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”
Pop on a Queens Of The Stone Age track, and Josh Homme’s riffs are instantly recognisable. Years of experimentation went into his thick, distinctively dark and downtuned guitar tone – but Homme didn’t follow the conventional playbook of a hard rock guitarist. In fact, his first introduction to the guitar was through polka music.
Speaking on the Queer the Music podcast, Homme reflects on the limitations of growing up in California’s the Palm Desert. In particular, when he was keen to learn guitar, it was slim pickings in terms of who could teach him. “In the desert, there wasn’t a lot of guitar teachers, apparently,” he laughs. Instead of asking what style a teacher taught, if you found a teacher “it was like ‘You teach guitar? Good.’”
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The one teacher available happened to be Tom Polanski, a polka guitar teacher. Polanski ended up teaching Homme guitar for two years. “So polka was my original style,” Homme explains. “And I’m actually really thankful for that, too. Because, if you listen to No One Knows, [it has] that sort of polka thing – [the beat] goes one – down, two – up… which is also what reggae does as well.”
In the past, Homme has explored how his unconventional guitar education helped carve out his unique tone. On Noisey’s Guitar Moves series in 2013, Homme explained that he has since developed his own ‘Josh Homme scale’, refined over years of melding polka, Jimi Hendrix techniques and altered blues scales.
While the desert didn’t have much going on, Homme also tells Queer the Music that “boredom” lead him to music. Being from a “very empty, very idyllic small town”, he had to entertain himself. “The gift of nothing is a very real thing,” he explains. “In the boredom… you’re allowed to practice playing guitar, piano, or drums.”
Homme also notes that his first musical obsession wasn’t even the guitar – it was the drums. “I used to play with chopsticks on wicker dirty clothes hampers… beats were always important to me,” 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: “if you play guitar for five years and you’re accomplished, then I’ll buy you a drumkit.”
Of course, Homme’s dad’s challenge ended up making Homme obsessed with the guitar. And that’s what he does best to this day with Queens Of The Stone Age. The band’s latest record, Perfecth, is due to drop October 30, and a pair of teasing singles, Insignificant Other and Easy Street, are already out.
Queens Of The Stone Age’s Perfecth drops on October 30. You can pre-order it now.
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