TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: IN THE STUDIO WITH QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
Backstage at Festival Hall in Melbourne, guitarist and dapper gent, Troy van Leeuwen, reckons the Queens of the Stone Age have exposed themselves enough. If you’ve seen old footage of ex-bass player Nick Oliveri onstage with his cock in a sock, you might agree. Their last record …Like Clockwork was a tough period. Bandleader Homme said the recording sessions were clouded by a depression that built up when he was bed-ridden after routine knee surgery. Van Leeuwen described the result as, “a little more introverted, a little darker and probably the first time we expressed any kind of vulnerability.”
He said the first move the band makes whenever they’re contemplating a new record is, “look back at the last record and say, What were we doing back then? Let’s not do that.’” They’d exposed themselves, box ticked, said van Leeuwen, “we can do that now.” Staring into the abyss of making a new record, they “wanted to do something that was more upbeat and not as dark.”
The first step away from the downer of …Like Clockwork was to partner up with producer Mark Ronson. Who better to transition from dark to upbeat than a guy who went from Rehab to Uptown Funk? He knows how to get people to dance, and that’s exactly what Queens felt they needed.
The band also decamped from their own studio, Pink Duck — a comfortable place in Burbank, LA with a full SSL G-Series console and all of their accumulated equipment — and relocated to United, originally built by Bill Putnam. “We usually produce ourselves and are hands-on setting up mics, but we felt like being a band this time and have somebody else handle all that,” explained van Leeuwen. “We wanted to be outside of what we’re normally doing and utilise one of the greatest studios in Los Angeles — to be with Sammy, Frank and so many of the great ghosts in those walls. The microphone selection alone… they’d pull out an RCA 44 saying, ‘Elvis sang into this mic.’ Good luck! We wanted to use that gear, those walls and have the
