{"id":156269,"date":"2025-09-23T21:09:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T21:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156269\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T21:09:04","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T21:09:04","slug":"josh-homme-defines-the-essence-of-rock-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/156269\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Homme defines “the essence” of rock music"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Josh<\/p>\n

(Credits: Raph Pour-Hashemi)<\/p>\n

Tue 23 September 2025 14:00, UK <\/p>\n

Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme<\/a> is a genius, but not a very typical one at all. <\/p>\n

The fact that a statement like that would make \u2018The Ginger Elvis\u2019 cringe himself inside out is part of what gives him the strange, unshakeable reputation that he has. On one hand, he\u2019s an icon of respectable rock \u2018n\u2019 roll. Someone who didn\u2019t just make a record with the sensible one out of Led Zeppelin, bassist John Paul Jones, but formed a whole-ass band with him. One that included Dave Grohl at the prime of his \u2018Saint Dave\u2019 reputation on the drums to boot. <\/p>\n

However, he\u2019s also a counter-culture rebel of insouciant, punk-rock coolness. Someone who, in the words of one of his best songs, is liable to talk about how he\u2019ll \u201cblow [his] load over the status quo\u201d and people still believe him. His is a level of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll cred that allows him to have his cake and eat it too. Be a member of the rock establishment who plays the Grammys with Nine Inch Nails and Lindsay Buckingham, <\/a>but also rolls his eyes at it so you know he\u2019s still down to earth.<\/p>\n

So, how do you walk that specific tightrope, because they\u2019re fundamentally contradictory beliefs. You can\u2019t believe in the sacred, immutable art of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll while also believing it\u2019s all a bit of a meaningless doss. Except, you absolutely can, and the attitude of Josh Homme is probably the best way of explaining the true essence of the genre. <\/p>\n

Who did Josh Homme call \u201cthe essence of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll\u201d? <\/p>\n

In a 2008 interview, Homme was asked what he considered \u201cthe essence of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll\u201d. <\/p>\n

One hell of a question that would stump even the most knowledgeable of rock stars, but not him. The man seems to know his onions too, because the first words out of his mouth are \u201cIt\u2019s not what you play, it\u2019s how you play it\u201d. This may sound like fighting words coming from someone who\u2019s buddy-buddy with members of Led Zeppelin, but he doubles down on this spirit. <\/p>\n

He goes on to say, \u201cAnyone can practise and be Satriani eventually, y\u2019know? But who can play one note and captivate everybody? Can you take one note and make it sound like you\u2019re crying? Can you take one note<\/a> and uplift everybody?\u201d No matter how technically gifted you may be, that is still the God\u2019s honest truth, isn\u2019t it? The best guitarists, the best musicians in rock \u2018n\u2019 roll are the ones who can embody both.<\/p>\n

However, even the likes of Jimmy Page are players whose technical skills are second to the emotions they can conjure. A pretty distant second in Page\u2019s case, who could be infamously sloppy, especially live, but that\u2019s the whole point in Homme\u2019s point of view. He puts it best at the end of the interview, where he says that pure rock \u2018n\u2019 roll can \u201cexplain emotions where words fail\u201d. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not just rock \u2018n\u2019 roll you\u2019re describing there, Josh, that\u2019s art as a whole. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Raph Pour-Hashemi) Tue 23 September 2025 14:00, UK Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,33669,128,33670,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-156269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-josh-homme","tag-music","tag-queens-of-the-stone-age","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}