No Filler Music Podcast - Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf

Episode Date: September 29, 2019

On this jam-packed episode, we worship at the alter of desert deity Josh Homme with our deep dive into Queens of the Stone Age and their 2002 release Songs For The Deaf. In a year with such a wide spectrum for rock music (from Papa Roach to The White Stripes, and Avril Lavigne to Wilco), Songs For The Deaf reminded us that rock can still be heavy, while simultaneously providing some of the catchiest hooks in recent memory. You'll hear clips from the recording sessions, interviews with Homme that dive into his unique guitar sound, and a conversation with producer Eric Valentine that delves deep into the mics and pedals that were used to achieve the guitar sound on the record. There's a lot to cover on this episode, so strap in and crank up the volume as we drive into the desert with Queens of the Stone Age. Episode Tracklist 1. Song For The Dead 2. The Sky Is Fallin' 3. Six Shooter 4. Do It Again 5. Song For The Deaf 6. Hanging Tree Check out more great music podcasts on Pantheon: www.pantheonpodcasts.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's songs for the death. You can't even hear it. And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often over overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. I've got my brother, Quentin, here with me as always. Q.

How's it going? Oh, it's going great now, dude. I've been waiting for this day since we started this podcast, dude. I'm so pumped to talk about Queens of the Stone Age. Yeah, this is going to be a doozy of an episode, dude. I got all sorts of stuff lined up for this. So yes, today we're talking about Queens of the Stone Age and their 2002 record songs for the death, which in my book is one of the greatest rock records of all time. It's one of my favorite, I mean, like it's, if I were to really sit down and concentrate on like a top 10 records like that impacted my life, you know, this is on that list.

for sure. Yep. Yeah. I think so do for for a few reasons. But now I we'll get into that in a little bit. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, this was kind of one of my sort of like gateway drugs, if you will, like stepping stones toward becoming like more of a metal fan, you know? Well, yeah, actually, that's what I was going to say. Like this is for sure. But you say that this is the heaviest that you, that you, like, you know, because you've said on the record plenty of times that you're not much of a fan of metal. Right. But there are definitely moments of metal throughout this album, you know?

Yeah. And this is one of those records that you love. So this is 2002. I'm pretty sure one of us picked this up pretty much, like around the time it came out. Yeah. And yeah. So that intro song that we played in as track two on this record, this. Well, no, it's track.

It's track one. Oh, that's right. That's right. The first, the first one is actually like a. hidden track, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, okay. That's the first song that I actually enjoyed where it's predominantly just screaming vocals. Like, I remember that moment. Because before that, you know, that's something I would just turn off immediately. That's just something that I didn't understand. This is the first album where I started to get into it and like totally appreciate it.

The name of that track is, you think I ain't worth a dollar, but I feel like a millionaire. and that's Nick Elevary on the vocals, who's also the bass player throughout this record. And yeah, and what's interesting about this, and we'll get into all of this, is that prior to the songs starting, is that little radio segment. And that's sort of a theme that plays throughout this record. And there's sort of a, I have a clip of Josh explaining the reasoning behind that, and we'll play that later. but basically this this album is a concept album

with that radio backing track as sort of like the thread that ties the whole album together but anyway we'll get into all that later okay so where do we start like I feel like I've got so much to talk about that I'm fearful that I'm gonna step out of of order here and like jump the gun and get

let's talk desert rock how about that we'll start there Okay, so here's the thing. I was actually thinking about this. Next week we're going to talk about Caius, right? Yeah. And that is Josh Holmes band before Queens of the Stone Age. Okay. So it's kind of, you know, usually we talk about the history of a band or a history of the musicians in the band. We can't really do that on this episode without just doing next week's episode, right? Okay. So we're just going to, we're going to do like a really quick cursory glance at what was happening before Queen of the Stone Age, and then we'll dive more more into it next week. But basically what you need to know, desert rock is this sort of underground movement of

rock and roll that was happening in the 90s basically out in the California desert in like Coachella Valley, Sky Valley. There's even, and that's actually the name of one of the Caius records, it's called Welcome to Sky Valley. And anyway, so basically what was happening, these desert communities out in California were kind of like retirement communities, right? So a lot of, you know, older people would come there in the winters, you know, and play golf and whatever, right?

And so like, there were no rock and roll clubs in the desert. it was like, you know, there were some like disco and dance clubs, but there was no rock and roll venues. And so these teenagers would basically sort of as a way to like rebel against their community basically that they were in. They would start to play, you know, form these rock groups and play in their garages or, you know, in some instances, just bring a generator into the park. parking lot and play a show. So like there's a story from this band, this early desert rock band called Solar Feast. They didn't have any venues to play at and they wanted to get out of their garage. And so they just took a generator and their amps and their equipment and just set up in this parking lot and like 100 people showed up to hear them play. And then the police showed up and

stopped them. Right. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. I mean, it's really, really is like it's the sort of the spirit of like punk rock right and a lot of this desert rock movement you know spawned from fans of punk rock like the misfits and black flag yeah and so josh home was part of part of that that movement right so he was in um this sort of legendary iconic desert rock band called caius and we're going to do an episode on them next week that's going to be our side track. So we'll leave it at that. But to start on Queensland Stone Age, or to get to Queensland Stone Age, like I said, Caius was Josh Holmes first band that he formed with other members of the Desert Rock movement. In 1995, the band broke up, and Josh Holmes

briefly joined screaming trees as a touring guitarist. Oh, sweet. I didn't know that. So that's where their connection to Mark Lannigan comes in. And they can. And they can, he formed a new band called Gamerae, and they released an EP called Gamma Ray. But there was a German power metal band called Gamma Ray that threatened to sue them over the name. So in 1997, they changed the name to Queens of the Stone Age. And so there's a really cool quote I got here that's actually from Josh Home on the name. He says, Kings would be too macho. the kings of the Stone Age wear armor and have axes and wrestle.

The Queens of the Stone Age hang out with the Kings of the Stone Age's girlfriends when they wrestle. Now, here's the important part. He says, rock should be heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls. That way everyone's happy and it's more of a party. Kings of the Stone Age is too lopsided. That's awesome. And I think that that captures the sound of Queens of the Stone Age perfectly. Yeah.

It's heavy and sweet, right? It's got like, you know, a lot of the, and you're going to hear that on this record. And throughout the entire Queens of Stone Age, like discography, he's always sort of doing what's not expected with rock and like sort of flipping rock and roll on its head, you know, and doing things and taking it to places that aren't expected. Yeah, let me quote someone from Pitchfork real quick that wrote a review on this album when it came out. And he's talking about track one that we've introed in with, but I think it works for the whole album. He says, it's riddled with decades-old metal cliches. But the queens know what their audience expects, and they use this knowledge to continually twist rock stereotypes into a vicious full Nelson until they beg for mercy. It's fantastic, and this is just the first track.

Decades-old cliches. It's like they know what they're doing, you know? Like it's like they're purposely feeding into these stereotypes. I love it. Yeah. No, and that's a thing. And what that radio, you know, that radio broadcast theme that runs throughout the album, it's supposed to be, actually, you know what, let's let's let Josh explain that to us.

So we've got a clip here from, there's these videos that are on YouTube that you can find. There's like four of them where it's sort of. home videos of the recording sessions, right? So this is Josh sort of explaining the radio thing. It's not to be taken literally, unless you're stupid. Yeah, I mean, it's all the drive from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree and switching stations along the way listening to, listen to the radio. It's what our version of the radio would sound like.

And with three singers and all the different guests and stuff like that, the music's so, kind of varied all over the place that it seemed like it needed something to bring it all together. Okay, so there you go. Basically, this is a concept album. Let's say you're starting in L.A., you turn the radio on, and you're driving to the desert, Josh Ritchardtree. Yeah. And this is the radio station that they wish existed, right?

But it starts by saying, you know, in that very opening clip, you know, and what you'll hear is like, throughout the album, it sounds like they're switching the station. stations, right? But you start in LA, which is sort of where, you know, the glam metal that Grunge was sort of, you know, rebelling against in a way, right? Right. Started in, you know, Sunset Strip and stuff in L.A., right? So that's called clone radio, right?

The DJ. KLON. KLON, clone radio, right? We sound more like everyone else than anyone else. That's great. So, like, you're starting in L.A. And you're driving into the desert and the music is taking you there. So let's, before we play the first clip, there is a article that I read from Spin called Gone with the Flow.

It's basically a review of the album 10 years later. And this guy does a perfect job painting a picture of the landscape in rock and roll in 2002. Hybrid Theory by Lincoln Park. Oh, God. weathered by Creed Silver Side Up by Nickelback Let Go by Averillivine Right so that's what's dominating the charts in 2002

Man But then he also did a great job Sort of talking about the flip side And this is the kind of stuff that we were into Interpol Yeah yeah yeah's The Hives, the Flaming Lips Wilco and the white stripes

They're all putting out music around the same time So like rock and roll really was this like I think we've said it before. It's like, you know, it was a really interesting time for you and I to be listening to rock music because it was sort of like the last hurrah of rock music in the mainstream. Like a little, like a resurgence of like the garage rock sound. Yeah.

Yeah. But Queens of Stoney, it's like, it's like this record fits. It's almost like it's just perfect to just insert itself into this landscape. because the way that they sort of flipped rock and roll stereotypes on its hit and how heavy it was. I mean, the fact that an album like this with like, they had three singles on this record, no one knows, first it giveth and go with the flow. The fact that no one knows got radio play and had an MTV music video, it's such a heavy song. Yeah.

Go with the flow was pretty big too. I remember the music video for that one. Yeah, they're like driving through the desert, right? Yeah. Anyway, all right, so let's name the roster off real quick. There's actually quite a bit of musicians that play a part in this record. Yeah. And that was kind of part of it.

And that's what he was saying, what Josh was saying in that little interview clip where he was seeing. Yeah, that's smart of them to do that to kind of tie it all together because it does almost sound like different bands throughout the album. Yeah, and it really does sound like your, and there's so many different sounds and like songs, song styles on this record that it. It does sound like you're flipping the dial on a radio station, right? But the main players are Josh Homme, obviously vocals, guitar, Nick Alivari, who sings on, you think I ain't worth a dollar, but I feel like a millionaire. He also sings on Six Shooter. So he's the one with the, he just fucking belts out the screams. Yeah, but he's got this really interesting dichotomy because he does the screaming like that.

but then he also, he sings lead vocals on gonna leave you in another love song. Yeah. Nice. So he's actually got a really decent singing voice. But anyway, he's also the bass player. And then you've got, of course,

now we haven't even mentioned this yet. One of the greatest parts of this record is that you've got Dave Grohl behind the drum kid. And I guess we can get into the story behind that in a little bit if you want. So obviously, I don't think we need to explain this. But Dave Grohl is, of course, front man of foo fighters and the drummer for nirvana.

Yeah. If you don't know that, I don't know. I don't know what to say. And then Mark Lanigan on vocals. And if you don't know who Mark Lannigan is, we actually did a sidetrack episode on him that was the sidetrack to our foo fighters episode early on. Early on.

So if you want to go back. Two years ago. Yeah. So Mark Lannigan was the lead singer, for screaming trees, they were a band out of Seattle, and he also does his own solo stuff now. Yeah, so as we mentioned, Josh Holm was a touring guitar player for screaming trees briefly before forming Queens of Stony. So that's how that partnership came up. There's a ton of other musicians that show up on this record, and I'll sort of shout them out with the songs that we play.

but anyway let's get to the first song and it's actually the perfect song for us to play for our first clip because it's Mark Lannigan singing and

it's got I think some of Dave girls' best drumming on the record as well Oh yeah so this song is called Song for the Dead and it's track four and we're going to sort of chop this up a little bit and play a few clips

but let's play the very first part of this and maybe into the first verse and chorus and then we'll stop. So the drumming intro is an homage to a black flag song called Slip It In. And I actually want to play it real quick here because I think you're going to find it interesting. But it's hard to say if this was Josh Homme or Dave Grohl that sort of wanted to slip this in, if you will. Oh, man.

But I know that Josh Hohm was a black flag fan when he was growing up, so it might have been him. But let's play it. This is from their 1984 album of the same name. So let's just play this real quick. Yeah, that's awesome. Dude, I bet Dave was a black flag fan as well. Oh, sure, sure, yeah. But anyway, that comes back in the outro, too.

We'll hear it again. All right, so let's play the next clip from this song. But before we do that, I want to play a note. clip from the recording sessions from from those that sort of home video footage that you can find on YouTube and it's it's really it's really cool that this was captured on film because it's it's all four of the guys sort of doing the song as in like you know so nick illiveri josh home mark lannick and dave girl the recording the right there with the song and josh home is sort of explaining to Grohl, like how he wants this certain drum fill to sound.

And it's just, it's really cool. So let's play that. First two verses, there's two times that we'll kind of meet to do. Yeah. And the first one, it alternates. The first one's like a fall apart one that's like, like a bonehead one. And then the next one's a little bit more focused one.

Like a do your thing, peeps. Like, but try to use less finesse. Like, even if it slows it down and you... To make it fucked up sound? Yeah, like... But more like no wrist, like, but, you know what I mean? Just... And then we do it on the fourth line,

or after the fourth line, to bring in the next chorus. Okay. So it's on the one and on the sixth one. Okay. And that one's a focus one? eight of just kind of jamming around and then it goes back to four that kind of rope it in again

and then from there it alternates you should you should say when you're going to when you're cueing them just say fuck up or focus okay all let's just go through it yeah how cool is that right because it's kind of

it's kind of funny to think of of Josh Holm telling Dave Grohl how he should play drums right But, I mean, you know, he's basically saying, hey, you know, Dave, be sloppy. Be sloppy for this. Just for this one part, you know, because, and what you'll hear throughout the song, you'll hear it on the next clip, these really sweet little guitar fills and drum fills that happen

after almost every verse or every part of Mark sings, and then they do this little fill. And one of them is sort of more, this sort of sloppy thing that he saw. talking about or fucked up as they said. Yeah. And they sort of alternate between fucked up or focused, as they say. But anyway, he was basically trying to get Dave Grohl to like not be less precise. Yeah. Which is probably really hard to tell Dave Grohl to be less precise because he's such a

precision like machine drummer, you know. Yeah. Especially on this record and you'll hear it on the very end of the song. saying like use less wrists you know like just be sloppy with it and it was like struggling with it we'll put the video we'll put the video on the on our show notes page on the website um but it's really really cool to see that you know because how often do you get to see a band you know during the recording session you know right like working out the king talk and collaborate and say like hey you know just yell fucked up or focused you know so we can know which one to do like it's just

really cool to hear that kind of stuff All right, so anyway, now that we've heard that, let's play our second clip for song for The Dead, and this is going to play from the guitar solo to the end of the song. I mean, it's like you've got to get up and take a break, like walk around, you know, and like take a breather from the assault, you know?

Man, that gets me every time, dude, that drum solo at the end. Unbelievable. So, yeah, it's one of those things it's like, I don't know what to say. What I like about that at the very end where there's sort of that, you know, the outro of the song, right? Like you said, sort of that black flag drum beat again, right?

Yeah. Where they stop and then you actually can hear Dave Grohl say, hey! And then they come back in. Yeah, he does the little like floor tom fill. But I just love that you can hear Dave Girl's voice for just a split second. Totally.

I think he does backing vocals on some other tracks, but like... I wonder if he's doing some of the ooze and oz in the background throughout that song. You know, like the kind of ghoulish sounding like... It's possible. Yeah. I like that part in the song. He's just listed as backing vocals. You don't really know where...

They don't list the specific tracks, but I mean, I have no reason to... Yeah. It probably is him. Anyway, so those little guitar fills throughout the whole song are, you know, there's one in particular that happens and that second club that we played that, like, I just, I love it every time. Oh, me too, man. Let's play it again. I know exactly what it is. I was looking at the time.

Do you really know exactly? It's my favorite too. All right. It's around here. That one. Yeah, dude. That's the one. So good.

Yeah. Anyway, you just get these. sweet little tiny little bite-sized licks like that just throughout the whole song. Is that all Josh or is the other? Yeah, it's all Josh. Okay.

It's all Josh. Now, when they tour, they have another guy that plays with them, but... Gotcha. Anyway, and that guitar solo itself is just amazing. So, Josh Holm has this very, very distinct guitar style,

guitar sound. And so there's this really cool video series the advice put together called guitar moves hosted by a guy named Matt Sweeney who's actually worked with Josh on some queen stuff before

but anyway he has this series called guitar moves where he interviews guitar players and he did an episode a few of those yeah they're great yeah they're awesome so he does an episode with Josh

and man if you're a guitar player you've got to watch it because Josh goes through quite a bit of like his test technique and like how he got his sound. And he starts off by saying that, well, Matt, Matt asks him, hey, you know, like, did you take guitar lessons when you're a kid or what?

And he said that he, there was basically the only guy in the desert that taught guitar was a polka music instructor. So Josh's first guitar lessons were from a polka guitar instructor. Polka guy. So he learned the polka, you know, the, sort of that, that distinct polka rhythm. Polka. Right, exactly. Anyway, but he took some, some things away from that. But let's play track one, or clip one from this interview. But it's just Josh talking about sort of how he plays chords and what he does in particular with his chord playing. And I'll say one of the things that Tom Polanski, the guy's name was, I don't know, people used to call these Ramon's chords, these, just the two fingers. But I never learned that way.

It was always all the way across, all the time, always in major. I started picking up, you know, the octave finger. You hear it ringing. Yeah, yeah. But I started to say, wow, this could be my thing. And again, and that's a subtractive move. you're taking out a note of the chord. Basically, most of my playing is about taking something away.

So right there what he said, most of my playing is about taking something away. He goes on in this interview to talk about how he sort of takes the blues scale and adjusts it slightly by taking away a note from it. So that's how he gets sort of this, you know like I said earlier what he's done and what he made a thing of doing was taking sort of the expected rock

or blues structures or sounds or whatever and and just like taking away something from them to make them sort of like this like off kilter not what you expect sound right? Yeah I like it. That's Queens of the Stone Age man. Right exactly and that's kind of the whole

the whole thing with this with this album and and just the the sound of the band you know all right so before we play the next song from this album uh let's take a quick break and we'll be right back and we're back so we're going to go to the very next track after song for the dead um and i think this will kind of showcase the varying sounds of this band right because that was that's one of the heaviest songs on the record song for the dead. But it plays right into this next track, like beautifully. This one is called The Sky is Fallen. Okay, so, you know, with those backing vocals that kind of start the song off, you know,

I feel like something, there's something about the Queens of the Stone Age music, and it's true on almost every record. Like you almost feel like you're you're in this like I don't know like this fun house or something like that you know or like this weird like like dream state maybe yeah no I know what you're saying no fun house is a good way to to describe it and that kind that kind of backing you know ooze and Oz were in song for the dead too right but anyway um that's josh home singing and um coming straight off of the mark lannigan vocals from song for the dead like a It really is, it showcases how this record goes from heavy to soft, just like what he was saying with like rocks should be, quote, heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls, right? Yeah, dude, and then the next song is Six Shooter. Right, and then followed by Hanging Tree, which is another Marri Lannigan song.

So it's like, you know, that is what makes Queens of the Stone Age so unique, you know, like such a It always feels like a collective And it's always been a collective Yeah and I know on Lullabies to Paralyze the next album Isn't Billy Gibbons on there? Wow, it's funny you should mention

Billy Gibbons here because I've got another clip from that interview he did with the guitar moves guy Let's play the next clip from this song and then I'm going to play another snippet from that interview where Josh talks about Anyway, I'll explain it later

But let's hear the guitar solo During the end of the song And then I want to hear Let's play Literally to the end of the song So we can hear another segment of that That radio Okay, can I listen to a six-shooter dude

Yeah That's fine We can listen to six-shooter Good, I feel like listening to it man It's Makes you want to punch a wall or something Well, yeah Let's, all right, so this will be a lengthy clip, but we'll go from the rest of this track into the radio interlude, which plays into Sixth Shooter.

As Josh was saying, like, that's the whole idea behind this album. Yeah. It's like you're flipping through your stations. All right. So let's pick back up where we left off. KR. D.O. Elastic ass with you here in Chino Hill is the last frontier. That's where we're at. I spot music for you.

This is a millionaire. Queens of the Stone Age. A song about something they'll never be. Okay, so you heard like three DJs there kind of like as they're, you know, switching through the stations. The first guy who said he was DJ Elastic Ass, of Curdle 109, was actually the voice of Chris Goss, which was one of the producers on the record. Oh, cool.

But he also did backing vocals on track five, which is what we just played. He did backing vocals on Sky Has Fallen. I like it was called a curdle. We spoil music for everyone or whatever, like spoiled milk. Yeah, exactly. And then the guy that said all death metal all the time. Some guy named Casey Chaos, who is a, just another, like a punk rock musician. So, yeah, these guys that did these little radio spots were all, or all like musicians or like, you know, players from the, from the Josholm, you know, circle or whatever.

But anyway, yeah, so he says all death metal all the time and then it transitions into a song called Six Shooter, where they're talking about death and killing and shooting, right? So that was obviously on purpose, right. But anyway, Nick Oliveri, as we mentioned before, is the bass player throughout the record. but he also shows up as the vocalist on four tracks, one of which was this one that we just played a snippet of Sixthier where he's doing sort of that death metal scream, right? But he also shows up later on the record singing in sort of his normal singing voice. So it's interesting to hear, I don't think we're going to actually play any of his normal singing voice, quote, unquote.

But anyway, all right, so before we play our next song, because you had mentioned Billy Gibbons earlier. Let me play another clip from this interview. A couple of clips. Okay, so he is talking about sort of some of his early influences, one of them being Billy Gibbons and then the other being Jimmy Hendricks. And he shows this really interesting sort of the difference between the two and how they would play the same kind of bend.

Like, you know, when you bend a string, Q? Did I lose you? I know. I know, yes, dude. I'm well aware of bending strings on guitars. Okay. Anyway, I think this is really, really interesting. I've never once heard of a Gwartar.

What's a Guitar? That's... So what, no? All right, play the second clip. Hendricks and Gibbons had this thing that I noticed that were backwards of each other. One of the reasons I really want to jam with Billy is I was like, you have to show me what it is. It's more than that. What is this? Because he would always be playing. He would go, you know? But I was like, that's not it, you know? And it was this...

Oh, he does that move? Not only does he do that move, he does a single tap. You know, he was like, oh, let me show it was a... Oh, I see. But he'd be ripping through this thing and just do that in the middle of it. And when he showed me, I literally was like, you're fucking kidding me, that's it? Where I least would expect it's a tap. Right, right, right.

A tap is considered vulgar. For blues, certainly, you know. Okay, so because you couldn't see it, basically what he's doing is he's bending the string up and then tapping with one finger, you know, like a couple frets higher to get that higher note. Right? So that's all I need to explain on that. And then we'll play the next clip here. And he's going to talk about how Jimmy Hendricks would do the same thing

and how he would approach it a little bit differently. What was the other bend that we're doing? Well, but so the Hendrix bend is, it's this backwards. It's like if you're already up and but you don't know. You're bending up from this. Are they the exact same thing or are they polar opposites? No, but they work the same function. One guy goes, hey, do.

And the other one goes, he-doo! Right. You know? It was this moment where I was like, I'm going to make these part of my thing too, you know? Man, I was enjoying his guitar voice there. Dude, you can hear that in song for the dead. You can hear those guitar moves.

Right, right. But what's interesting is like when he was vocalizing it there at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He sings like that too sometimes. Like, that's sort of, he's done that vocally too. But anyway, that combined with the earlier clip where he was talking about how he subtracts notes from the blues scale and stuff like that and chords. It's showing you how like what makes Josh Homme such a unique guitar player and such a great musician is like how he sort of took and combined different. Like just he's literally just talking about one, one.

little style or technique from Billy Gibbons and Jimmy Hendricks and how he sort of grabbed both of them and has used them. And he didn't work with Billy Gibbons until like you said, until Lullabies for Paralyzed. So that was after this record.

And that's what makes music so great, man. Always just pulling from the past and making something new with it. Okay. So let's go to the next track. Something about this record and I've heard a couple of people like sort of mentioned this. I were like there's the first half of the record and then there's the second half, right?

And there's like these three songs and on the second half go with the flow, which is a single. Yeah. Gonna leave you and do it again which are almost more like poppy rock songs if you will. More like traditional sounding rock songs and I think that's kind of interesting.

There's like the four on the floor drum beat too like there's nothing yeah. Yeah. And if you're fancy about it. If you're driving from from L.A. to the desert and you're switching stations. Like you're going to hear some more straightforward rock stuff, right? And maybe that's the idea behind these songs. But anyway, like when I think about the great tracks on this record,

these three don't ever really come up in my head. Same. But I wanted to showcase sort of, I wanted to showcase one of those songs just so we can hear it. And I think this is a great song. I think Do It Again is a great song. This one's more like an almost like an arena rock song with the shouts in the background. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of it, but let's give it a listen. But here's the thing,

though. I think there's a really interesting sort of like interlude, like change that happens in the middle of the song. So we'll hear that too. But yeah, let's just, let's play the song. So this is called Do It Again. Okay. So like, like, you know, it's a pretty straightforward rock song, but it's still got that Queens flared to it because it's Josh doing his really cool, like when his voice gets a little bit higher, right? But it's cool, right? I like it. And I feel like I might be hearing some Dave Grohl harmonies with him and that one. Sure, yeah. But yeah, to your point, like in the very beginning,

we're like, hey, it almost sounds like that freaking song, man. Dara da da da, hey. Yeah. But that, you know, that could very well be on purpose. Yeah, totally. Anyway, so like I said, there's nothing wrong with that song.

I think it's actually a, it's a, it showcases just how like varied this album is. So there's actually a, I got a quote here from Dave, from Josh. He says, I've been thinking of this album since the first album, meaning the first Queens album.

Not necessarily the radio thing, but to me, that isn't the full concept. The full concept is the diversity of it all. I think we're supposed to be pushing buttons over the three records. I've always looked at our first three records as a set. the first one was to distance ourselves from Caius, the second album fanned out the music into

different areas, and this one takes that out even a little further. So there you go. That's basically saying like that's, you know, that's the whole point. Like the fact that Queens and the Sonates has always been sort of this like collective, you know. Yeah, that's what I like about this stuff. Yeah. And that's why the records always sounds so different. Doesn't Eagle? Eagles a death metal fit in here somewhere, aren't they all in the same crew? I mean, it's the same crew. Yeah, I mean, that's one of Josh's side projects. Yeah.

Yeah. It mainly is just him and that other guy. Yeah, if you don't know, Josh has got several side projects that he kind of ducks in and out of. One of them being another side project he did with Dave Grohl called them Cricket Vultures, where he, it was him, Dave Grohl, and John Paul Jones, the base player for Led Zeppelin. So yeah, he's just one of those kind of like Dave where he's just this like this

he's always doing something you know, he's always got a side project going on he's just a I don't know man, the guy's a legend totally. Anyway, we got one more one more song here I think this is another one of my favorite tracks

if not it could be my favorite this might be mine too man there's just something So the funny thing is song for the dead and song for the deaf are probably my two favorite songs on the record. Yeah. So we played Song for the Dead earlier. That was Mark Lannigan singing. And it was the heavy, really aggressive song. This last one song for the deaf has sort of got that same like that vibe that Sky's Fallen had where it's kind of like this like fun house kind of thing.

like this kind of almost like creepy. Anyway, let's give it a listen. This is song for the deaf. It's essentially, it's basically, it seems to me like the album is basically leading up to this song. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because the very last song of the album, Mosquito song, is sort of like this.

It's almost like a bonus track. I mean, it's not really, but it's like it's so different from the rest of the album that, you know, you could almost say that the songs for the deaf like, tour that you've been on, like as you're driving through the desert, ends at Song for the Deaf, you know? So anyway, here we go. This is Song for the Deaf. A song for the Deaf that is for you.

Dude. Oh, it's so good, man. Right at the beginning, too, that, that little, like, intro. A song for the death that is for you. Creepy as fuck. It's sort of like this, like, this caretaker that's kind of bringing you into the song.

Dude, I mean, imagine. if you're on our way to the desert and it's like, you know, past, past midnight or something, you're flipping through the radio and that voice is in your, your car speakers and then this song, like, I'll be like, what the fuck's happening? Yeah, it really is the lyrics. Is this song for me, really? Yeah. It's, it's, like I said, it's, it's almost like a, like the dormant at some creepy hotel or

something like that or like at the gates of hell who's like showing you. into the door like here you go you know come come this way you know yeah um but yeah the guitar fill right right between guitar fill um do you know what that is oh so like like a like a drum fill exactly like yeah pretty much but no that that that that that that happens in between the verse there i just love that you know oh you're talking about the dula nal do yeah exactly that pull off and pull on thing going on It's fucking amazing, right? Yeah, I wouldn't, I had never heard that called a guitar film, but I like that, yeah, dude. I love that fucking that part.

Yeah, yeah, it's great. And the tone and, like, distortion that he has on that. Yeah, and we'll talk about it. Man, it's almost like you're planted, you know. What does we're going to talk about? Yes, but we'll get back to the distortion later, but let's play the second clip. So that was a. first verse. I know we said earlier that you have to hear the whole song, but it's a long song.

So we're going to skip over the second verse and go straight to the middle and then play the rest of the song out because that's my favorite part of the song. One of my favorite parts of the whole record is this interlude that happens. So we're going to listen to that and then we're going to play the rest of the song. The High Desert Wonder Valley favorite radio station. It's been a good night. Dave catching not saying good night just saying so there you go

we've reached the desert dude we made it that's right and that's what I'm saying like this this is basically the end of that that concept of driving to the desert from L.A on an awesome record man yeah it's just it's one of those

those moments in rock and like I said the fact that it came out in 2002 amongst that landscape that we talked about. Avril Levine, Nickelback, White Stripes. I feel like, yeah, yeah. And that's the thing. It's like white stripes is great.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. But it seems to me like Queens of Stone Age was almost like this like shot in the arm for rock as far as like, hey, you know, we can remember, we can still be like heavy. You know what I mean? Like we could still do this heavy. your stuff because like I said

this stuff was you know they made videos for some of these songs like they got tons of radio play which is ironic right because they're sort of making fun of mainstream radio but they were on the radio too with like no one knows you know sure sure uh so anyway um

like I said I love that that that middle part there where he's that I think it's Mark Lanigan saying whatever that line is yeah hale around my neck is pulling not every stitch or something like that.

It's great. It's great. A halo around my neck would be a noose, right? Yeah. Not a halo, like an angel halo. No. All right. So one more thing here.

One more little. There's a video that Sound on Sound did where they interviewed Eric Valentine, who was the producer of the record. And he sort of sets up and talks about, how they got the sound for like the guitars, the guitar sound on this record. And it's basically, it takes place in the same studio that they recorded the album in. And he's got an amp set up and some mics and stuff. And he's talking about how they got the sound.

One of the things that he said sort of a signature to the sound, at least on this record for Josh, is mid-range is basically boosted on everything. He said amp, pedal, EQ, it's all got the mid-range boosted way up, which kind of contributes to that sound. And he said that they went to like a secondhand store and bought, as he said, the shittiest stuff that they had. So like old amp heads and incorporated them into the process because they said that they didn't want to get, as he said, sort of the typical Les Paul through a Marshall amp guitar sound. Yeah. Like the typical rocks now, they're going for something a little bit different and they wanted to make these older amps like sort of work pushing them to their limit, right?

Yeah, yeah. So, all right, so I've got a clip from him sort of talking about how they set up these mics and how they sort of got the sound out of these amps. There were times where there's just an insane amount of microphones going on and I was just putting mics in different places to try. try and pull sound out of these amps that weren't particularly high-fi or explosive sounding by themselves, but with enough manipulation, you could get something to happen. And so right now, in front of this cabinet, this is a little 410 cabinet, it's an amp-peg cabinet. I have a C-37A right here that's sort of in the middle, and then this weird salt shaker mic

right next to it. And they have two very, very different qualities to them. The C-37A as tube condensers go is a much kind of smoother, warmer, full-bodied sounding condenser mic, and that little salt shaker mic is one of the brightest, most aggressive mics you'd ever hear in your life. And so you can sort of blend them, and we do that at times to just be able to easily choose how forward do we want the sound to be, or how sort of dark and smooth do we want to be by blending those two mics.

So then there's another mic hiding in the back here. this Senheiser 441 that's getting the backside of the cabinet, which gets a huge amount of low end. And so you can use that to almost add another octave to the low resonance of the guitar sound. And then to still deal with the low end and try and help bring in the resonance of the room and have your ear be more tuned into the space that the amp was in, And I have this RCA-44 just kind of over in the corner. It's down low, so it tends to pick up more of the lower resonances in the room, stuffed off in a corner, again, sort of accentuating the low frequencies.

And so you can blend that in so you just, you can feel the air moving in the room more and pull out more of the sort of dark, low end of the amp. And so all of these would get mixed together in the control room. So that's like four microphones. well, it's three microphones on the amp, the bass amp. And then one other microphone sort of in the middle of the room that was just there to pick up the sounds of the room, you know, like the ambient sounds of the room and something like that.

But I thought it was interesting that he was saying that, you know, he's got this microphone that's more like, you know, full-bodied, as he said, and like picks up like more smooth sounds next to this salt shaker mic, as he called it, which was more like really, bright and aggressive. And that, I mean, that sort of sums up the record, right?

Oh, yeah. It's interesting that they had both of those on the amp, and he would be able to sort of adjust from song to song or whatever to pull out one or the other microphone more so, depending on what the song needed, you know. And another note, he says later on in the interview about how they got distortion, because, I mean, this album is nothing but distortion, right? But he says that, actually, you know what, play the second clip. The idea was to get the distortion from the amps.

So it was very rare to actually use a pedal as the sort of main source of distortion on that project. And it was just part of the aesthetic of the record is to just push the amps to make them saturate and overdrive. And sometimes using smaller amps and really pushing them to the, their absolute limit, you know, so things just sound like they're about to blow up and break down was, I think, part of the aesthetic of the record. So this pedal helps do that. You can hear the difference. I'll turn it on and off here. So again, we had the setup with, you know, the Ampeg B15 head, a little Ampeg 410 cabinet. There's an MXR pedal out there that's boosting mid-range, both 250 hertz and 500 hertz and then this is boosting even more mid-range and adding level

going into the amp and so so that that's without the pedal that's with the pedal so that's doing a lot of the work on this thing instead of using the traditional method of like just using a distortion pedal they wanted to get distortion from the amp itself or from cranking up the volume on on on on like a a EQ pedal or something like that so anyway again that sort of plays into the into how Josh wants to sort of do the unexpected you know where you're you're getting you're doing sort of these traditional rock things like hey here's a blue scale with some notes taken away or hey here's some distortion but i'm getting it from a different way you know

or like yeah it's a it's not a guitar amp it's a it's a bass amp and that actually it goes back to like i said the desert the desert rock days and we'll talk about it all that next week when we talk about caius dude and that's kind of like that's what kind of gives you that fun house vibe because you like you walk into a uh a room with mirrors but they're not normal mirrors you know yeah it's not things aren't as they seem. Like this sounds kind of like blues, but something's off. Right. Exactly.

And that's how he's sort of always kind of approached how he makes music for Queens of Stone Age. Like, that's kind of his whole thing. It's really cool. Yeah. I'm into it. All right. So anyway, that wraps up our coverage

of songs for the deaf. One of my favorite albums of all time. Yeah, it's up there for me. too, man. Yeah, and I think it's just, it's one of those records that, um, it's like one of those pivotal like records for me, you know, as far as like, I remember. And I love, um, yeah, I mentioned that, that article from Spin that I read where the guy was sort of looking back on it at the 10 year anniversary.

So he, he has a sentence in here where he says, I clearly remember listening to the album. at maximum value on my disc man, punishing my eardrums in awe of this band. I did the exact same thing, man. I remember, I don't know if it was a disc man or a Walkman or something like that, but I remember having the CD through our little portable CD player before MP3 players were a thing, really.

Man, I hated those things, dude, trying to walk around with that shit, like clipped onto your freaking jeans. Yeah, it would always skip. Yeah. But anyway, I remember listening to this record and just being like, just like in awe, like just like this guy said. So, yeah, dude.

It's cool having that, having that connection with, with, with people like that, you know. Totally. But anyway, um, uh, yeah. I mean, this is, this goes without saying, but especially for this album, because it's a concept album that's meant to be played from start to finish, but push play on track one. Take a ride from L.A. to the desert. Yeah, if you're in, if you're in California, go to L.A.

But hell yeah, if you're in California, do it. Now, see, here's the problem, though. I don't know if you could get to the desert in that amount of time. Now that's, you want to talk about if they really thought it through. You know what, we could figure that out pretty quickly. Look at, look at the duration. Let me do it right now. All right.

I'll find the duration in the album for you. It is. Okay. Yeah, it's not going to happen. Well, let me. Maybe. Okay, the length of this album is 60 minutes, 53 seconds. How long does it take to get to the desert?

You're going to have to play the record twice. Because it takes two hours and 16 minutes to drive from L.A. to Joshua Tree. But, hey, you know what? Whatever. Come on, Josh. They didn't. They fucked up. Well, I'm never listening to this album again.

I'm just kidding. Yeah, they, well, not everything can be perfect. This was the beginning of our medal month in a way. So next week we're going to talk about Caius, and then we're going to start off October. I guess we will be in October by then, won't we? Yeah, dude. Yeah, so Caius is going to start us off,

and then we're going to, I don't know if we've spilled beans yet. No. what we're planning on doing. But we've at least told you that October is going to be a metal month. So strap in and get ready because we're going to bounce around. We're going to talk about a lot of different metal bands. I'm excited, man. And it's going to be great, man.

I'm finally going to, by the time when November comes around, Q, you're going to be a metal head. That's a guarantee. So crash course. Can you really turn someone into a metalhead in just one month? We'll find out. All right. I don't want to call it a crash course because it's not like we're going to be going from like the origins of metal up to like now or whatever. Like we're bouncing around.

We're going all over. But hey, you're sharing some of your faves. Yes. Yes. And Kias is one of those bands too that when I first heard them, I was like, God damn, if Josh Chom isn't fucking the bee's knees, you know? Because this is where he started out, man.

And the risks. Dude, I'm excited to hear that. I haven't listened to any of that. Dude, get ready. This is where we have typically done our, what you heard, but I think we're going to skip it today because this was such a lengthy episode.

I had a lot of stuff to play. Yeah, dude, this is going to be a doozy. Yep. All right. So then next week we'll be jamming out to some guys. Until then, hop on to pantheonpodcasts.com. You can find us on that website, along with a bunch of other great music podcasts that are in our network. There you can follow links to get to our actual website, no filler podcast.com, where we have all of our show notes

for each of our episodes. This one's going to be full of great clips. video clips that we played today. And yeah, you got something, Travis? All right, so to play us out, I wanted to actually showcase a little bit of, not that you didn't get to hear it on the clips we played, but there's a couple of tracks on this record that really, it starts out with like Nick Oliveri on the bass, like just comes right at you on some of these songs,

like at the forefront. That's why I wanted to play Hanging Tree to close us out, just so you can hear more of Nick Oliveri and Mark Lannigan and how they contributed to this record. So anyway, we're going to close out with Hanging Tree, and that's going to be it for this week. Again, as Quentin said, check out Pantheonpodcast.com where you can find a link to our website.

And next week, we'll talk about Caius. That'll do it. My name is Travis. And I'm Quentin. We'll see y'all next week. It was the night before the gathering and all through the house. The host rapid cozy cashmere throw from homesense for their spouse, kids' toys for $699 under the tree,

and crystal glasses for just $14.99 for their brother Lee, a baking dish made in Portugal for Tom and Sue, and a nice $599 candle, perfectly priced just for you. Happy. holidays to all and to all a good price. Home Sense. Endless presents perfectly priced.