Spaceship Landing: Kyuss Lives

If hell froze over in The Eagles’ name and an ice age thawed for The Pixies, then a black hole opened in the sky to announce the second coming of Kyuss. Vocalist John Garcia tested the waters with his 'Plays Kyuss' tour last year before going on to assemble a new incarnation of the seminal Palm Desert stoner kings, involving original members Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork alongside newcomer Bruno Fevery.

Guitarist Josh Homme is notable by his absence and has been consistently opposed to revisiting the band he made his bones with since splitting in 1995, but three out of four is enough for Garcia to resurrect their lead-heavy psychedelic groove for the masses under the banner 'Kyuss Lives'. “A lot of people think I’m doing it for money or revenge,” he tells us. “How the fuck does anybody know unless they ask me?” So we did...

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Kyuss’s mythical status has led people to believe that the band just magically appeared with a generator and started jamming in the middle of Palm Desert one day. Where did it all start?
We were in high school and I knew that these guys were music heads. They played in a band with a guy by the name of Chris Cockrell – he was the original bassplayer, who used to bug me all the time after [American] football practice where Josh, Brant, Chris and I played. I was into ZZ Top, The Cult and some R&B stuff – they were into the Misfits, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Descendents and all that shit. I always knew that they were jamming in Brant’s bedroom up Highway 74. Chris kept on bugging me: ‘You’ve gotta come see my band play,’ so I eventually went up there one night.

They started playing, man, and [laughs mischievously] it was love at first sight. Josh started playing this song called Wild Flower [from The Cult’s 1987 album Electric] and I’m like ‘alright, where’s the mic?' I wanted to sing, and to be quite honest with you, I didn’t know how to sing. I sucked! But I didn’t care if I sucked or not. You’ve got to remember that we were four really hungry young men – hungry for music. This was not some long, drawn-out ‘I was fuckin’ writing poetry up on Venice Beach when Ray Manzarek came up to me’ kinda story. Kyuss was created out of sheer boredom, and a lot of angst.

Kyuss sounded like the natural successor to Black Sabbath, but Josh claimed to have limited exposure to them. Who did you take your cues from, besides Ian Astbury?
I took them off of Josh, Brant, Nick and Chris Cockrell. Those guys were really my idols; they taught me how to sing. I remember Brant wrote this song called Communion Youth and said ‘here’s some lyrics, sing it.’ So I go ‘OK, if I’m going to sing it, I’m going to sing it punk rock.’ He says ‘no, no, sing it like this’ and starts singing a melody to me. And I’m like ‘oh, melody’, so when you put something melodic over something heavy and mean, fast and angry – sometimes it marries well and sometimes it doesn’t. But by no means did we sit down and listen to Paranoid over and over again and go ‘we want to sound like that.’ Our plight was just to play music that was missing in our lives.

From Blues For The Red Sun onwards, Chris Goss recorded the trilogy of albums that Kyuss is best known for. What kind of impact did he have?
Chris was the first guy that really believed in us – the first professional producer, singer/songwriter, guitar player, musician extraordinaire that really took Kyuss underneath his wing and said ‘come on, don’t worry about it, no one’s gonna hurt you. I’m gonna lead the way to try and get that live sound for you on tape, on vinyl, on CD.’ I think he did a pretty good job.

As the records went on they became intricately expansive and nuanced. Sky Valley took leaps and bounds in that respect. Did you surprise yourself?  
Well, Sky Valley – I think that’s Josh’s baby; he had a conceptual idea and probably more to do with that record than any one of the band members, even the producer. I was just lucky to be involved, lucky to sing some of Josh’s songs and add my personality to them. It was an exploration and he knocked it out of the ballpark for sure. That’s when I thought we were really starting to get somewhere, with Sky Valley. I thought ‘this is really the beginning, here we go. This is the direction we’re supposed to be going in.’

There was a sense of finality to And The Circus Leaves Town, though. Did you have an inkling that the band was finished as you were recording?
Before we started mixing that record I knew it was coming to the end for me. I can’t tell you why. I was fed up with everything, my lack of participation in the band, and what my role was in it. Slowly but surely being squeezed out of the creative mix of things, that was something I wasn’t going to stand for.

Why did Kyuss ultimately disband?
It was just time, I think we got to a certain level and Josh and I had been through three different bass players, two different drummers. I remember Josh and I sat down in this bar, and within minutes the band was broken up. I didn’t say ‘Hey, I think we should break up the band.’ Josh did, and I went ‘OK, fine’. I really didn’t give a fuck at the time. Within five minutes of the conversation we were already toasting – ‘remember that one time in Germany?’

That’s been the basis of our relationship ever since that fateful night – being calm, cool and cordial with one another. We’re like brothers; we can still get into fights but eat dinner at the same table. We’ve come to terms with our business decisions and what we’ve made, and a lot of good things have come out of the disbandment of Kyuss. A lot of good music. And that’s what some people tend to forget.

There was a long period where you were reluctant to talk about Kyuss – was it difficult to move on to new projects?
It was, and it was something that I shined, it was something that I hated to talk about because I wanted to move on. But now I’ve come to terms with my past, because no matter how hard I try to get away with it, I will always be known as the singer of Kyuss. I embrace it. I’m proud of my past and extremely lucky to have played with all the musicians I have in the past – anybody in my shoes should be so lucky. I’ve come to appreciate Kyuss a lot more. It took years for me, but I think that’s par for the course. If any band breaks up they’re automatically put on this pedestal, in the same way out-of-print records become more valuable. Years down the line after Kyuss broke up we got to a certain status, but where the fuck was everybody back then? 

There was no internet to make a band an overnight success back then, though. Kyuss seemed to grow through good old-fashioned word of mouth...
I think it was word of mouth, it was a lot of other people and musicians that helped us out, whether it be one of the guys from Pantera, somebody in Metallica, or Dave Grohl from Nirvana – that really helped spread the word. I also think it was a lot of our hard work touring our asses off eight months of the year, but it was definitely an underground thing.

You played a few of the old songs live with Josh some years ago, but he's been otherwise opposed to a full-on Kyuss reunion. Did you seek his blessing?
Actually, I did seek his blessing and I never heard word back. But when I was doing Garcia Plays Kyuss without Nick and Brant, I got this nice e-mail from Josh. It’s great when I get an e-mail from him saying: ‘The band you have right now are showing these songs an incredible amount of respect, and I support you 100%.’ That’s the type of guy Josh is. Although he might be too proud to 'rub his dick in the past' – and it’s never backwards, ever forward for Josh – he’s still been very supportive of me and my career, and I love him dearly.

 

Each member has spoken about the band as a very sacred thing, why reform now?
Nick knows about it, Brant knows about it, Bruno Fevery knows about it, my manager knows about it – it’s to help promote my solo record called Garcia vs Garcia, which is coming out at the end of the year. Let me ask you a question, do you remember the Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age split EP?

Had it on the stereo last night!
Well when Josh called me up and said 'Hey dude, would you mind if I put a Kyuss song on a Queens of the Stone Age EP?’ I said ‘Of course not.’ It was a great conduit, a great stepping stone. I’m doing the same thing but doing it live. After being in veterinary medicine for twenty plus years, even when I was in Kyuss, I’ve decided to give it a break with the blessing of my family. So don’t sweep me under the carpet just yet, don’t kick John Garcia to the fuckin’ curb – I’m not done. This is my statement to say ‘listen motherfuckers, I’m back.’ We’re comin’ to your town.

Is there a future for this for Kyuss Lives beyond this world tour?
I’m going to do this whole live piece, then Garcia vs Garcia will come out. To be quite honest with you, we’re planning to do another record – me, Brant, Nick and Bruno – yes, we don’t know what it’s going to be called yet, whether it’s Kyuss Lives or fuckin’ Joe Blow and the whatevers.

But look, I’m not trying to change the face of rock’n’roll with this. My plight for Garcia vs Garcia is not to get my face on the cover of Rolling Stone; it’s just to fill the void in my gut. There’s going to be no other projects until I get this monkey off my back. We hope that anybody who reads this will take the chance to see Kyuss Lives, because this is as close to the real deal as you’re ever gonna get.

Kyuss last played Scotland nearly 20 years ago, do you remember much of that particular trip?
I don’t remember too much of the show. I remember countryside, I remember sheep, I remember rolling green hills, I remember how beautiful Scotland was. I remember Glasgow, in the city, taking a subway to my hotel, my suitcase was massive and it was a bitch to get it there. I remember going to eat at this Mexican restaurant and thinking ‘why the fuck am I eating Mexican in Glasgow?’ The food was horrible, and I should have been eating local fare.