Queens of the Stone Age (from left to right) Michael Shuman, Troy Van Leeuwen, Joshua Homme, Jon Theodore, Dean Fertita. (photo by Andres Neumann)

By Glynn Brothen

ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: END IS NERO TOUR

Queens of the Stone Age ditches predictability for the ‘essence of rock and roll’

Mar 21, 2024 | 11:10 AM

In an era of meticulously curated concerts, Queens of the Stone Age jettisons the script to embrace the unpredictable.

Each performance is its own unique mystery — one that could include fulfilling song requests on the fly, mutating set lists, letting fans onstage, or watching lead singer Joshua Homme wander into the crowd to plant a surprise kiss or two. Those are just some of the ways the band pays homage to what drummer Jon Theodore calls “the essence of rock and roll”

“I think it’s very common nowadays, especially at bigger shows where people are not comfortable taking risks anymore. I think most people in an effort to be safe or successful equate perfection in terms of delivery,” he said. “The idea that if we were to clean it up and perfect it and put it on a computer grid and program everything it would just squash the life out of it.”

“That’s like going to work on an assembly line.”

After touring Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, the band continues an extended North American leg of its tour. Next month features multiple stops across Canada, starting at Calgary’s Saddledome on April 1.

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“You guys can expect to get your socks blown all the way over to Tim Hortons by all the new material,” Theodore said. “We’ve always loved playing shows in Canada… we are really excited to come up there and play.”

Pivoting between dives into deep cuts like Better Living Through Chemistry to new hits Emotion Sickness and Straight Jacket Fitting may appear easy, but Theodore says it’s the product of a concerted effort to foster the group’s dynamic and lean into the chaos of a rock show.

“I think it’s very common nowadays, especially at bigger shows where people are not comfortable taking risks anymore. I think most people in an effort to be safe or successful equate perfection in terms of delivery,” Jon Theodore said. (Contributed photo)

“You can’t be in this band if you don’t feel that way,” Theodore said. “We change the set every night and we bring in new songs that we can barely remember how to play. We don’t want to play the same set as last time.”

That attitude paid off.

“Morale is pretty much at an all-time high right now… we’ve been playing better than we ever have,” he said.

Switching the sound for this eighth album was another gamble. The latest self-produced record In Times New Roman is a dark departure from the groovy Villains produced by powerhouse Mark Ronson.

But as with most art it’s reflective of the time in which the artist creates it. In this case, a global pandemic.

It was COVID, Theodore said. “We were all personally in turmoil with divorces and all kinds of life reorganization things. We came together and we started to whittle away these songs and they sounded radically different. They were very much a product of our time spent together at that point.”

With the world on pause, the group worked sporadically between members getting sick. When it came time to mix the album, the sale closed on Homme’s studio and band clubhouse, Pink Duck. Final steps to complete the album were taken as workers dismantled parts of the recording space.

“It was deeply psychically, like emotionally at every level it was just so… heavy. It was a deep time,” Theodore said.

Despite those challenges, Theodore said artistically it gifted him and the others the time and clarity to set sight on their task.

“It was a wellspring of emotion,” he said. “It basically gave us a chance to really come together and really explore the strength of our bond and the power available to us when we all focus inward and set our minds to doing something. I hesitate to say that the effect of COVID was positive because there was really nothing good about it. But it was a very formative experience for us.”

Could this album have been made without a disrupted world?

“No. No way,” he said. “There’s a combination of factors that come into play at any given moment and that’s why moments are moments because it evaporates and it’s onto the next. I feel very strongly about art, specifically music that way.”

“The only thing we know is we’re not doing the same thing again.”

Theodore said it was the first time in 20 years he stayed put somewhere longer than a month or two. It’s a swerve from the whirlwind of travel, playing drums while enduring the effects of the “psychedelic fever dream” of catching COVID, only to return home and plunge into the late-night bottle feedings of new fatherhood.

The schedule and the movements are erratic and not without flaws but Theodore is to be trusted when he says unpredictability is what reaps good art and a successful tour.

It’s “what makes rock and roll compelling. It’s f—ing dangerous. It’s scary. It’s unpredictable. It’s not perfect.”

_{The full interview with Theodore can be found below. Please note the audio was condensed from its original full length.}

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Glynn.Brothen@pattisonmedia.com