QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
Biography and discography of Queens of the Stone Age, the rock band formed in Seattle in 1996, with a page for each of their nine albums from the 1998 debut to Perfecth in 2026 and for the 2025 live EP, including running orders, CD details, liner notes and a record of their concerts in Japan.
Biography
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE
Biography
Queens of the Stone Age are a rock band formed in Seattle in 1996. Josh Homme, who had led Kyuss in the California desert around Palm Desert, started them there after that band ended, stepping away from the heavy desert sound he had made and building the balance that is theirs alone: hard, repeating riffs with a light vocal gliding over them. The band's own discography lists ten releases, nine of them studio albums and one a live EP from 2025. Their ninth album, Perfecth, arrives on 30 October 2026, and they return to Japan that November for the first time in two years.
Formation and the debut (1996-1999)
After Kyuss broke up in 1995, Josh Homme moved to Seattle and played guitar on tour with Screaming Trees. He started a new band there in 1996, at first under the name Gamma Ray, which put out an eponymous EP the same year carrying songs such as "Born to Hula" and "If Only", with Van Conner of Screaming Trees and the drummer Victor Indrizzo on it.
In 1997 the German band of the same name threatened legal action and the name changed. "Queens of the Stone Age" had been a nickname the producer Chris Goss gave Kyuss. Homme explained the choice: "Kings would be too macho... Rock should be heavy enough for the boys and sweet enough for the girls."
The debut album, Queens of the Stone Age, came out on Loosegroove Records on 22 September 1998, with Roadrunner handling it internationally and Man's Ruin pressing the vinyl. It was recorded between 3 and 21 April that year at Monkey Studios in Palm Desert and Rancho De La Luna in Joshua Tree. Alfredo Hernandez, who had also been in Kyuss, played the drums and Homme played almost everything else. Bassist Nick Oliveri had joined by the time it appeared: he is in the photograph on the back cover and on the answering-machine message that closes the record. Dave Catching joined shortly afterwards on keyboards and guitar.
The Interscope years and Songs for the Deaf (2000-2003)
The second album, Rated R, released on 6 June 2000, was their first for Interscope Records. Oliveri was now a full member and Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees guested; Lanegan then stayed as a full member until early 2005. That year the band won best international newcomer at the Kerrang! Awards.
Songs for the Deaf, the third album, came out on 27 August 2002 and made them widely known. Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters played the drums, and the record is loosely framed as a drive out of Los Angeles into the desert. It was certified gold in the United States in 2003 and has sold more than 900,000 copies there. The video for "Go with the Flow" won best visual effects at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards. Grohl left after the touring was done and Joey Castillo took over part-way through the European leg, becoming a full member. Troy Van Leeuwen joined the touring line-up in 2002 and later became a full member too.
In 2004 the band won best live band at the NME Awards, and "Go with the Flow" won a pop award at the BMI London Awards.
Oliveri's dismissal and two albums (2004-2008)
Homme fired Oliveri in 2004. He has said he had put a rumour to Oliveri some years earlier and told him, "If I ever find out that this is true, I can't know you, man." The rumour was of violence toward Oliveri's girlfriend.
Lullabies to Paralyze, the fourth album, followed on 22 March 2005. Lanegan contributed lyrics and vocals while touring with his own band, and it is his last as an official member; it is the first for Van Leeuwen and Castillo, with Alain Johannes on bass and guitar and Natasha Shneider on keyboards. It reached five on the Billboard 200, the band's first top ten there. Shneider died of lung cancer on 2 July 2008, aged fifty-two.
Era Vulgaris, the fifth, came out on 12 June 2007 and was their last for Interscope. The idea for it came to Homme on his daily drives through Hollywood, and he called the sound "dark, hard, and electrical, sort of like a construction worker". From this period Michael Shuman played bass and Dean Fertita keyboards and guitar.
The gap, Homme's illness and ...Like Clockwork (2009-2014)
Six years passed between Era Vulgaris and the next album. During them Homme had knee surgery that went badly wrong: his heart stopped through asphyxiation and he was revived with a defibrillator. He spent four months bedridden, contracted MRSA and fell into a depression deep enough that he considered giving up music altogether. That experience is the ground the next record was built on.
...Like Clockwork, the sixth album, was released by Matador Records in June 2013, on the 3rd in Britain and the 4th in the United States. It went to number one on the Billboard 200, the band's first American chart-topper. Castillo left during the sessions and Jon Theodore replaced him, so the drumming is shared three ways: Dave Grohl on five songs, Castillo on four and Theodore on the title track. Trent Reznor, Elton John, Mark Lanegan, Nick Oliveri, Alex Turner and Jake Shears all guest on it. It was nominated for three Grammy Awards.
The Matador trilogy and the present (2015- )
Villains, the seventh album, came out on 25 August 2017, produced by Mark Ronson, and went to number one in Britain — the band's first British chart-topper. It is also the first of their albums with no guest musicians at all.
Mark Lanegan died in February 2022.
In Times New Roman..., the eighth, was released on 16 June 2023 and produced by the band themselves, closing the trilogy that had begun with ...Like Clockwork. Homme has said it sat unfinished for two and a half years. In February 2024 they played their first headline shows in Japan in six years, at Zepp Namba and Tokyo Dome City Hall, and the Tokyo night sold out.
In June 2025 they released Alive in the Catacombs, a live acoustic EP recorded in the Catacombs of Paris on 8 July the previous year; they are the first musical act to have played there with the city's permission. Perfecth, the ninth album, comes out worldwide on Matador on 30 October 2026, with Beat Records issuing the Japanese edition the same day, and three Japanese shows follow on 25, 26 and 28 November at Zepp Haneda, Zepp Nagoya and Zepp Namba.
The members
The current line-up is Josh Homme on vocals and guitar, Troy Van Leeuwen on guitar, Michael Shuman on bass, Dean Fertita on guitar and keyboards, and Jon Theodore on drums. Van Leeuwen came in through the touring line-up in 2002, Shuman and Fertita from 2007 and Theodore in 2013; the five have not changed since.
Among those who played in the band before them are the drummer Alfredo Hernandez on the debut, Nick Oliveri on bass and vocals from 1998 to 2004, the singer Mark Lanegan from 2000 to 2005, the drummer Joey Castillo from 2002 to 2012, Alain Johannes on bass and guitar and Natasha Shneider on keyboards. Dave Grohl, who played the drums on Songs for the Deaf and again on ...Like Clockwork, was never a member.
Discography
These are the ten releases the band's own site lists, in order of release. Each has a page of its own here with its running order, CD details and liner notes.
| Released | Title | Label |
|---|---|---|
| 22 September 1998 | Queens of the Stone Age | Loosegroove |
| 6 June 2000 | Rated R | Interscope |
| 27 August 2002 | Songs for the Deaf | Interscope |
| 22 March 2005 | Lullabies to Paralyze | Interscope |
| 12 June 2007 | Era Vulgaris | Interscope |
| 4 June 2013 | ...Like Clockwork | Matador |
| 25 August 2017 | Villains | Matador |
| 16 June 2023 | In Times New Roman... | Matador |
| 13 June 2025 | Alive in the Catacombs (live EP) | Matador |
| 30 October 2026 | Perfecth | Matador / Beat Records |
Concerts in Japan
Seven Japanese concerts could be dated from a first-party source and are listed here. The band also played the Fuji Rock Festival in 2017, but no first-party source opened gives the day, so that one is not listed.
| Date | Venue | Tour |
|---|---|---|
| 16 August 2018 | Shinkiba Studio Coast, Tokyo | Queens of the Stone Age Live in Tokyo |
| 18 August 2018 | ZOZO Marine Stadium & Makuhari Messe, Chiba | Summer Sonic 2018 (Mountain Stage) |
| 5 February 2024 | Zepp Namba, Osaka | Japan Tour 2024 |
| 7 February 2024 | Tokyo Dome City Hall | Japan Tour 2024 (sold out) |
| 25 November 2026 | Zepp Haneda, Tokyo | You'll see Queens of the Stone Age World Tour |
| 26 November 2026 | Zepp Nagoya | You'll see Queens of the Stone Age World Tour |
| 28 November 2026 | Zepp Namba, Osaka | You'll see Queens of the Stone Age World Tour |
Separately announced is an in-store event by Josh Homme at Tower Records Shibuya's B1F CUTUP STUDIO on 24 November 2026, tied to the Japanese tour behind Perfecth: QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE SPECIAL ACOUSTIC LIVE BY JOSH HOMME, with an acoustic set, a fan Q&A and a talk session. It is not a band concert and is not counted among the seven above.
About the sources
This page draws on the band's own site at qotsa.com and the data it publishes (its discography and its tour dates), the label Matador Records' product pages, the Japanese promoter Creativeman Productions' pages for the 2024 and 2026 tours, MusicBrainz, Wikidata, the streaming information on each Spotify entity, and the English Wikipedia articles for the band and for each album. The sources disagree about where the band was formed: the Japanese promoter's copy says Palm Desert, California, while Wikidata's P740 resolves to Seattle and the English Wikipedia also has them forming in Seattle. Palm Desert is where Homme and Kyuss are from and where the debut was recorded, not where the band was formed, and the two are written here as separate things. No performer and no concert date is written here from inference.
Trivia
Alive in the Catacombs, from 2025, was recorded in the Catacombs of Paris. The label's own product page says it was filmed and recorded in July 2024 in Paris, and that the band became the first musical act to play there with the city's permission. The five of them — Josh Homme, Troy Van Leeuwen, Michael Shuman, Dean Fertita and Jon Theodore — were joined by a three-piece string section, and chains and chopsticks stood in for percussion instruments. The label states that every song was recorded live in a complete take, with no overdubs and no edits.
In Times New Roman..., from 2023, was produced by the band and mixed by Mark Rankin, and its artwork and double-LP gatefold packaging were designed by their long-time collaborator Boneface — all of which the band set out themselves in the announcement on their own site. The same post says the video for the first single, "Emotion Sickness", was directed by and stars Liam Lynch. Lynch is the same man who made the teaser for Villains in 2017, the comedy skit in which the band are put through a polygraph test.
In August 2023 the band announced a pre-show event called Queens Colosseum, under the line "Dance like No One is Surviving". The first one ran in Toronto before their headline show at Budweiser Stage on 4 August, with an exclusive merchandise line, burlesque dancers, local bookshops and record shops, live silk-screen printing and vintage clothing. It opened at four in the afternoon and ran until the show began, for ticket holders only. The announcement on the band's own site ends by telling people not to forget their togas.
Perfecth, the ninth album, released in 2026, is built on a way of thinking the band trace to kintsugi, the Japanese practice of mending broken pottery by filling the seams with gold: the point is not to return a broken thing to what it was, but to turn the damage itself into a new kind of beauty. The product page of Beat Records, which issues the Japanese edition, sets that out and then gives Josh Homme's account of the title. The word "perfect", he says, has never once sat right with him, so he broke it and respelled it. The same page carries his remark that the title feels faintly comic inside a group like a band and not funny at all when one is alone.
The show at Shinkiba Studio Coast on 16 August 2018 was the band's first headline concert in Japan in fifteen years, as the event page of Beat Records, which issues their albums here, states. Doors were at 18:30 and the music at 19:30, all standing at 7,500 yen including tax with a drink charge on top. Two days later, on 18 August, they played the Mountain Stage at the Tokyo site of Summer Sonic 2018, and they had been at the Fuji Rock Festival the year before. The same page records that Villains, then their newest album, had reached number one in Britain, three in America and four on Japan's Oricon international chart, their best placing there.
Part-way through the show at Tokyo Dome City Hall on 7 February 2024, the kick drum broke during "The Way You Used to Do". The Japanese promoter's own report of the night says Josh Homme showed no sign of panic and asked the band for something soundtrack-ish, at which Troy Van Leeuwen casually played the James Bond theme. In the band introductions that followed, Homme called him Troy Van Leeuwen, double-oh five and a half. The drum was repaired while this went on and the set carried straight on.
That same Tokyo show on 7 February 2024 opened with "Regular John", the first song on the 1998 debut; the promoter's report notes that the album had been reissued in its original configuration in 2022. The main set closed with the up-tempo "Little Sister" and the encore ran "Sick, Sick, Sick", "Go With the Flow" and "A Song for the Dead". Dave Grohl played the drums on the recorded version of that last one; Jon Theodore played it this night, and Mark Lanegan, who sings the lead on the record, had died in 2022. The show was sold out.
"Easy Street", released on 14 July 2026, was the band's first new song since In Times New Roman... in 2023. The label copy carried on the Japanese promoter's tour page says it had already been played live on the previous year's Catacombs tour and that a recording had been keenly awaited. Nikki Lane sings on it. The video was directed by Tony Wolski and Christopher Gruse from a story idea of Josh Homme's, and opens with a battered Homme trying to escape a ragtag group of pursuers among whom are a juggalo, a mall Santa, a leather daddy and a well-dressed cowboy leading a small horse.
News
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE's Josh Homme Announces 'Joshua Homme And Friends…' Benefit Show At The Wiltern In Los Angeles On November 16 With Weird Al Yankovic, Beck, Chad Smith And More
The show benefits his Sweet Stuff Foundation, and Jack Black makes a special appearance. Tickets go on sale on October 9.
QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE's Josh Homme To Play An Acoustic In-Store Show At Tower Records Shibuya On November 24, With A Fan Q&A And Talk
The event starts at 20:00 in the store's B1F CUTUP STUDIO. Entry is by lottery among buyers of eligible titles reserved between October 2 (12:00) and October 25 (23:59); winners are to be announced on October 28 at 18:00.
Queens Of The Stone Age Share "Where The Goth Girls At?" Video From 'Perfecth'
Queens Of The Stone Age have released the official music video for "Where The Goth Girls At?", the third single from their ninth album Perfecth, out October 30 via Matador Records. It follows "Easy Street" and "Insignificant Other". The clip was directed by Christopher Gruse and Tony Wolski and features comedian Steve Agee, dancer and artist Scarlett Kapella and singer/actress Lou Lou Safran alongside the band.
Play MVQueens Of The Stone Age Announce Ninth Album “Perfecth”, Share “Insignificant Other” Single
“Perfecth” is due October 30 from Matador Records, produced by Josh Homme and Michael Shuman. It will be available on CD and standard black vinyl, on clear vinyl at indie retailers, and as a limited deluxe gatefold edition housing handwritten lyrics and a bespoke piece of art.
Play MVCHELSEA WOLFE's 'The Dark' Arrives August 21; “Seethe” Out Now
The album is out August 21 via Loma Vista Recordings. Troy Van Leeuwen of QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE plays lead guitar on “Seethe”; other guests on the record include Robin Finck (NINE INCH NAILS), Matt Chamberlain and members of Kælan Mikla.
Play MVQueens Of The Stone Age Announce Their Ninth Studio Album “Perfecth”
In the reveal video Josh Homme and Dean Fertita play five-finger fillet, and the September 30 date given in the voice-over is crossed out at the very end of the clip and replaced with “coming soon”. The advance single “Easy Street” was released in July.
Current Members
Current line-up as named by the band's label, verified on 2026-09-30.
Albums
Queens of the Stone Age's ninth album, out on 30 October 2026: nine songs built on the idea of kintsugi, produced by Josh Homme with the band's own bassist Michael Shuman.
A live acoustic EP recorded in the Catacombs of Paris on 8 July 2024, the first time a musical act had been allowed to play there with the city's permission.
Queens of the Stone Age's eighth album, out on 16 June 2023: self-produced, and the record that closes the trilogy they made for Matador.
Queens of the Stone Age's seventh album, from August 2017: produced by Mark Ronson and number one in Britain.
Queens of the Stone Age's sixth album, from June 2013: their first American number one, with Dave Grohl, Elton John and others on it.
Queens of the Stone Age's fifth album, from June 2007 and their last for Interscope. Josh Homme called the sound dark, hard and electrical.
Queens of the Stone Age's fourth album, from March 2005, made after Nick Oliveri's departure and with Troy Van Leeuwen and Joey Castillo newly in the band.
Queens of the Stone Age's third album, out on 27 August 2002. Dave Grohl plays the drums, and the record is loosely framed as a drive out of Los Angeles into the desert.
Queens of the Stone Age's second album, out on 6 June 2000. It is the first to feature bassist Nick Oliveri and the singer Mark Lanegan.
Queens of the Stone Age's debut album, from September 1998, made by Josh Homme after the end of Kyuss with Homme playing most of the instruments himself.