{"id":161457,"date":"2026-03-12T15:23:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/161457\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:23:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:23:34","slug":"josh-homme-once-showed-his-peavey-yamaha-bass-rig-to-john-paul-jones-this-was-his-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/161457\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Homme once showed his Peavey\/Yamaha bass rig to John Paul Jones \u2013 this was his reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to gear,\u00a0Josh Homme<\/a> is known to opt for the \u201cunderdog\u201d. And in a new interview with Guitar World<\/a>, the Queens of the Stone Age<\/a> frontman recalls the time he showed one of his rigs \u2013 a Yamaha hollowbody bass into a Peavey Decade practice amp \u2013 to his Them Crooked Vultures<\/a> bandmate, former Led Zeppelin<\/a> bassist John Paul Jones<\/a>, and his reaction that followed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI showed the Decade to John Paul Jones when we were in Them Crooked Vultures,\u201d Homme says. \u201cI have this Yamaha hollowbody bass with flatwounds on it, which I call Lame-aha. Instead of a pickup switch, it\u2019s a volume knob, so you\u2019re on the spectrum of which pickup you\u2019re using. I said, \u2018Try that with the Decade and a Coles ribbon mic.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones was bewildered. \u201cHe laughed \u2013 and I love that, because the looks are deceiving,\u201d Homme explains. \u201cYou\u2019re like, \u2018What is this entire piece-of-shit setup?\u2019 Then he played it. It was fun to see him go from giggling about how shitty something looks to complete joy. It\u2019s fun to do that to people and it\u2019s fun to do that to yourself, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Homme embraces the \u2018shitty\u2019 look, because he knows how good he can make \u2018shit\u2019 sound. It\u2019s a mindset that keeps his sound unique, as well as intriguing audiences and peers alike. \u201cYou\u2019re looking for any way, visually and sonically, to do something that nobody else is doing,\u201d he explains. \u201cGetting shit from people is the best thing that could happen. It made me think, \u2018Never again will anyone ever say I sound like someone else\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As Homme puts it, his goal was that \u201cwithin three seconds, you know it\u2019s [him]\u201d. The approach has been a constant through the Queens of the Stone Age\u2019s three-decade run, even spanning back to his downtuned guitar work in Kyuss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Employing quirky gear helps the process, and Homme has worked his way through countless pieces of rogue gear. \u201cAnything is an amplifier to me,\u201d he says. \u201cI love playing out of old stereo tuners, old tape machines; anything with a speaker and a jack. With a Les Paul<\/a> and a Marshall<\/a> I know what\u2019s going to happen there. Music is about matching your own evolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard not to want to get behind the underdog, because music is about being an outcast,\u201d he continues. \u201cAll I need is insurmountable odds and I\u2019m in. Give me your worst guitar, a boutique amp made in someone\u2019s mom\u2019s garage, and a pedal that\u2019s not supposed to be there, and we\u2019ve got something. When you do that, you instantly feel like these things are yours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Homme has worked on reviving the Peavey Decade. The Peavey Decade Too<\/a>\u00a0\u201crevives that voice and makes it accessible again\u201d while removing the need to \u201chunt for vintage originals\u201d.<\/p>\n

Back in 2022, Acorn Amps<\/a> transformed Homme\u2019s Peavey Decade into a nifty pedal. The Solid State pedal<\/a> serves as a \u201cfull circuit recreation\u201d of the compact 10-watt practice amp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to gear,\u00a0Josh Homme is known to opt for the \u201cunderdog\u201d. And in a new interview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[45548,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-161457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-artist","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}