Skip to main content
WOKE-1tune in
Queens of the Stone Age

Queens of the Stone Age

From the ashes of Kyuss, Josh Homme built Queens of the Stone Age into one of hard rock's most shape-shifting and enduring bands.

APPLE MUSIC

Mosquito Song

Queens of the Stone Age

LIVE SESSION · KEXP

Queens of the Stone Age - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)

VIDEO · FROM APPLE MUSIC

About

MOODS · riff-driven · heavy · psychedelic · desert rock · gritty · hard-hitting

BIOGRAPHY

Queens of the Stone Age formed in Palm Desert, California in 1996, growing out of the disbanded stoner rock outfit Kyuss that guitarist Josh Homme had led in the early '90s. An early self-titled EP had to be renamed after a German metal band objected, and producer Chris Goss's nickname for the group stuck. Homme has remained the band's sole constant through a famously fluid lineup of musicians and guests. The band broke into the mainstream with 2000's major-label debut Rated R, then reached wider American audiences with 2002's Songs for the Deaf, which featured Dave Grohl on drums. Since 2013 the lineup has settled around Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Michael Shuman, Dean Fertita and Jon Theodore, coinciding with the acclaimed, chart-topping ...Like Clockwork.

WHY THEY'RE COOL

Queens of the Stone Age fuse the metal-tinged stoner riffs of Kyuss with the fuzzed-out psychedelia of Black Sabbath's mid-70s work, the wild proto-punk swagger of the Stooges, and the tuneful garage rock energy of the early 2000s, all filtered through Josh Homme's singular vision. Songs for the Deaf, bolstered by Dave Grohl's drumming, is widely regarded as a landmark of 21st-century rock, and the band's constantly shifting lineup has never diluted a distinctive, riff-driven identity that critics have tracked closely across a quarter-century of releases.

ON WOKE-1

Played 43 times on WOKE-1.

LIVE SESSIONS