First It Giveth
Twenty-three years ago today, Queens of the Stone Age released the third and final single from Songs for the Deaf. The album had already landed the previous August. “No One Knows” went first. “Go with the Flow” went second. “First It Giveth” closed the campaign on August 18, 2003. By then the album had already changed what heavy music was allowed to sound like. Melodic and bruising. Hypnotic and punishing. A radio-ready hook wrapped around a riff that would not quit. It was the kind of record that made you want to know exactly who was in the room when it was made.
Look at the room. Josh Homme had come from Kyuss, the Palm Desert band that invented a genre by plugging generators into the desert floor and playing until dawn. When Kyuss dissolved in 1995, Homme did not stop. He started the Desert Sessions. A rotating collective of musicians recording at Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree, California. No fixed lineup. No label pressure. Just the desert and whoever showed up. That laboratory ran parallel to Queens of the Stone Age from 1997 forward. Nick Oliveri had been in Kyuss too. Dave Grohl came from Nirvana and put Foo Fighters on hold to sit behind the kit. Mark Lanegan had fronted Screaming Trees through the Seattle grunge era before anyone knew what to call it. Troy Van Leeuwen had played in Failure and then A Perfect Circle before joining as second guitarist. Songs for the Deaf was a summit meeting of five distinct rock lineages converging on a single record. None of them were guests. All of them were authors.
The connections did not stop when the tour ended. Homme and Grohl reunited in 2009 to form Them Crooked Vultures alongside John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin. Three bands. One supergroup. Homme also ran Eagles of Death Metal in parallel with Queens of the Stone Age throughout this entire period. Lanegan went on to make some of the most vital and haunted records of his solo career before his death in 2022. Queens of the Stone Age never stopped. What started in the California desert with Kyuss became a thread that runs through three decades of rock music. Palm Desert to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The riff never stopped moving.