Demon Cleaner
Josh Homme, John Garcia, and Brant Bjork started jamming as teenagers in the California desert town of Palm Desert in the late 1980s. Nick Oliveri joined on bass, and the four of them named themselves Sons of Kyuss after a Dungeons & Dragons character. Scott Reeder replaced Oliveri on bass in 1992, soon after the band finished Blues for the Red Sun. “Demon Cleaner” became the breakout single from the lineup’s first album together, Welcome to Sky Valley.
Josh Homme wrote “Demon Cleaner” and the band produced it with Chris Goss, the producer who’d already pushed Kyuss toward a heavier sound on 1992’s Blues for the Red Sun. Welcome to Sky Valley arranged its ten songs into three continuous suites with no gaps between tracks, and “Demon Cleaner” closed out the second one, accelerating out of the brief “100°” and the acoustic “Space Cadet.” Released as a single that September, it became Kyuss’ biggest hit, peaking at No. 78 on the UK Singles Chart and No. 13 on the UK Rock & Metal Singles Chart.
“This song has got it all, you’re spellbound from the first second. The vocals on this track are amazing.”
The UK single arrived as a four-song EP padded out with three live tracks recorded at the Marquee Club in Hamburg, and the Gavin Report praised its “Sabbath-styled rhythms” and “haunting vocals.” The B-side, “Day One (To Chris and Dave),” carried its own weight. Kyuss released it just months after Kurt Cobain’s death, and the title dedicated the song to surviving Nirvana members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl.
Welcome to Sky Valley never reached the Billboard 200, and Kyuss broke up within two years of finishing it. Bjork left soon after the album came out and Alfredo Hernandez took his place behind the drums. The band folded after one more record, 1995’s …And the Circus Leaves Town. Paste later ranked “Demon Cleaner” No. 4 on its list of the best Josh Homme songs, and Guitar.com named it one of stoner rock’s essential tracks.
Tool has covered “Demon Cleaner” live, and the song turned up on Guitar Hero: Metallica in 2009, introducing it to a generation who never heard the album. Homme and Oliveri went on to form Queens of the Stone Age, but Kyuss’ own influence kept building long after the band disappeared. Decades later, critics still measure Welcome to Sky Valley against the quiet, after-the-fact impact of the Stooges or the Velvet Underground.