God Save the Queens

Okay, so it's old news that the Queens of the Stone Age more or less broke up last month. A very curious thing for the fans, especially since key members Nick Oliveri and Josh Homme have been buddies since they were little kids or something.

"You know what happens when a pure and original rock band gets polluted, poisoned by hunger for power, and by control issues? Things get really out of control. I'm noticing that people start fighting for control, especially when they realize they have no control. And what ever happened to loyalty?" This is from an official statement by Mr. Oliveri, and it really makes you wonder what the hell happened. And Josh and Nick weren't even on the same continent when all this went down.

Well, the hot gossip that's made it's way back to me (and remember, it's just gossip) is that there was a slight Yoko situation. The whole Josh Homme - Brody Armstrong (of the Distillers, who was still married - albeit unhappily - to Tim Armstrong of Rancid at the time) hookup was really a bummer to Nick, who disapproved of the thing wholeheartedly. After their joint Australian shows, I guess Josh got fed up with Nick's morality crusade, or jealousy... whichever. Needless to say, that was the end of QOTSA as we know it.

That's just what I heard, anyway.

I worked at a record store where QOTSA did a rad instore performance just before releasing Songs for the Deaf. Traditionally, after an instore performance, the band's new CD would get played in the store. This time, the guys were a little embarrassed to do that - they figured they'd heard it enough. So the store manager asked Josh to pick something out. He wandered around and picked out one of my favorite no-one-has-ever-heard-of bands from the 90's: a poppy Swedish outfit on Minty Fresh called Komeda. Absolutely made my day and I fell in love with Josh Homme.

Too bad love has torn QOTSA apart!