{"id":337337,"date":"2026-09-03T21:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T21:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/337337\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T21:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T21:49:13","slug":"queens-of-the-stone-ages-josh-homme-on-why-his-first-guitar-experience-was-playing-polka-in-the-desert-there-wasnt-a-lot-of-guitar-teachers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/337337\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens Of The Stone Age’s Josh Homme on why his first guitar experience was playing polka: “In the desert there wasn’t a lot of guitar teachers”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pop on a Queens Of The Stone Age<\/a> track, and Josh Homme<\/a>\u2019s riffs are instantly recognisable. Years of experimentation went into his thick, distinctively dark and downtuned guitar tone<\/a> \u2013 but Homme didn\u2019t follow the conventional playbook of a hard rock guitarist. In fact, his first introduction to the guitar was through polka music.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the Queer the Music podcast, Homme reflects on the limitations of growing up in California\u2019s the Palm Desert. In particular, when he was keen to learn guitar, it was slim pickings in terms of who could teach him. \u201cIn the desert, there wasn\u2019t a lot of guitar teachers, apparently,\u201d he laughs. Instead of asking what style a teacher taught, if you found a teacher \u201cit was like \u2018You teach guitar? Good.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The one teacher available happened to be Tom Polanski, a polka guitar teacher. Polanski ended up teaching Homme guitar for two years. \u201cSo polka was my original style,\u201d Homme explains. \u201cAnd I\u2019m actually really thankful for that, too. Because, if you listen to No One Knows, [it has] that sort of polka thing \u2013 [the beat] goes one \u2013 down, two \u2013 up\u2026 which is also what reggae does as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the past, Homme has explored how his unconventional guitar education helped carve out his unique tone. On Noisey<\/a>\u2019s Guitar Moves series in 2013<\/a>, Homme explained that he has since developed his own \u2018Josh Homme scale\u2019, refined over years of melding polka, Jimi Hendrix<\/a> techniques and altered blues scales.<\/p>\n

While the desert didn\u2019t have much going on, Homme also tells Queer the Music that \u201cboredom\u201d lead him to music. Being from a \u201cvery empty, very idyllic small town\u201d, he had to entertain himself. \u201cThe gift of nothing is a very real thing,\u201d he explains. \u201cIn the boredom\u2026 you\u2019re allowed to practice playing guitar, piano, or drums.\u201d<\/p>\n

Homme also notes that his first musical obsession wasn\u2019t even the guitar \u2013 it was the drums. \u201cI used to play with chopsticks on wicker dirty clothes hampers\u2026 beats were always important to me,\u201d he recalls. However, his dad was hesitant to splash out on a drum kit for a nine-year-old. Instead, he gave Homme a challenge: \u201cif you play guitar for five years and you\u2019re accomplished, then I\u2019ll buy you a drumkit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Homme\u2019s dad\u2019s challenge ended up making Homme obsessed with the guitar. And that\u2019s what he does best to this day with Queens Of The Stone Age. The band\u2019s latest record, Perfecth, is due to drop October 30, and a pair of teasing singles, Insignificant Other and Easy Street, are already out.<\/p>\n

Queens Of The Stone Age\u2019s Perfecth drops on October 30. You can pre-order it now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pop on a Queens Of The Stone Age track, and Josh Homme\u2019s riffs are instantly recognisable. Years of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[45548,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-337337","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\/337337","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=337337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}