Earlier in the week, Jesse Hughes talked to me on the phone from Arizona. We covered a lot of ground in 15 minutes — Josh Homme’s absence on tour, rollerblading, the Left’s “Nazi-like grip” on the music biz, mustaches.
Read on.
The new record sounds good—a little cleaner than past albums, but still grimy a good way.
That’s because I’m a filthy son of a bitch.
Y’all are known pretty widely at this point, but you know, when I was talking about this show coming up, my wife was surprised I wanted to see a band called Eagles of Death Metal. Do you get death metal folks at your shows ever, anybody that thinks it’s a bait and switch because of the name?
No, but we’ve gotten some death threats from some Norweigan death metal bands, but the bait in switch is, we offered you death metal and instead we gave you a good time.
So, I’ve heard some conflicting reports, is Josh [Homme] playing these gigs with you?
Hell, no. I’ll let him play with my band when he lets me come play with his.
Well, that kind of does seem like a bait and switch since he’s in all the pictures with you and in all the promo material focuses on your friendship.
The friendship doesn’t have to manifest itself onstage. Joshua and me are best friends and we do everything together, but Eagles of Death Metal is something that’s sourced from me, but because we need him to do Queens of the Stone Age and because he is the captain of our gang, his duties often require that he be up for it. Once you think of Eagles of Death Metal as a supergroup, you never know who you’re going to get, and besides once they show up and see this amazing mustache they’re not going to remember anything else. [Laughs]