We recently placed Queens of the Stone Age’s 2002 masterwork Songs for the Deaf at the top of our countdown of the band’s albums. It was a somewhat controversial choice, but one of the reasons we cited was Dave Grohl’s powerhouse drumming.
At the time, Queens of the Stone Age was comprised of the core duo of Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri and a rotating cast of musicians and Homme would bring in for sessions on each album. Apparently, drummer Gene Trautman wasn’t quite cutting it.
So he decided to see if Dave Grohl wasn’t doing anything. “I called Dave and said, ‘Can you come right now?’ It was noon and he said, ‘I’ll be there at 6:30 PM. By 8 PM, we had already tracked a few songs,” Homme tells Team Rock.
Grohl had been a longtime fan of Homme’s, dating back to the frontman’s days as the guitarist for desert rock legends Kyuss. “I love this band. I’ve known them for years and they invited me to play on this record,” Grohl told The Fade at the time.
“Seriously, they’re one of my favorite bands and I haven’t played drums in a long time. It’s great music to play drums to. They’re amazing live and they needed a drummer, so I thought I’d do it.”
“It’s a nice change of pace. Not being in the spotlight is kinda nice. It’s really about just playing the drums. I feel much more comfortable and confident doing this than trying to sing every night.”
“I had joked before that I was pissed off they didn’t ask me to play on Rated R. Their music is really fun to play drums to because I’m used to playing more back in the back 4/4 sort of stuff. So this was a lot more interesting.”
Indeed, according to recent comments from Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett, not only was Grohl stoked to be playing with a band he’d admired for a long time, the sessions with QOTSA actually saved Foo Fighters, who were going through a tense period.
According to Shiflett, sessions for what eventually became the Foos’ blockbuster 2002 album One By One were fraught with frustrations and playing drums for QOTSA basically gave Grohl his mojo back and in turn, saved his primary project.
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“I think playing with QOTSA definitely influenced his enthusiasm and motivation,” said Shiflett. “I think musically he would have been influenced by them anyway because he’s listened to them since he was a Kyuss fan – he’s always been into that band.”
“I think it’s influenced his desire to just sort of think, ‘Fuck it, let’s just make a record we enjoy and there’s no boundaries and there’’ nothing we can’t do for any reason. Let’s make a record we want to play live.'”
“He had a lot of fun doing that, he got to play drums again night after night and, like I said, we were at a point with our record where we all had cabin fever and were totally frustrated. So everybody had to get their motivation back to make it fun and that’s how he got his back.”
