Queens of the Stone Age

With five albums now under belt, Queens of the Stone Age have more sickly love to spread than a 19th century port town. Their latest release, Era Vulgaris, mixes the old with the new and plants the group back on the road doing what they do best. With a myriad of lineup changes over the years, a large portion of the band’s press is focused on founder Josh Homme. But Queens are no one-man act, and anyone who’s ever seen the group live will attest to the virtuosity of guitarist/bassist/vocalist/lap steel badass Troy Van Leeuwen. The man has worked up quite a résumé over the years, performing and recording with the likes of A Perfect Circle and Failure, then joining QOTSA fulltime in 2002. Fresh off a string of European gigs, Synthesis.net recently had the pleasure of picking Troy’s mind, whose conversational character matches his silky smooth onstage demeanor.
 
You guys have a small city tour coming up now. Was it a conscious effort to play more clubs as opposed to arenas on this time out?
Absolutely. Some of these places I’ve never even personally played, and some of these places we haven’t been to in a long time. And I think it was a good idea to kinda kick things off by saying to the big cities, “Hey, just hold on, we want to play to some people first.” You know, we’d like to revisit some of our fans that we haven’t seen in a while and get in touch with them in a more intimate setting…so we can make love.

On Era Vulgaris you worked with Chris Goss of Kyuss. What was his role in the production?
Well Chris has been a friend of all of ours for a long time and he’s sort of a guru in some respects. We knew we didn’t have very much going into making this record as far as material; we had pieces and bits, you know. He really kind of guided us in some of our musical choices. More or less like, “I know you just fell down and smashed your face on that riff there, but you’re going in the right direction so get up and continue.” And also, sonically, I think he helped us make what we have. ‘Cause it’s a really trashy record, but somehow we turned the trashiness into something with a wider spectrum.
 
Do you enjoy the revolving door outside the core of the band? Does it keep things fresh for you?
It does. You know, it’s out of necessity that we have to do it sometimes. I’m really glad we met up with Dean [Fertita], ‘cause he doesn’t just play keys. There’s a lot of layers on this new record and he’s helping out with everything. He’s a utility guy like I am, so all the synth parts get played, all the guitar parts get played…it sounds like the record live.



I turn on the first track of Vulgaris and instantly think “Born To Hula,” like old Queens. But then there’s tracks like “I’m Designer” that have a heavy dance element to them. Were you guys shooting to have a little of the old and a little of the new?
Absolutely. I think we broke some ground on this record and also kept to our roots. But yeah, you’re right; there’s something about making mechanical music without using machines. I think we touched on that with “Misfit Love” and another song on the record that I think is completely new territory for us is “Battery Acid.” You know it’s The Queens, but how is it The Queens? It’s the same characters doing a completely different style.

As far as artwork, it seems like you guys have lightened the mood in comparison to Lullabies To Paralyze. Did you feel the need to go in that direction?
We initially had the artwork just as the cover without the two characters on it. We just looked at it and we’re like, “This is too serious.” So we thought we’d have some kind of character be the salesperson for the new record — this character Bulby, you know. It was just like, “Fuck it,” we’re selling ourselves, why kid ourselves too? This is our pansexual spokes-thing. It’s just silly but it’s given our boy Bulby a little life of his own. It was an opportunity to not take ourselves so damn seriously.
 
You typically play with big hollow-body Yamahas and Gibsons, I’ve even seen you play a Tele before; you got anything new that you’re hot on?
Well I did kinda design this guitar for Yamaha. It’s basically a 335 with three P90s and a Bigsby. It’s sort of like my signature model that I’ve been using a bunch. But I also got this amazing ’62 Jaguar and it’s my new favorite… It made an appearance on the new record; there’s a lot of wiry sounds and they’re definitely from that guitar.

You guys are gigging with the Gasoline Angels. How’d you hook up with them?
Well interestingly enough I think Josh was at Bob’s Big Boy, and there’s this specific Bob’s Big Boy where on Sunday nights dudes park their old cars and hot rods, and this guy brought a CD to Josh and said, “Hey I’m a big fan of yours and I want you to check out my band.” And normally it doesn’t happen where people will think, “Oh yeah, this is good,” but it was, and we didn’t have a support act for this tour, so there they are. People really do win at Bob’s Big Boy.

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