Rock It From The Tombs

As Queens Of The Stone Age release a new stripped-down concert film, Josh Homme recounts his “near-life experience” in the Paris catacombs…

“About 18 years ago, I was trying to go to the catacombs on a day off in Paris, and the line was three hours long. So the un-humble beginnings [of this performance] was like, ‘How do we cut this line?’ Perhaps the greatest gift of playing in a band is that it gives us access to such incredible locations and situations. There’s no end to the juicy stories about the catacombs. There’s been talk of secret meetings and late night raves, but we’re the first people to legally play there. It feels really good for me to do something legal!

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“The catacombs is the star of the show, so all the decisions we made were about respecting the space. First of all, you can’t plug anything in – we had an electric piano that was hooked to a car battery. The floors were wet in some areas, like you were in this living, breathing thing. It felt like we’re not supposed to roll out the hits, we’re not supposed to play loud.

“The origin story of most of our songs starts by sitting on the edge of the bed, playing acoustic guitar. If something works there, it works everywhere. But I feel that [in this setting] these songs really change their heaviness, they change their intensity. When things are stripped away, lyrics step forward, emotions run much hotter and higher. I’ve always felt that we’re a band that had a lot of emotion on its sleeve, but somehow we’re not as known for our softer side as maybe we should be.

“I could not have enjoyed it more, even though I was in a very tough situation personally. I’ve played with all manner of injuries before, but this was different. I ended up in the hospital in Rome, and by the time I got to Paris, I played with a 102.8 temperature. I couldn’t quite shake it, no matter what medicines they were trying to give me. But if I’m being honest, it actually felt like a gift to feel so terrible, because I got to show what I’m actually capable of.

“I had a cot in there because I needed to lay down between takes. We broke for lunch, but it’s about 130 steps up a spiral staircase so I said, ‘I’m gonna stay down here’. It was just me and six million dead, but I never felt so welcome in my life. The next day I was being emergency-flown to Los Angeles, and three hours after landing I was under the knife. But there’s something about being hit with the kitchen sink that I just love. I’m not interested in dying, but the view from there is fucking amazing. So it was more like a near-life experience than a near-death experience. I think what we ended up with is something as real as it gets.”