

Latest Release

- JUN 16, 2023
- 10 Songs
- Songs for the Deaf · 2002
- Villains · 2017
- Songs for the Deaf · 2002
- Era Vulgaris · 2007
- Songs for the Deaf · 2002
- ...Like Clockwork · 2013
- Songs for the Deaf · 2002
- Lullabies to Paralyze · 2005
- Rated R (Deluxe Edition) · 2000
- ...Like Clockwork · 2013
Essential Albums
- Queens’ third album is a pitch-perfect blend of garage rock, heavy metal, and psychedelia played with plenty of muscle and a devilish sense of humor. Old-fashioned without ever sounding like a throwback, aggressive but groovy, the album is framed as a broadcast from some distant desert radio station—a nod to the band’s roots in Palm Desert, CA, where everything feels severe, sunbaked, and just a little weird. With Dave Grohl on drums and appearances by Dean Ween and Mark Lanegan, this is about as good as serious 21st-century rock gets.
- With album number two, Queens of the Stone Age opened up their sound to include the psychedelic desert heat surrounding them. The heaviness still comes grinding out of “Quick and to the Pointless.” But the inclusion of Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan adds a bluesy soulfulness to the grooves and the fuzztones and expanded arrangements make for a band going far beyond the stoner rock roots of Kyuss. This 2010 “Deluxe Edition” includes a ton of bonus material. The live tracks from the 2000 Reading Festival prove what a knockout live band could pull off, as tracks such as “Ode to Clarissa” (a b-side also included here in its studio version), “Better Living Through Chemistry” and “The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret” never sounded more demanding. The b-sides and outtakes get pretty wild, too. Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never” and the Kinks’ “Who’ll Be The Next In Line” are not so much covers but reinventions. “You Can’t Quit Me, Baby” is the sound of the boogieing apocalypse coming to an iPod near you.
Albums
- 2017
- 2013
- 2007
- 2002
- 2023
- 2023
- 2023
- 2023
Artist Playlists
- Exploring the frontiers of desert rock.
- QOTSA's influence cuts across alt-rock and modern metal.
- One of stoner rock's most eccentric bands.
- Listen to the hits performed on their blockbuster tour.
- Inspirations as eclectic as their career and collaborations.
Live Albums
Radio Shows
- Josh Homme breathes life into his broad musical tastes.
- Conversation around QotSA's album 'In Times New Roman...'
- Joshua Homme on "Paper Machete."
- Playing past hits in anticipation of their eighth studio album.
- Joshua is joined by his daughter Camille for the season finale.
- Joshua selects songs to encourage quarantine babies.
- Joshua is back with a quarantine edition of The Alligator Hour.
- Joshua returns for a quarantine edition of the Alligator Hour.
About Queens of the Stone Age
Had it not been for Queens of the Stone Age, stoner rock may have stayed an underground phenomenon. However, the California band’s early-2000s hits, including the choppy hard rocker “No One Knows” and the raucous, cowbell-driven “Little Sister,” brought scuzzy riffs and sleazy grooves mainstream. Vocalist/guitarist Josh Homme formed Queens of the Stone Age after the breakup of his band Kyuss, an act that had embodied the heavy, hazy desert-rock scene of the ’90s. Homme’s new group continued the fuzzy vibes and landed a major-label record deal for their second album, 2000’s Rated R, which contained the debauched scorcher “Feel Good Hit of the Summer.” With the success of Songs for the Deaf in 2002 and Lullabies to Paralyze in 2005—the former with Dave Grohl on drums, the latter their first album to feature current guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen—Queens of the Stone Age grew into one of the biggest hard-rock bands going. Thanks to the addition of players such as keyboardist Dean Fertita, the band have maintained a lofty reputation while continuing to experiment, as on 2017’s grimy blues jaunt “The Way You Used to Do,” from the Grammy-nominated Villains LP. Homme has also continued to use his Desert Sessions album series, which he records with a revolving collective of friends and collaborators, to workshop ideas that then get sculpted into proper songs for their official albums; one such standout is the falsetto-fied funk seduction of “Make It Wit Chu.”
- HOMETOWN
- Palm Desert, CA, United States
- FORMED
- 1996