inch tall? They said, no, we're really very far away. It really makes you think this Stephen Wright joke. Yeah? It makes you think what? But it also makes you think in the profound philosophical black light poster sense. No, we're really very far away. I'm sure there's an excellent black Sabbath equivalent to the Stephen Wright one inch tall alien joke. But if we're talking about one inch men now, what we really need is another band. One inch man. One inch man. Long the show. Oh my God, this song rules so hard. This song is called One Inch Man. It is brought to you by the great American rock band Kias. That's K-Y-U-S-S. It's a Dungeons and Dragons reference. Kias formed in Palm Desert, California in 1987. Initially they called themselves Katzenjammer. That's German. And then they put out an EP under the name Sons of Kias. And then they changed their name to just Kias. Just Kias is way better. Kias put out four rad full-length Stoner Rock albums in the first half of the 90s and then broke up. The song One Inch Man appears on the last Kias record. Released in 1995 and called And The Circus Leaves Town. I was recently informed via Facebook that my 30-year high school reunion is next year. And I did not appreciate receiving that information. And I swear to you that if I do attend my 30-year high school reunion, I'm just going to walk into the gymnasium or whatever with a super pointy electric guitar, like an Ibanez maybe, and a giant amp, and a guitar pedal or two, a big muff pedal perhaps. And I'm going to plug in and I'm going to crank the amp up to 11. And I'm going to bust out Kias's One Inch Man to the terror and delight of my high school classmates, who will all immediately agree that I am the raddest dude who ever lived. And they all feel terrible for not being nicer to me in high school. And then I'm going to bounce. Adios, amigos. I will then immediately leave my 30-year high school reunion to the dismay of all the ladies. The after party will take place at Denny's. I'll take a French slam and a large chocolate malt, motherfucker, and you can leave the giant freezing metal cup with an extra malt in it. Can you imagine being the human being generating the One Inch Man guitar riff? Can you imagine how eternally cool you would feel? Do Stephen Wright have a joke worthy of comparison to the One Inch Man riff? Of course he does. The one about how he's going to put a humidifier and a dehumidifier in a room together and let them fight it out, that's a killer joke. But we're on to Kias now. We've changed metal bands. So why don't we go ahead and change stand-up comedians as well? We need another legit candidate for the coolest stand-up comedian who ever lived. Someone a little younger, somebody with long hair and colored glasses and a pristinely disheveled demeanor and a litany of phenomenal one-liners. We need somebody with, shall we say, big black light energy. We need him. So I wish I could play literally now. I'd kick some fucking ass. I'd be way better than before. Mitch Hedberg. God-tier stand-up comedian Mitch Hedberg. My all-time favorite stand-up comedian, if you want the truth. Coolest ever guy from St. Paul, Minnesota. Prince was born in Minneapolis. I lit it up. That's a separate city, right? Okay. I wish I could play literally now. I'd kick some fucking ass. Mitch Hedberg and Kias align perfectly in my head. That phrasing is very important, by the way. Kick some fucking ass. What Kias and Mitch Hedberg both know is that whatever sentiment you're trying to convey, there is one exactly right way to put it. one pristine, profane, bong-loading phrase that ties the whole room together. I got an ant farm, but they didn't grow anything. That's a good joke, right? No, it ain't. I got an ant farm, them fellas didn't grow shit. Now that's a good fucking joke. Them fellas didn't grow shit, just a miraculous series of words. What is the kiosk song that best exemplifies the profane majesty of them fellas didn't grow shit? Let's try this one. ["The Son of a Man"] Incredible. This song is called Son of a Bitch, and it appears on the first full-length kios album released in 1990 and called Wretch. That's W-R-E-T-C-H. The lineup shifts over time, but kios in 1990 consist of John Garcia on vocals, Brant Bjork on drums, Nick Oliveire on bass, and Josh Hami on guitar. That's Josh Hami H-O-M-M-E. Coolest ever guy named Josh, with apologies to all other Joshes. We're dealing with teenagers here. Kios are kids. They're kids in Palm Desert, California. Palm Desert is east of Palm Springs, but is not as nice, or at least not as posh, as Palm Springs. It is also, you know, hotter. Palm Desert is a literal desert. Kios start out playing generator parties, which is that thing where you drive out into the desert with some gas-powered generators, and you plug in, and you crank everything to 11, and you play exceptional hard rock music at incredible volume to an audience of fellow kids who are mostly all swilling beer and beating the crap out of each other. Talking to Billboard Magazine in 1994, Josh Hami says that for Kios, playing in the desert, quote, was the shaping factor. There's no clubs here, so you can only play for free. If people don't like you, they'll tell you, you can't suck, end quote. Way more recently in 2024, Josh did an interview with the podcast and radio show Q with Tom Power, and Josh talked about being a kid and seeing the Southern California hardcore band, TSOL, for the first time, quote, The first time I saw TSOL, it was brutal and terrifying. It was at the Palm Springs Water Park, and it was the dichotomy of going to a place of joy by day, and at night, it was so unpredictable. I grew up playing that way. We would take a generator into the desert and play in order to get away from the police busting up house parties. You don't realize at first when you are away from the police and any adult authority is a teenager, what you're doing is lawless and out of control, and some nights, that's magical. Other nights, it's terrifying, end quote. But kias don't sound terrifying to me. They just sound like teenagers, and more specifically, they sound like teenagers plugged into generators out in the desert under an open sky, stretching out forever in every direction. When I listen to kias, I close my eyes, and all I see are horizons. There's this monumental, majestic emptiness to it, this sense of infinite physical space. That's a very stoned thought, but I'm just trying to get on their wavelength. But yeah, kias don't strike me as a scary band, a threatening band, a violent band, a wallowing and misery band. Okay, so like, you know the Metallica song one, off and justice for all in 1988, the part halfway through one, where Metallica gets super fast and super tough and super scary, this part. Darkness imprisoning me, all that I see, absolute horror. I cannot live, I cannot die, dragging myself, burning my own wings. Here's a wild oversimplification for you, but I do believe this. When it comes to hard rock, heavy metal, heavy music, whatever your preferred term, there are two types of metal songs. There are songs where darkness is imprisoning you and it's awful and tortuous and miserable, and there are songs where darkness is imprisoning you and it's fucking awesome. Darkness, prison me. Leading me. This song is called The Law. It is also off the first Kias album, Retch released in 1990. Josh Hami is often playing his guitar through both a guitar amp and a bass amp, which provides both extra bass and extra awesomeness. What's a Mitch Hedberg joke that pairs well with the Kias song, The Law? We need a palpable heaviness. We need a sense of awesome imprisoning darkness. We need a powerful fragrance. I wish they made fajita cologne because that still smells good. We need fajita cologne. That's Mitch Hedberg on Conan. Mitch Hedberg was huge in the early 2000s, back when stand-up comics were still a huge part of the late night show ecosystem, Conan, Letterman, Leno, et cetera. Mitch has got three classic comedy CDs back when that was still a thing. Strategic Grill Locations in 1999, Mitch All Together in 2003, and Do You Believe in Gosh in 2008. That one was posthumous, but I don't wanna talk about that yet. Mitch's delivery is faster, wirier, more delightfully explosive and chaotic, but I do think Mitch Hedberg and Stephen Wright occupy a similar headspace, even beyond their perfect one-liners, the randomness, the spaciness, and often, oddly, the wholesomeness, almost the cuddliness. These guys are not insult comics. They are not edge lords. Though Mitch Hedberg does have a few slightly bluer jokes. His first CD, Strategic Grill Locations, peaks at the end with a few of his more famous jokes. If you are flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit. That's a famous Mitch Hedberg joke, but I had forgotten about this one. Some songs have a special meaning for a man in regards to a special woman, but this can backfire because maybe the song had deeper meaning to begin with, but now it's been achieving. It is quite rare, actually, for a Mitch Hedberg joke to require a setup that's even this long, but you can feel it coming, right? The punchline, the detonation, the mushroom cloud of awesomeness. Chaya songs work like this, too. You can sense that a Chaya song is about to get ridiculously great like 10 seconds before it happens. Here, like this. I am ready. I am ready. That's a Chaya song called 50 Million Year Trip Downside Up. It's about to get ridiculously great, but Mitch has got to finish his joke first. We are the world. We are the children. We are the ones who make a better life, so let's keep on giving. Remember that song, baby? The night I fucked you in the pet cemetery? I audibly gasped very reasonably very recently at the whimsical pornographic audacity of this particular Mitch Hedberg joke. Just as I audibly gasped at the ridiculous great part of the Chaya song 50 Million Year Trip Downside Up, though, of course, I was playing this song way too loud for my audible gasp to be remotely audible. Oh, my God. The Mitch Hedberg joke about fucking you in the pet cemetery while we are the world is playing is like the Chaya song 50 Million Year Trip parentheses Downside Up from the 1992 Chaya's album Blues for the Red Sun. With both the joke and the song, the bottom just drops out. I'm not sure if you can see it, but I'm not sure if you can see it. I'm not sure if you can see it, but I'm not sure if you can see it. I'm not sure if you can see it, but the joke and the song and the bottom just drops out. The trap door opens beneath you and you are suddenly plummeting into a bottomless pit of imprisoning darkness and uncouth radness. This Mitch Hedberg joke doesn't even have that long a setup, but I get a similar vibe. This is what my friend said to me, said, I think the weather is trippy. And I said, no, man, it's not the weather that's trippy. Perhaps it is the way that we perceive it that is indeed trippy. Then I thought, man, I should have just said, yeah. As it happens, the first Chaya song I ever heard is one of the great man I should have just said, yeah, anthems in the Stoner Rock canon. This song is called Demon Cleaner. I love that song title. I don't know why, but I do. From the 1994 Chayas album, Welcome to Sky Valley. I keep using this phrase, Stoner Rock. And I ought to mention that Chayas guitarist, Josh Hami, does not care for that term. Sometimes in interviews, Josh says he hates being called Stoner Rock and sometimes he is slightly more magnanimous. Talking to Rockpile Magazine in 2000, Josh says, quote, there's a whole list of things it takes to make music and drugs are certainly one of the things on that list, but they're not the most important thing on that list. And the only thing I think is kind of weak about Stoner Rock is it touts the one thing on the list and goes, look, that almost seems like dumbing it down a little bit. End quote. Okay. Stoner Rock as a genre description is reductive and a little dumb. Okay. I feel like drugs making it anywhere on the list of things it takes to make music is a pretty big win for drugs. But okay. And this inevitably brings me to my all-time favorite Mitch Hedberg joke, which is also my favorite all-time stand-up comedy joke by anyone ever. Stephen Wright's funeral clown car held the title when I was a teenager. Yes, but you want to hear my all-time favorite joke as an adult. I used to do drugs. I still do what I used to do. The melodiousness of this joke, the internal rhyme scheme, I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to do even the pronunciation. I used to do. That's used to spelled Y-O-O-S-T-A, used to. This is a perfect joke. This is a perfect joke about drug use and verb conjugation. And listen, I love Kias, a great American rock band, a great American 90s rock band. But when Kias break up in 1995, they do not have a song worthy of this joke. But Kias guitarist Josh Hami regroups and he starts a new great American rock band where he's the front man this time. He's the guitarist and the singer in the conceptual mastermind. Now he is flying the UFO out into the desert. Now he is driving the clown funeral car. Now he is a grown man playing Little League now. Josh Hami's new band is called Queens of the Stone Age. Their second album called Rated R comes out in the year 2000. The first song is called Feel Good Hit of the Summer. It is, lyrically, a list of drugs. It is a song about darkness imprisoning you. It is, objectively, fucking awesome. And I think Mitch Hedberg himself would agree that it is worthy. One thing you learn as the leader of a great American rock band is how one well-placed, oh, can transform, can radically improve, can electrify a song. That one, oh, makes Feel Good Hit of the Summer 400% better. That's not math. That is sorcery. Feel Good Hit of the Summer is a list of seven drugs. Thus far we have listed six of them. The seventh drug has seven syllables. Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook Kook been one of the greats for decades. He should be one of the greats now. Part of me knows that Mitch Hedberg would have been transcendent in podcast form and part of me is genuinely relieved that he never appeared on a podcast. Does that make any sense? Mitch Hedberg died of a drug overdose. That fact, that devastating tragedy does not drain the transcendent verb tense based humor or drain the vibrance or drain the all time greatness out of I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to too. But it does make those words burn in my throat. For all their talk about hating the idea of stoner rock, Queens of the Stone Age do sing about drugs and alcohol quite a bit. And there are regrets. There are dark nights of the soul that appear to last for years. There are consequences. There is tragedy. There is devastation. Not on this song though. No. Feel Good Hater this summer is an entirely triumphant list of seven drugs plus the words oh and woo. Here comes the woo. That's a fantastic woo. Quite possibly my favorite part of this song that woo. And then as a crowning glory, the coolest ever guy named Josh on corks a bonkers guitar solo that sounds to me like the word cocaine with seven syllables. I do believe that's Josh's old kias bandmate and new Queens of the Stone Age bandmate Nick Oliveire there whispering wake up. It is the year 2000 and Queens of the Stone Age on only their second album have written a song worthy of I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to too. Queens of the Stone Age have perhaps single handedly soothed those of us who'd been a little concerned that great American rock and roll would not in fact survive the end of the 20th century. Indeed in 2002 Queens of the Stone Age released the best rock and roll album of the 21st century thus far. It is called Songs for the Deaf and the big hit single off Songs for the Deaf is how should I put this? This album's big hit single is worthy of this Mitch Hedberg joke. I think Bigfoot is blurry that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. I love this one. I love the precision of both the wording and the delivery here. Get a load of the sauce Mitch is about to put on the words Bigfoot is blurry and then on the words extra scary and then especially on the words roaming the countryside. Bigfoot is blurry and that's extra scary to me because there's a large out of focus monster roaming the countryside. There are days when nothing on earth is funnier to me than the way Mitch Hedberg says roaming the countryside. Anyways Queens of the Stone Age got a song worthy of this joke too. My name is Rob Harvella this is the 20th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s colon the 2000s and this week we are discussing No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age. From their 2002 album Songs for the Deaf the boom boom boom boom bass line there courtesy of our friend Nick Oliveire that is the unmistakable sound of a large out of focus monster roaming the countryside. Everyone around here loves it when it takes me this long to get to the ad break. I assure you. Did you think just for a second that by the time that ad was over this show would have a new improved replacement host who arrived at the ad breaks more expeditiously? Are you at all surprised to still be hearing my voice? I myself am not surprised nobody else wants to do this. Here's one last Mitch Hedberg joke. This one's about another Stoner Rock band. I saw a band in New York City it was a rock and roll off called Monster Magnet and the singer got on the microphone. This is what he said. He said alright how many people feel like human beings tonight? They say alright how many people feel like animals and everybody cheered after the animals part. But the thing is I cheered after the human beings part. Glad to not know that there was a second part to the question. Ah yes. Monster Magnet. The almighty Monster Magnet. Greatest ever rock band from New Jersey with apologies to any other rock bands from New Jersey. I can't think of any at the moment. Bon Jovi. Okay I thought of one. Monster Magnet are better than Bon Jovi. I am delighted and genuinely heartened by the thought of Mitch Hedberg at a Monster Magnet concert. Do you feel like human beings tonight? Yeah I love it. The vibe in that room in my head is immaculate. Sometimes when Mitch tells that Monster Magnet joke he adds they were heavy boy and I love the way he says that but that version of the joke is way too long. To play for you. Monster Magnet are led by singer and guitarist and conceptual mastermind Dave Wendorf. I have way less of a problem calling Monster Magnet Stoner Rock because in 1989 Monster Magnet put out a cassette demo tape called Forget About Life comma I'm High on Dope. And then they put out a second cassette demo tape called We're Stoned comma What Are You Going To Do About It? question mark. According to Discogs both those tapes were released by a label called Cool Beans. I don't know why that's so funny to me but it's extremely funny to me. Anyways here's what's Monster Magnet's up to in 1993. Cool Beans. That's a song called Elephant Bell from Monster Magnet's second album released in 1993 and called Super Judge. I did debate whether or not to play you that particular line from that particular song. It was a short debate. There's just something about the ultra teenage phrasing of my dick just got a million times bigger. That's way too big. Sir, I don't know what you think you're going to do after your dick gets a million times bigger but what you're going to do is go lie down quietly alone. That's like a 14 year old boy's idea of a rad line and a rad rock and roll song. Yes, a 14 year old comic book reading a horn dog, waistoid, who's like super into science fiction but it has to be cinemax type science fiction. Every Monster Magnet song sounds like they're trying to impress the three breasted alien lady from total recall. Anyways, here's what's Monster Magnet's up to in 1995. Did Dave Windorf, I love that name by the way, the perfectly harmonized silliness and bad assness of the name Dave Windorf. That's a God tier rock star name somehow. Did Dave Windorf just sing the words Super Sonic jerk off? What are you going to do about it? That song is called Negasonic Teenage Warhead from the extra badass 1995 Monster Magnet album Dopes to Infinity. Incredible song. Negasonic Teenage Warhead and air guitar classic. This song got on MTV a little bit. This song penetrated my personal little 90s teenage grunge bubble. Monster Magnet and Kias and who else sleep? Electric Wizard, Fu Manchu, White Zombie if you want the truth. These are all super heavy bands you get into in the mid 90s because grunge and alternative rock ain't quite doing it for you. Not heavy enough, not swaggering enough, not sorry, stoned enough, not low key horny enough, not high key horny enough, not enough songs about Mars and perhaps the hot alien chicks one might find on Mars. Not enough songs called Space Lord. Just the thought of Mitch Hedberg and a huge crowd of people pumping his fist and going Space Lord. More the more the. This is the American dream to me. Yes, this song is called Space Lord. Two words from Monster Magnets 1998 album Power Trip. One word Space Lord mother mother is an edited version of that chorus obviously but I personally have never heard the unedited version and that's fine by me. Somehow mother mother is way cooler. This is the biggest monster magnet song Space Lord. Because this is the monster magnet song with the video where it starts out all gloomy and shadowy and alternative. There's a weird old guy wandering around presumably the same weird old guy who's wandering around every 90s alternative rock video. But then the chorus hits and a curtain falls and suddenly it's basically a hype Williams video. Dave Windorf and his pals are rocking out in front of scantily clad backup dancers and neon drenched Las Vegas. The Space Lord video is in fact an explicit parody of the video for Metallica's enter Sandman. That's the gloomy part. That suddenly turns into an explicit parody of the video for Mace's feel so good. That's the glitzy Vegas part. That's Mace Mase the puff daddy affiliated rapper for those of you way too into stoner rock to give a shit. Also. I have just learned the Internet is trying to convince me that monster magnets Space Lord was the first video ever played on total request live. That's TRL the zeitgeist defining MTV afternoon countdown show that premiered in 1998 and was hosted by Carson Daly and is generally synonymous with turn of the century teen pop boy bands etc. I read that and I was like there is no way that monster magnets Space Lord was the first video ever played on TRL. This is somebody lying on the Internet to amuse me specifically. Ladies and gentlemen. And I'm sorry but this is necessary here now is the very first top 10 countdown from the first ever episode of TRL which aired on September 14th 1998 in descending order. Number one backstreet boys. I'll never break your heart. Congratulations. Number two in sync tearing up my heart. Get him next time. Number three. Are you that somebody fantastic. Number four. I don't want to miss a thing. Also fantastic. Number five will Smith just the two of us. Wow. Number six. Marilyn Manson the dope show past number seven usher my way tremendous number eight. Goo Goo dolls. Iris also tremendous number nine Monica the first night. Congratulations Monica on beating out number 10 monster magnet Space Lord now obviously the daily TRL video countdown played in ascending order right from number 10 and number one to build suspense. Do you know what this means? It means that the very first lyrics ever sung on TRL were sung by Dave Wendorf. I've been stuffed in your pocket for the last hundred days when I don't get my bath. I take it out on the slaves. Those are the first words ever sung by anybody on TRL and I think that's beautiful. It would appear that there is an appetite here in 1998 for swaggering drug infused typing my dick just got a million times bigger into WebMD type rock and roll music grunge is dead alternative rock is basically dead. New metal is ascended but often quite disreputable and not disreputable in the fun way. There is an appetite for horny stoned badass rock and roll music that also radiates an intangible paradoxical sophistication an intangible cool and somehow an intangible chill. So that song is called if only Josh Hami is a teenage guitar hero from Palm Desert, California. He spends the first half of the 90s in the great American rock band. His guitar makes various incomprehensibly rad noises, ranging from two. and BRO, Kaius Breakup in 1995. Josh spends a brief interval as a touring guitarist for Screaming Trees, the great 90s Seattle band, Screaming Trees. And in his spare time, Josh reads such books as Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, the bonkers violent 1985 Cormac McCarthy Western Blood Meridian. I read that once in Rolling Stone that Josh toured with the Screaming Trees and read Blood Meridian. And that image just stuck with me forever. Apparently. And in 1997, Josh formally debuts his new band, Queens of the Stone Age. That song, if only, appears in the 1997 self-titled Split EP from Kaius and Queens of the Stone Age. Three songs a piece in which the torch of swaggering badassness formally passes from Josh Hommie's old band to Josh Hommie's new band. I have a likewise weirdly vivid memory of seeing the Kaius Queens of the Stone Age CD for sale right above the counter in my college record store. Shout out school kids at Ohio University. And I was intrigued by that CD, but I didn't have enough money, so I didn't buy it and I'll regret it forever. Queens of the Stone Age are Josh Hommie's band, then and now. He is the front man, the singer, the guitarist, the conceptual mastermind. At this point, Josh is playing most of the instruments, in fact, with his old Kaius bandmate, Alfredo Hernandez on drums. But especially if you know him from Kaius, it is Josh's singing voice that is most striking here. The high, crooning, tremendously alluring, space-lordly vibe he exudes. If I lay, who lay with nothing at all? That is the crisper, cleaner, shinier version of If Only. The lead single off the first full length from Queens of the Stone Age, released in 1998, and called Queens of the Stone Age. I own this album on vinyl, and due to its semi-pornographic album cover, I have to physically hide it from my children. Midway through my 30-year high school reunion, at roughly the 90-minute mark, I will return from Denny's with my pointy Ibanez guitar and my amp and my big, muff pedal. That's what that pedal is called, get over it. And I will crank everything back up to 11 and regale all the ladies with this shit. ["Bounce Again"] And then I will bounce again. That song is called How to Handle a Rope, parentheses, a lesson in the lariat, close parentheses. And can you imagine being the human being generating this guitar riff? Can you imagine how eternally cool you would feel? ["Bounce Again"] But elsewhere, there is a strikingly different vibe. There is another new, just as deadly weapon in Josh Hamey's arsenal on this first Queens of the Stone Age record. And it's this infernally steady, propulsive, robotic, vaguely German, almost, here it comes, hypnotic beat. It's a good rock critic word. ["Bounce Again"] This song is called Regular John, the lockstep precision of this song, the dare I say groove. Reading about Queens of the Stone Age in the early years, I stumbled across the phrase robot rock a lot, stoned robot rock. Talking to the magazine Under the Radar in 2011 about this song's inception, and really this whole band's inception, Josh Hamey says, quote, "'Well, I mean, I just remember thinking I hadn't played for about a year and I started writing songs. The first song I wrote was Regular John, which is the first song on the album. And I remember thinking, no one's playing this trance rock music that you can dance to. But that's primarily because I hadn't heard bands like can, can are German. I thought I could try and do this thing that hadn't really been done. And then I found out it had kind of been done, but not very much. You just kind of try and carve your own space. I just wanted to start a band that within three seconds of listening, people knew what band it was." End quote. And there's a valuable lesson here, I think, for those of you in any sort of creative pursuit. Generally, you start out thinking you're gonna do something totally new, but then it turns out it's been done before, but not very much. Talking to The Guardian also in 2011 about the first Queens of the Stone Age record, Josh says, quote, "'The album is an exercise in repetition. It's trance music and the way it pushes your buttons. And I wanted to do something for girls. The way I thought about it was trance robot music for girls. I wasn't interested in the guys at all. I wanted to make something that girls could dance to that really had a freedom that Kais didn't." End quote. Now, I'm not 100% sold on the notion that Kais are definitively for boys and Queens of the Stone Age are definitively for girls, but what I do know is that Josh Hami is an alarmingly entrancing lead singer. Even when he is literally singing a phone number. ["The Guardian's Song"] That's just a phone number, presumably written on a bathroom stall with one extra digit added, so nobody actually calls it. The first Queens of the Stone Age record gets pretty weird, pretty experimental by the time it's all over. This record ends in fact with a song called I Was a Teenage Hand Model, which ends with a super noisy answering machine message sound collage in which Nick Oliveiri, Josh's old buddy and Kais' old bass player, Nick Oliveiri, Nick accepts an offer to play bass now in Queens of the Stone Age. ["The Guardian's Song"] Hey Josh, this is Nick Oliveiri. It's a lovely to last night, Josh and me. That was pretty loud. I apologize, I was driving with my 14 year old son and this part of this song was blaring very loudly in our minivan and my son just goes, "'Dad, what are you listening to?' And I was just like, dude, I don't even know anymore. Nobody else wants to do this job. Nick Oliveiri, veteran of a couple Kais' albums will now serve as bass player and occasionally lead singer an invaluable comic foil on a couple Queens of the Stone Age albums. And this dynamic between Josh's unflappable crooning and Nick's unhinged snarling, this magnificent dynamic will provide me with countless hours of delight in the early 2000s. We have arrived at the second Queens album, released in 2000 and called Rated R. So here is Josh crooning unflappably on a song called The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret. ["The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret"] And that's a lovely song, The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret, a lovely perspective hit single, the roaring, crunchy, radio-friendly guitars, et cetera. That's the song on Rated R right after the opening song, that's just a list of drugs. But what really makes this chorus pop on Rated R is the contrast between stuff like that and stuff like this. ["The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret"] Indeed, that is Nick Oliveri snarling unhingedly on a song called Tension Head. I went with my brother, we saw Queens of the Stone Age in Detroit at St. Andrews Hall in Detroit in 2002. They were touring with the Rad Austin rock band, and you will know us by The Trail of Dead. And dude, in all seriousness, it is quite possibly the best concert I've ever been to in my life. Trail of Dead broke all their shit. They trashed all their instruments at the end. I distinctly remember one symbol arcing gracefully up toward the ceiling, like the giant bone in 2001, a space odyssey. Trail of Dead were incredible, but then Queens of the Stone Age, man. The swagger and the chaos of Queens of the Stone Age. I've noticed on bootlegs, live videos, et cetera, that in concert, Josh Hami has a habit of repeating the same phrase in his stage banter after every few songs, but the phrase changes from city to city. When the band reissued, rated R with a bunch of live tracks from the Reading Festival, that's in England. At that show, Josh keeps saying, "'This is a song for you before each song.'" In Detroit, that night, he kept saying, "'We're from out of town.'" That's what I remember. This tall, suave, guitar shredding, alluringly crooning man, repeatedly going, "'We're from out of town.'" And also, this guy showed up. And I'm worried, just liftin' down on the ground. Mark Lanigan, frontman for the great Seattle band, Screaming Trees, an imposing bass-heavy voice, an imposing towering, glowering physical presence. Mark Lanigan's first memoir, released in 2020, and called Sing Backwards and Weep. That book gets my vote for the most harrowing drug-related rock star anecdotes. And I realize that's an awfully crowded literary category, but Mark wins. Yikes. That's Mark Lanigan, imposingly crooning a song from rated R called In the Fade. That's Mark Lanigan, imposingly crooning the words, "'Ain't gonna worry, just live till you die.'" Mark Lanigan died in 2022. He was 57. And those lyrics burn in my throat now, as well. But the great thing about Mark Lanigan, as the occasional third Queens of the Stone Age singer, is that Mark can both croon and snarl. -♪ I swear to nothing go dry there And see what's mine -♪ I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry I swear to nothing go dry Mitch Hedberg comedy CD, Strategic Grill Locations. John Mulaney was on Hot Ones recently, and John Mulaney, Midway Through Housing, some Hot Wings, incredibly impressive Hot Ones performance. John was undaunted by these Hot Wings, perhaps because he used to do drugs. John Mulaney put Strategic Grill Locations on his personal Mount Rushmore of comedy CDs. And specifically, because at one point, Mitch Hedberg just goes, I always wanted to have a suitcase handcuffed my wrist. All right, and everyone laughs. And Mitch goes, that's not a full joke there. That's filler. That's John Mulaney's favorite joke on one of his favorite comedy albums ever. It's not a full joke, but it's still a fantastic joke, right? That's how I feel about the, wham-wham guitar shit on this song. Those little flourishes are too short to be guitar solos, an actual guitar solo transpires eventually. And yet each wham-wham is a spectacular guitar solo. Inevitably, Song For The Dead comes on and I start playing air guitar so hard that I don't even notice that Mark Lanigan is about to sing the words, Life's the Study of Diane, How To Do It Right. I was a bully, I died here How to do it right Biu-bing What I remember about Song For The Dead live at that show in Detroit is that Mark Lanigan walked on stage in like slow motion. He trudged, like he was Frankenstein's monster, like he was Iron Man. I was enthralled. This dude was not as tall as Mark Lanigan, but still managed to be pretty scary and enthralling as well. Tick-tock That blow, the life I'm alone Mommy messes, trust me, it's the dark Give me a soul and show me the door Metal heaven, something to call one Here we have Nick Oliveire barking random words for all I know or care on a song called You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, comma, but I Feel Like a Millionaire. And it's the contrast within the song here. Between the screaming and the beat. The infernally steady, propulsive, robotic, vaguely German. Here it comes, hypnotic beat. This song is basically how Songs For The Death starts. It is an outrageously great way to start a rock and roll record. Now, I should mention, Songs For The Death is Nick Oliveire's last album with Queens of the Stone Age. He will leave the band in 2004 under initially a mysterious circumstances. And initially I was heartbroken to lose this crucial Josh and Nick dynamic. And then a year later, in a 2005 Billboard interview, Josh Homme says that he'd heard a rumor that Nick had been physically abusive toward a girlfriend. And Josh says that he told Nick, quote, if I ever find out that this is true, I can't know you, man. Because music in my life are the same thing. There's no rules until something massive happens. End quote. That's about as specific as anyone gets. And so in retrospect, aspects of this Songs For The Death record burn in the throat as well. Not all the darkness is cartoonish. There are consequences. I find that rock and roll songs about drugs and violence and death generally strike you a little different. 20 years later, either because you've learned specific things about specific people, or because you've learned general things about general topics like drugs and violence and death. So Songs From The Death was Top Shelf Escapism for me in 2002. And it's Top Shelf Escapism for me now. But now I am escaping back to 2002. Back when I knew a lot less and I barely thought about what little I knew at all. It's not so much a celebration of my youth as a celebration of my youthful ignorance. Which may explain why the silliest parts of this record are the happiest now. This single piano note, for example. She said I'll throw myself away They're just photos after all Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding That song is called Go With The Flow. Songs From The Death is a massive blowout arena rock record, but it also celebrates this band's idiosyncrasies. This band's multiple enthralling personalities. This band's devotion to both constant, delightful surprise and delightfully grinding repetition. Shout out to whoever's banging on that one key on the keyboard the whole time right there. I'd also forgotten about the Mad Max style video for Go With The Flow, where Josh and the rest of the band are black silhouettes against the blood red sky as they drive a truck around the desert. And that's part of the greatness of Queens of the Stone Age as well. That this band retains the infinite horizon open sky expansiveness of kaius, but adds so many new influences, so many new trance-like states of being, so many new voices, so many new delightfully terrifying combatants. Take the drums, for example. The drummer on Go With The Flow, and you think I ain't worth a dollar or comma, but I feel like a millionaire. The drums on just those two songs are played by Gene Troutman and Gene Troutman has an excellent feel for the more trance-like and robotic aspects of this band. But Gene is not the most famous or the most bombastic or the most prominent drummer on this record. Listen to this shit. This song is called First It Giveth. Who is that kicking ass on the drums back there? This particular style of percussive ass kicking sounds super familiar to me somehow. Actually, let's go back to the song called Song For The Dead for a minute. The whee-wee-wee song. The best part of Song For The Dead is when it goes dead silent for several seconds, for the second time in the song, actually, and in the silence, the drummer's voice very briefly emerges. The drums are playing. Dave Grohl. I would recognize that anywhere. Here in 2002, Nirvana has already been gone for eight years. And Dave's already put out four records with the Foo Fighters. He's a singing and screaming and mostly guitar-playing rockstar frontman now. And so just enough time has passed that it might have slipped your mind that Dave Grohl is one of the best and most pulverizing rock drummers of his generation. And so here he is, playing drums on the vast majority of songs for the deaf to remind you that he used to kick ass on the drums, etc. Dave won't be sticking around Queens of the Stone Age for long. Very few people do. But he's an inspired addition to the band all the same, especially on the song about how Bigfoot is blurry. So I'm almost out of time. I got a little hung up on Mitch Hedberg back there. Sorry. Look, No One Knows is not my favorite song on songs for the deaf on this record. When I'm feeling especially salty, I might claim that No One Knows does not make my personal top five songs on this record. Every other song I played off this record so far is better along with Hanging Tree and God is in the radio. That's an absurd statement. I realize and I realize the absurdity of that statement whenever I go back to No One Knows and I just focus on the drums. The ludicrous pulverizing maximalism of the drums. The drums make No One Knows. And despite this song's presence on an album about how much the radio sucks, thanks to this one song's immense popularity on the radio, No One Knows makes the best argument here in 2002 for both popular rock music that sounds like the past and popular rock music that sounds like the future. Queen to the Stone Age excel at these sorts of binaries between crooning Josh and screaming Nick, between translike minimalism and ass-kicking maximalism. And right now, we're kicking ass. I turned me through the desert of the mind with no hope. I could have played you the part where Josh sings about getting pills to swallow, but the desert keeps calling to me. Given the choice, Queen to the Stone Age would much rather be called desert rock than stoner rock. The desert is arguably the closest you can get on earth to feeling like you're on Mars. And that mastery of extremity, of multiple extremities, is what makes this band great. With Queen to the Stone Age, the minimalism feels more minimal and the maximalism feels more maximal. The crooning is more alluring and the screaming is more pleasantly alarming. As with the desert, this band runs both hotter and colder than you can possibly imagine. I have now written and spoken more than 10,000 words about this band. Just now, so I gotta leave you here with this endless, repetitive, blurry, bigfoot baseline and all the whimsy and darkness it implies. I hear this baseline now and I just picture myself roaming the desert, waiting for the spaceship to land, waiting for the one-inch-tall aliens to come out. Or maybe this baseline sends me all the way back to Little League, up to bat again with a chance to do it right this time. But, you know, it's me now doing Little League now. We are so delighted to be joined once again by Sean Fennessey, my colleague and friend and head of content here at The Ringer. He is the co-host of The Big Picture. He is coming to you live from the Criterion Closet, where he lives now. Sean, hello. Thank you for being here. Hello. Thank you for having me. I am surrounded as always by items purchased from Home Goods in the studio at The Ringer. It's a delightful setup. It's very visually appealing. It's very symmetrical. It's just soothing. It's a very soothing tableau. This is a very broad question and I apologize. But what do you primarily want in a rock band? Do you want them to look and sound cool? Do you want them to be heavy? Do you want them to say something lyrically, like a rage against the machine? What do you want out of a rock band, especially now? Well, I reject the premise of the question. I don't really enter into a relationship with a rock band wanting anything in particular, other than I suppose songs that I like, good songs. I think if you said what do you want from a heavy rock band, maybe I would be able to answer it a little bit more specifically. Queens of the Stone Age are very heavy. There's a way to think about them in that context. But what do Slayer and the Beatles and the Bangles have in common? They use melody and instruments, but that's three very different flavors of rock band, right? That's true. That's absolutely true. Okay, what do you want out of a heavy rock band? And what is it that Queens of the Stone Age do for you as the quintessential heavy rock band? Well, I think the thing that's great about them is that they can crush, right? They can do the thing that heavy rock bands do. They can hit you with a power chord and they can go riff crazy and they can bang the shit out of a drum. They've got a really cool and almost untouchably elevated lead singer. But the thing about them in particular Queens of the Stone Age that I like, that is different from other heavy bands, is that they can really swing, that they are really, really interested in groove and a certain kind of feel that very few bands that are doing what they do are even able to accomplish. And if you listen to like every Queens record, there's always three or four borderline dance songs. They're not using synthesizers, but the four, four beat that they're using is very dance coded, which is just really cool. Yeah, there's a swagger to them. And I think by design, like I think Josh, Hami has taught from the beginning, like he called it robot rock. He called it like trance dancing music, like sort of like can, but not really. But so that this is what he's been trying to do. And I think he would be relieved to know he is succeeding. Yeah, he's frequently basically called a continuation, a cousin of Crout Rock, which is very strange when you think about the image of the band, which is like surly leather jacket, desert stoner, you know, like it's a very unusual iconography that they have that has nothing to do with craft work. But they have a lot in common. It's very funny to me that you and I have talked on this show, if I remember correctly, about Pantera, rage against the machine, and now these guys. So I guess, is there anybody from the 90s or from, you know, the 2000s or from now similar to this, you know, do the Queens sort of stand alone in that combination of heaviness and swing, or is there sort of a precedence, you know, or a continuation now that you hear? Not really, you know. Yeah. I really feel like they are quite singular in a lot of ways. I think that their roots and Josh Hommie's interests and the way that they have evolved and yet stayed the same feels very unusual. I mean, you know, you've written thought and podcasted about the death or lack thereof of rock and roll, I'm sure, dozens of times, maybe hundreds of times. And yet this band is doing the exact same thing it was doing 25 years ago and doing it in some cases just as well. They don't really have peers. They certainly have other bands that have been active during that same run of time, but none of them sound like Queens, but Queens don't sound like some impossibly dynamic revolutionary machine. They're using old tools. They're using familiar sounds, modes, textures. But something's just a little different, you know, their essence is just a little different. Were you a kias guy? No. You know, were you following? Okay. Yeah. I sort of came, I knew a little of them, but I came to them in retrospect, right? Like I never really appreciated them fully until after Queens when I went back to the source. And I think that's probably a different vibe. I had never heard the word kias. Yeah. I had never heard the word kias until I heard Queens of the Stone Age. I still think that Josh, you know, I think a lot of course about rock stars of the nineties, you know, the brooding, you know, tortured Kurt Cobain, Eddie Vedder, et cetera, et cetera mode. And I think part of the appeal of this band's Queens from the very beginning, even in the late nineties was how different, how elevated, how swaggering, you know, how free Josh Homme seems in comparison. Does he seem like a different kind of rock star, you know, a 21st century sort of continuation? You know, do you see him as having roots, you know, in the nineties or even farther back? Or is he his own thing just as a front man? He strikes me as very much his own thing. I mean, I think at times he feels like a rockabilly guitar hero. I think at times he feels like a kind of Sabbath and Zeppelin style guitar God. I think his relationship with Mark Lanigan and Screaming Tree is obviously indicates that he is part of a lineage of sad grunge musicians, but being a desert kid just puts a completely different spin on that. And he's also, he's like a tall, handsome ginger, you know, like there's just not, this is kind of an odd archetype. He doesn't, he's not Kurt Cobain, you know what I mean? There's something a little bit more like I drink whiskey at noon about him. 9am. Yeah. Yeah, but not, but not 9am though. 9am is like you've got a problem. Noon is like, yeah, noon is cool. Yeah. Nine. Okay. Yeah. You know, nine is like you got to get your kids to school. Noon is like my kids are in school. It's fine. That's right. It's lunchtime for them. Yeah. I know, yes, I know exactly what you're saying. It's 4.30 where I am right now and I know exactly what you're saying. That's all I'll say. What was your, what was the first song or the first album that did it for you Queens wise? Do you sort of start with No One Knows? Do you start with Rated R? Like where do you get into this band? I started with Rated R. Our mutual friend, Ryan Dombal and I, we went to high school and he got Rated R. The day came out and I think maybe we had heard Feel Good Head of the Summer on K-Rock. Yeah. And we, I sat in his mom's living room and we listened to it for like four hours. And we were like, this is the best album I've heard in like three years. We were super hooked. I didn't know about the self-titled record before that. Did his mom come out with like snacks, like, like fruit roll-ups, you know, or pizza rolls or anything of this sort. I'd really like to add that to this scene if I might. Yeah. It was a big tray of Totino's and then it was another tray of Nilla wafers and a tall glass of skim milk. Yeah. I'm into it. That's wonderful. No better introduction to this band than that. I think that was the song for me too. I think Feel Good Head of the Summer and Rated R broadly was where I really came on board. And I always thought from the very beginning, like that's the quintessential example, but there's a lot of songs about drugs, you know, in this band's history. I've often wondered if like I'm hearing them differently or experience them differently because I am myself sober. I might even be listening to them wrong. You know, do you personally worry, you know, that we're getting a completely different experience because we ourselves are not necessarily on drugs when we listen to this? Not really. As you know, I'm not much of a drug user myself and never really have been. When I listen to Chaius, I feel like I'm not getting this because I'm not still. You know what I mean? Right. And I can feel the disconnect and the intent and the vibe that they're going for with those records. Whereas with the Queens records, I'm like, this is swing and dick, 70s rock and roll, you know, like it's just not that complicated. There are certainly other elements that are mixed into it. And there's like this almost kind of tropical feel across certain aspects of the of rated R. You know, there's some like doom metal that you can really find in songs for the deaf. So they're, you know, they're always intermixing a lot of different kinds of things, but it's like, I don't know, do you like T-Rex? Like there's just tons of T-Rex in there. You know what I mean? Like if you like that kind of stuff, that collision, the sort of the early 70s Bowie records, there's plenty of that in there. I mentioned Sabbath already. Like there's just a lot of forebearers, but there's not a lot of inheritors of that style of music. So like, I've never taken a Valium in my life. I don't, that's never impeded me digging on Feel Good Hit of the Summer. I love that song as much as I did when I was 17 years old. Yeah. Future podcast idea there is just you take a Valium and then just to see, to see what happens. Is Valium still in circulation? Is that like one of the leading anti-depressants still? Probably. I mean, we probably know a guy collectively. So yeah, we can make that happen. Who's selling it or who uses it? What did you mean by that? Either of those really, probably both. But yeah, just let's, I won't make you rank them or anything, but I was thinking like, I think songs for the deaf and rated are sort of my top tier of their records. But I love like clockwork so much. I love Lullabies to paralyze like little sister, like the cowbell. I love Aera vulgaris. Like I love all these different records for different reasons in different eras. And I wonder if you have a personal hierarchy or like a surprising favorite or anything of the sort. Rated R will always be my favorite, but my trilogy is the same as yours. I think like clockwork was them kind of like reclaiming the mantle. And that's also a little bit more of a mournful middle-aged record, which I really liked like a little bit of evolution from them. That's like a much more desperate album to me in some ways. And songs for the deaf, I think is like obviously the big breakthrough. And there are a lot of reasons for that. I think it's a much more accessible in some ways than rated R, which feels a bit chaotic and like hopscotch-ing stylistically. Whereas like songs for the deaf is this like driving forward machine of heavy rock. But the other thing is that I was just playing a lot of guitar hero at this time in my life. As were we all or as was I. And this is one of the signature contemporary guitar hero bands, you know, like they really had multiple songs on multiple editions of the game. And you know, I remember when Aero Volgaris came out, I was a little disappointed by it. And then I went to go visit my brother when he was going to Albany College in Albany. And I stayed with him and his degenerate friends for a weekend. And you know, they drank all night nicotine, valium, Vicodin, marijuana, X, and alcohol. And then they wake up in the morning and then they just listen to Neil Young records or play guitar hero. I love these guys are great guys. And threes and sevens. They're all senators. Yeah, seriously. And threes and sevens from Aero Volgaris was on Guitar Hero 3, I want to say. And I mastered playing that shit on that video game, like a Lord in 2007. You 100% of that shit? Sure. And I think I revived my love of that band, even though threes and sevens, you know, it has like three big records, six, six, six, make it with you and threes and sevens. But then it kind of got me back into them and I really haven't quit since. So I can listen to any of their albums and be happy. What a beautiful image that is you 100% threes and sevens. I smoked it. And a, and a, and a, and a dire off-campus house in Albany. That's it. With heart of golds playing softly in the background. That's great. That's a wonderful. Some kid crushing up valium in the other room. This girlfriend mournfully looking on. Yeah. That's right. They'll never grow up. I can fix them. There's, there's a lot of Dave Grohl crossover with songs for the deaf specifically. He's the drummer on the vast majority of it, of course, but you know, when people think of a week, what's the active, you know, alternative type rock band still doing it now. The Foo Fighters, you know, are the ones who are always up for Grammys or whatever. I guess do you see the Foo Fighters and Queens of the Stone is, do you see Dave Grohl is a rock front man and, and Josh Hami is a rock front man. Like, are they in conversation with each other? Are they sort of opposite ends of a spectrum? How do those two bands and those two guys harmonize or not in your head? Well, I don't, I don't really care for the Foo Fighters. I have nothing against them. I just, I've literally not since the first record have I been able to get really much interested in whatever it is that they do as a band. And I do quite like Dave Grohl as the avatar for mainstream rock and roll in America in the 21st century. I think he's done a nice job of being this like ambassadorial role. The thing is, when you see him play with this band or the spin-off band, them Kirk and Vultures, I'm like, that's, that is Dave Grohl's mission, his calling. This is what he was born to do. It's not be the front man of Foo Fighters. It is be the guy beating the living shit out of the drums behind Josh Hami and Troy in this band as they make like the most angry desert rock sound in the world. And I, I don't know that they're in conversation. I think it's cool that those guys are friends. They both share a kind of like, I think a sense of mischief around rock and roll that they're not like, they don't, they don't seem depressed. You know what I mean? Their music is not defined by their sadness. They might be angry sometimes. They might want to break some shit sometimes, but mostly what they want to do is rock hard. And I really like them playing together. I would much rather listen to Queens than the Foo's though. Sure. I think I saw them crooked Vultures at Rose Land. I want to say, it's John Paul Jones. It is. Yeah, I saw them at Rose Land and that was rad. I was like, seeing that is Dave Grohl's true calling. I think that's a useful way of framing. I saw them live too. It's cool the other stuff he does. Yeah. I mean, he's a madman with them crooked Vultures. And you could tell how fired up he was playing with John Paul Jones. Right. Yeah. The joy that he brings. And I think it makes a lot of sense what you're saying also that they're just not sad. I think when I think about how opposed Josh Hami seems to any 90s rock star that I worshiped, you know, Chris Cornell, Kurt Cobain, whoever, that's the difference. He's enjoying himself, which was just not the vibe I got from anybody else in real time in the 90s. And it's not that I don't think that Hami is necessarily lacking vulnerability in the way that he writes or sings. I think he can be pretty vulnerable, but he feels impenetrable. Like there's a kind of statuesque quality to him that like Chris Cornell is just, if you looked into his eyes, you'd be like, I can see that man's entire soul and the way it is dissolving into molecules in real time. And with Josh Hami, I'm like, is that guy mad at me? Like I don't really know what I'm... He might be. And he might be. And that's cool. Yeah, it is cool. You mentioned to me the loose confederation of membership of Queens. Like obviously Nick Oliveire was a key component of Rated R and Songs for the Deaf. And then he leaves and I, you know, just the Wikipedia page of this band is just bonkers. You know, it's clearly just Josh Hami and whoever you want's hanging around him. Like do you see that as a feature or a bug, you know, that amidst this consistency that they have, like the lineup, you know, and the sound being generated by that lineup can change completely from record to record. Yeah. It's obviously Josh's show. I think that Nick Oliveire was frankly more definitional of the band when they first hit the scene because of the way that he operated. He had this kind of like raging caveman quality. Parking. Yeah. It's like the shouting and he had the like the death metal growl that he would hit on songs and he had the, you know, spiked goatee. The goatee is very important to the whole package. And he was often shirtless and often pantsless while performing with the bass strapped around his body. You know, he seems like a kind of a complicated guy and maybe not such a nice guy. So it's a little hard to look back to fondly on that time, but they made a big nasty sound together and the kind of like the wild man and the cool front man is a tale as old as time obviously in terms of the dynamic fire and ice. Yeah. Yes. But they made plenty of great records without him. So I like that it is this rotating cast of guys who were up for it. It's always like some, some guy who played third guitar on a perfect circle is now the lead guitarist for Queens of the Stone Age. And I'm like, all right, sounds good. I'm sure he's good too. You know, you just imagine there's like somewhere between 27 and 84 guys who could just crush with this band if they meet Josh on the right day. And I'm fine with that. Sure. It's just a, it's a money ball type situation. You know, he's, he's exploiting market inefficiencies and fine bass players. And you know, Nick Oliver, he looks like Kevin Euclis, the Greek god of walks when you really think about it. I've never had that specific thought, but I'll take your word for it. And I think that fortifies exactly what we're saying. Just to wrap up here, I am I correct in stating that you personally recently saw Josh Hami in person at a diner feeding pancakes to his children. Not to be too intrusive to him, but like, tell me about the experience of just seeing this person out in public. Yeah, I think it was pre COVID. So I want to say it was 2019. But it was, it was, it was, it was at the one on one coffee shop in Los Angeles, legendary Hollywood joint recently revived. And yeah, he was there with his two kids. I think he has two kids or he's there with two kids and each person had a giant plate of pancakes. And my honest reaction was that looks wonderful. Those pancakes look great. It seemed like a nice dad. Once again, I didn't have kids at the time. Now that I have a daughter, one of my favorite things to do is just go out and get breakfast with her at a diner. So I don't know. It seems like a cool guy. He is like extremely tall and ginger. So right that he stuck out like a sore thumb at the one on one just striking just heads scraping the roof. But I didn't do the like, Hey, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I just love your work and threes and sevens changed my life in Albany or whatever. Like I didn't do that. I could have done it. I could have said that to him. You have, you have the guitar hero case that you would have him sign. I have done this three times a day. I just hope he's in a good mood or he will throw you out the window of the pancake establishment. And that'll be the greatest thing that ever happened to you. I do think he probably, he probably throws like a mean punch. Um, do you, you probably just like recited like 10,000 words about Queens, but what do you, what do you think makes Queens different? Like, why do they, I think my contention is they're the, the only consistently good rock band for 25 straight years. Like, is that a crazy thing to say? I try and avoid crazy hyperbolic things like that, but I agree with you at the same time. You know, there are plenty of sort of one offs. Like I think if I think of rock records from this century, those far that I look, I think of like Titus Andronicus, right? I think of the monitor, but like they've made some other good records, but nothing on that scale. Right? You know, like I, I dug the strokes, the white stripes, et cetera, you know, as much as anybody, you know, I, I saw Queens tour with, and you will know us by the trail of dead in the very early 2000s. And I think that band had a really great run of several records for a little while, but I, I think you have to go to, you get a, you got to get pretty weird, like, wean, not necessarily on record, but as a live experience. I have seen wean live several times in the last 20 years, and there's a consistency there. And obviously a great variance in what they do and how they do it and who they're doing it with. Like, I know that Josh Hami likes that band a lot. And I think that they're almost a greater point of comparison with Queens than even like the Foo Fighters or even any of the other big names. You know, like, I, I think I agree with you as hyperbolic as it sounds that I think Queens really stand alone, you know, as being both like a mainstream, but also an often really weird and unexpected, you know, prospect as a rock band to do both of either of those things really well, let alone both at the same time. I think they stand alone. I think that's right. I think you nailed it. There is something, I mean, this positively conventional about what they're doing and accessible, but not cookie cutters and not, you know, it is clearly from an art, a real artist point of view and comes from a sincere place. I saw them, the last time I saw them was 2014 at Coachella. I'd only been to Coachella one time. I went to go see Outcast and they played that year. Remember that year, right? That was the same year that the replacements played. So I went to see the replacements and Outcast reunite and it was very, very important to me. I'm a huge replacements fan, huge outcast fan, real collision of events, scenes like Coachella not really that important to me, but by far the best set I saw was Queens. Queens played the second night at the like 7pm slot just as the sun was going down. Sun said I was going to say. Yes. Yeah, they fucking annihilated it. They were so good and it was right out in the aftermath of like clockwork and they played all those, all those records and then, you know, on the on-core played half of rated R. And they were just tip top guys in their 40s just destroying all the young kids at Coachella and I will not forget that. And I'm glad that they're still going. I'm glad that he's still doing his thing because he's rare. This has been wonderful, Sean. We got to get together sometime and play Guitar Hero 3 or Rock Band. Let's get together. Let's form a rock band band with Ryan Dombo and whoever you want. Let's get some Titino's out there. Yeah, no doubt. I haven't had a pizza roll in 9 on 20 years and that's an experience I'd like to have with my good friends. Thank you so much, Sean. Thanks, Rob. Thanks to our guest this week, Sean Fennessy. Thanks to our producers, Justin Sales, Bobby Wagner and Jonathan Kerma. Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help and thanks very much to you for listening. And now let's all go listen to No One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age. See you next week.