Eagles of Death Metal on Their ‘Potluck of Awesome’
From their 2004 debut, Peace, Love, Death Metal, to next month’s Zipper Down, Eagles of Death Metal have sold their irreverence so well that listening to their music for the first time can be a jarring experience. Overt sexual innuendos and ham-fisted album and song titles aside, founding and sole full-time members Josh “Baby Duck” Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures) and Jesse “Boots” Hughes make damn good straight-up rock & roll.
With quotes like this gem from Homme, even the new album’s press release is an exercise in smartass antics: “In an independent study, four out of three doctors say Zipper Down is an eargasm trapped inside a crazerbeam.” It’s an interesting sell, much like the band’s name. They sound nothing like the Eagles or death metal, as you can hear for yourself on new EODM single “Silverlake,” which we’re premiering here. Considering the persistent flippancy of their art, it comes as no surprise that their conversation with Rolling Stone immediately digressed into silly repartee — interspersed with meaningful insights on the art and craft of rock & roll.
Josh Homme: What are you wearing, Boots?
Jesse Hughes: I’m wearing a couple of articles of each of your clothing right now. I snuck into your garage and took them.
Homme: The ones I sent to you FedEx, right?
Hughes: Yeah, that’s right. The FedEx clothes.
UPS would’ve been faster, if we’re just being honest.
Homme: What can brown do for you, right?
Hughes: [Laughs] That’s awful.
It’s been seven years since the last release. What made this the right time to do another album?
Hughes: I would start by saying that Joshua and I very rarely have a concept of a certain time, and it’s more like “right on time,” you know what I mean? So I don’t think we were thinking seven years. In fact, Baby Duck, when we were first asked this question, we both looked at each other and were like, “It’s been seven years?”
Homme: Yeah, I think one of the best parts about our relationship is the absence of general knowledge. Like, neither one of us are watch wearers or clock people, so I think what you kind of do is just move at the speed of opportunity. And Boots put out a solo record, and I did a Vultures record and a Queens record and then another Queens record. We’d see each other all the time, so it wasn’t like we had seven years where we didn’t see each other. We’d see each other about three or four times a week, so it wasn’t really on purpose or had no actual motivation at all.
Hughes: Yeah, it really didn’t, man. I really, truly believe we really didn’t think of it like that. It just came back around in the plans a lot.
Homme: And we realize that our lack of putting out a record, that absence of Eagles of Death Metal music, had a really negative byproduct. There were all sorts of Middle East troubles and all these other things, so we’re sorry for that. We didn’t wanna cause that by not putting out music, but we figured now that we’re gonna put this stuff out, most of the world should kind of come back together like before.
