Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme: "My life is full of near-death experiences"

Wearing sunglasses and fastened his seatbelt, Josh Homme appears in a video at the wheel of his SUV, parked in the Santa Monica sun: "I'm Joshua, I'm doing great, how are you?" begins the Queens of the Stone Age frontman in a deep voice. And that "I'm doing great" comes as a relief to the band's fans , who were left breathless last summer when Queen of the Stone Age suspended their tour for health reasons. This July, they will make up some of the dates that were canceled.

And before that, on June 4, QOTSA will hit the screens of Rome's Barberini cinema for the Italian premiere of Alive in the Catacombs , an intimate and evocative film shot about a band concert in the Paris catacombs in that same summer of 2024 when Homme, 52, was already ill.

"I knew he was ill, that it was a serious matter, but organizing the clandestine filming in the catacombs had been such a complex process... If we didn't do it then, we would never do it. At some point during the tour, between the concerts in Rome and Venice, I realized I couldn't continue and asked to be taken to the nearest hospital. They wanted me to stay there, but I asked my agent to pick me up. I put on my jacket and we left. I did the concert in Milan and the next day we flew to Paris ." That date, he now thinks, was a miracle: "I don't remember anything about the concert in Milan, because I was in a very difficult physical condition. I really hope it was a good concert; I worked very hard. Then, Paris. And after the catacombs, I took an emergency flight to the United States with a fever of 40.5. Three hours after landing, I was undergoing surgery."

Homme revealed a few years ago that he had a tumor, but prefers not to give details about last year's operation: "I can say, however, that I have wonderful scars. They look as if someone tried to kill me, and I'm very proud of them . It seems like my life is made up of very near-death experiences. I wouldn't want anything else, either. I keep telling myself that I've never felt as alive as the day I almost died, there in the catacombs."

"Maybe I'm romanticizing too much, but it was... It was almost a blessing not to be well," says Homme. " It was my personal Everest, and I'm proud of it because I know how hard it took to get there. The acting was so much truer, the connection to the place and to each other was so much deeper... Between takes, I would lie down, hunched over in pain. That's why, in the first scene, you see me lying on an altar."

Homme hopes that audiences "will feel the same emotion I felt watching Pink Floyd's Live in Pompeii , because in this case too, it's the space and the antiquity that dominate the scene, not the band."

For these incendiary musicians who have been active for more than 30 years, everything else is rock: "We're delighted because I didn't expect to return to the stage so soon. I'm playing again a year earlier than planned and it feels like a gift . I can return to Italy to finish what we started. For me, it's important; I don't like people who talk but don't act on it."

At Qotsa shows, famous for adrenaline rushes like No One Knows and Go with the Flow , the key is to create a sense of parallel reality, explains Homme: "I like to bring people together in the darkness. Treating the audience as if they were entering a speakeasy where there are other rules . The only thing that's not allowed is hurting others; everything else is fine. This need for escape is very neglected in our society today."

For Homme, music has always been like this: "Growing up, I wasn't allowed to do anything. My city was extremely boring, and what I learned was that I had to aspire to do extreme things so I wouldn't die of boredom. I've never stopped doing that. I think the peak of my career was working with Iggy Pop, someone who really knows how to feel good about himself. That, for me, is the peak of cool. When I finished touring with him, it took me a while to figure out what else I wanted to do."

Homme declares himself "apolitical" in Trump's America : "I don't trust any politician; they're just trying to sell you something. For me, it's more important to be a good father, brother, son, friend, and musician. I'm not intimidated by the news."