Recoil: Queens of the Stone Age and …Trail Of Dead seems like a concert bill sent directly from God Himself - how did it get put together?
Josh Humme: It actually came together because we'd drank together a few times and we got along really well. We've played festivals in Europe together and we just sort of hung out and had a good time. I think this is the sort of bill that people want to see. It's a bit eclectic in a way, but it makes a lot of sense as well. I sort of look at it as a double-headlining bill: we're both showing up and we're both playing for as long as we feel like.

R: Are you guys going to rehearse a lot for the tour or just kind of wing it?
JH: We got a new drummer so we have to rehearse a little bit, but I don't think it pays to beat [the music] into the ground. It's cool to be tight, but it's not cool to be sick of the songs.

R: What's going on with your personal label Rekords Records?
JH: Well, I'm kind of like a one-man army with it, so not that much, really. I have to like, go to the plant and pick up the records myself. We're releasing the new Flotsam & Jetsam record on September 28 and we'll be putting out The Eagles of Death Metal record, which is kind of a strange band from the desert full of crystal meth addicts. Also, at the end of the year we'll do another The Desert Sessions record.

R: Could you explain The Desert Sessions records?
JH: I always wanted to go jam with other bands and jam with them, see how they play and improvise stuff, and no one ever asked me so I just started asking other people. So that's basically it - people that do and don't know each other make up music on the spot and play instruments they don't normally play.

R: Your current bio reads like it was written by Hunter S. Thompson, which got me wondering if you and Nick read much.
JH: I like reading, and I like reading a little Hunter S., or a little Jim Thompson, for that matter. I like the Thompsons. It's something that definitely kills the time on the road. Right now I'm reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. My reading tastes in writers are as sporadic as my musical tastes. Much like listening to a record, I'll read one of someone's books and then I won't read any of their other books, even if I like it. I don't know why it ends up that way but it does.

R: What do you do with your other time on the road? What do you find you spend the most money on?
JH: Booze. I take some books, I take some music and I take a guitar on the road, so I can pretty much not be bored anywhere. I don't know, there's an old saying that goes like, "Only boring people get bored." And I've got kind of Spartan needs. I don't really buy too much stuff.

R: What do you think is the biggest difference in both your personality and your music from, say, ten years ago?
JH: I would say that more than ever, I used to be kind of like, 'What will they say? What will they think? Will they think we've sold out?' And now I don't do that anymore. To me, there's not much of a change musically - [QOTSA] is just kind of the evolution of the same idea. But the idea of trying to prove to someone else that the music is coming from the right place, that's over.

R: What bands or music inspire you?
JH: I think it deals with intangibles, things I can't describe or don't have a color to them - just when I feel it, it's right. And I'm a sucker for good hooks. If someone's got really good hooks but if I know that they've been put together by a producer somewhere in an ivory tower, it does make it harder for me to enjoy it, because I want to feel like people come together to make great music because they have to, because they can't run from it, they can't get it out of their heads any other way. I'm always on the lookout for real, good music, and that doesn't mean real good music. It needs to be fucking for real and really have some passion behind it.

R: What's it like to play with Dave Grohl and what happened with him backing out of touring as the QOTSA drummer?
JH: He went back to doing what I think everyone knew he was going to do. We knew [Grohl playing with us] wasn't going to last long. Really, the idea was to have Dave play on the record, and it was kind of his suggestion to go on tour. It's great to play with a real musician who plays multiple instruments. That means he understands the songs really well so we can throw something more complex at him and he'll understand it right away. It felt like we were a real band for a moment, like not where you're just telling someone what to do.

R: Was he the hardest hitting drummer you've ever played with?
JH: Suffice to say, in all aspects, he's the best drummer in the world. [Another drummer] can only be as good, but could never be better. There are a lot of guys that are of his caliber; that level of drumming is like, it's just a room with a very small amount of [drummers] in there, and none of those [drummers] are any better or any worse than the other. It's like the Drum Room.

R: There's a funny crack about the Warped Tour in the QOTSA bio. Is it really representative of your opinion of the Warped Tour?
JH: I don't have an opinion, to be honest with you. That bio was written by Black Jesus of The Dwarves, and I think he's bitter because they never asked him to be on the Warped Tour. We just told him, 'Would you please write a bunch of lies and inflammatory bullshit about us in our bio just to make it more entertaining?' And he obliged. And to be honest, he read it to me over the phone once, but I've never read it myself. But the only question that gets asked about it is the Warped Tour question [laughs].

R: Well, he did a good job. It is the most entertaining bio I've ever read.
JH: Well, that's the idea. Facts, schmacks. We play rock and we have a good time and the facts beyond that really become meaningless to me. We make albums, here, listen to it. It seems like most band bios are like reading a manual to a VCR.

R: The first song on Rated R opens with the chant, 'Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, marijuana, Ecstasy and alcohol.' Do you have a favorite among those.
JH: I think that the best habit is no habit, so I meander around them all.

September 2002