It’s become so cliche seeing bands emerge out of major urban areas, whether it’s Los Angeles,
New York, Chicago or some smaller cities like Seattle, but the band Kyuss didn’t fit that label.
In fact, they came out of the California desert, which seemed like an unlikely place to find
loud guitars and thundering drums. Referred to as stoner rock or desert rock, the sub-genre borrowed
elements of psychedelia, blues, heavy metal, punk rock, acid rock, and alternative rock.
The members of Kyuss saw the desert as a key ingredient of their music, that couldn’t be
found in nearby places like Los Angeles with singer John Garcia telling the LA Times in 1994
“The desert is the key ingredient in our sound,” “We’re always trying to work the
desert vibe into our music. “We’re only two hours away from Los Angeles, but considering
how different things are over here, we may as well be on Mars. The thing is, we’re a
very satisfied bunch of Martians" he’d say. Today, let’s talk about the rise and fall of Kyuss
Kyuss roots dated back to the palm desert when a 14 year old drummer named Brant Bjork,
formed a band with his best friend bassist Chris Cockrell. They would start jamming with a metal
loving school mate of theirs known as nick oliveri who had just picked up guitar after selling his
bass. Soon enough they added a second guitarist in Josh Homme and Originally calling themselves
Katzenjammer which in german either meant hangover or moaning of a cat. You guys can take your pick.
The band eventually changed their name to Sons of Kyuss after they added vocalist John Garcia.
The name was born from a character in dungeons and dragons. Garcia would recall to Loudersound
how he joined the band revealing “I played football with Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork
and Chris Cockrell, the original bass player. Nick kept bugging me to see his band, Katzenjammer,
play. This is when they still jammed in Brant’s room. So one day me and my buddy went up there,
and that was it for me. I wanted a piece of it” Located two hours from Los Angeles, there weren’t
a lot of venues for the band to play at and by Garcia’s own admission the band would pack up
their equipment including a generator, a light, a keg and play in the middle of nowhere for free
and have their own party. These gigs would be referred to as generator parties. While
the media seemed to indicate that generator parties were started by kyuss they wouldn’t
be the first band to do these types of gigs as the members of Kyuss, were heavily influenced
by several groups who sprouted came before them including Across the River and Yawning Man.
While these generator parties were free gigs, guitarist Josh Homme stressed that the g crowds
could be hard to win over revealing to Billboard “If people don't like you, they'll tell you.
You can't suck. While many in the media seemed to romanticize or glamorize these gigs,,
the generator parties started to get bigger and soon changed for the worst.
Soon enough, people who weren’t even fans of that type of music stated showing up
bringing guns and knives and Brant would tell Loudersound the reality of the parties revealing
"It was like Altamont every weekend,” referring to the infamous 1969 Rolling Stones gig. “There
was no security, no nothing. That’s what’s so ironic about people romanticising those parties.
You had a lot of fun, but it was primal and dangerous.” When it got bigger, a lot of people
gave up, because more and more people showed up who weren’t necessarily into punk rock or
music – they just wanted something to do,” “When you bring all those people together from different
parts of the desert, it turns into tribal warfare! You get a lot of guns and stabbings,
and that’s what really ended it" he'd say. The band would change their name from Katzenhammer
to Sons of Kyuss in 1989 and it was around this time that guitarist Nick Oliveri left the group
and the band shrunk to a four piece temporarily. The following year they would release their self
titled EP on their own label black highway music. Keep in mind a lot of the members of
kyuss were still in their teens when they put out their first EP. Following the release that EP,
the band had another lineup change with bassist Chris Cockrell leaving the band and
former guitarist Nick Oliveri coming back into the fold, but transitioning over to the bass player.
Kyuss only made about 500 copies of their EP and started selling them to local record stores,
but it would be a women named Catherine Enny who managed the recording studio where the
band recorded their first EP who took the band under her wing and started booking shows for the
group in Los Angeles. By 1990 the band started playing clubs in LA and initially they weren’t
well received. Homme would tell billboard magazine “it was weird there were still a lot of hair bands
around. Actually a lot of people hated us. I think we got into fights 13...14 shows in a row.“
The band would sign with independent record label Dali, who put out their debut album
Wretch in September of 1991. Several of the songs that were found on their first EP
would re-appear on Wretch albeit in a rerecorded form. While the album didn’t sell a lot of copies,
the band’s fortunes in LA changed with kyuss becoming a well respected act around the City.
They soon caught the attention of a writer named Chris “hot rod” Long who wrote for a publication
named Hollywood Rocks who was also a club promoter. He would later go on to become an A&R
man for Chamleleon Records. Long would admit to billboard magazine “i did tons of stuff on them. I
wrote about them in every issue for two months.” And by late 1990 and early 1991 major labels
started showing interest in the band and they would eventually sign with Chameleon Records.
It’s important to note the band’s first label Dali, was a subsidiary of Chameleon Records. The
band’s first release through the label would be 1992’s “Blues for the Red Sun.” The album would
be produced by Masters of Reality guitarist Chris Goss who was also from the palm desert and had
struck up a relationship with the group after attending several of their generator parties.
He understood the band’s music and knew how to capture their sound in the studio. Following the
records release, the band underwent another lineup change with Oliveri once again leaving the group
and being replaced by Scott Reeder Blues for the Red Sun immediately
gained traction picking up major airplay at KNAC in Los Angeles, KISW in Seattle,
KIOZ in San Diego as well as WYSY in Chicago. In addition to that MTV added thong song and green
machine to their lineup for headbangers ball. Spin Magazine also labeled the record as one of
the ten most underrated albums of the year. And iT wasn’t just America who recognized the band
as even the british press most notably Kerrang who gave the record 5K’s out of 5. MTV actually
wanted to come out to the palm desert and film one of their generator parties, but the band declined.
Goss would reveal to the LA Times why the band said no to mtv revealing “I thought that was
the coolest thing,” “There’s a commitment to being genuine that I love about Kyuss. Those
parties are something that the local kids really enjoy. Why make it flavor of the week?" he'd say.
To support the record, the band toured with the likes of faith no more, danzig and white zombie,
but awareness of the group really took off when they opened for Metallica in early 1993 in
Australia. While Blues for the Red Sun was hugely influential, it wasn’t a big seller. It only moved
about 39,000 copies but they were on a small label and according to billboard magazine at the time,
they had the biggest awareness of any band whose last album sold close to 40,000 copies. Chameleon
records was excited about the band’s follow record welcome to sky valley and soon started previewing
it for some of the biggest names in the rock and the metal press in late 1993 even sending out
samples of the track Demon Cleaner. Then, the unexpected happened. Chameleon records folded.
Homme would tell Billboard “It was a pretty big shock. I kinda think that I knew that it was going
to happen someday, but we could be the label’s savior band. The morning before the closure I’d
had great conversations with people at the label. According to Billboard Magazine Chameleon Records
had a relationship with Elektra who signed the band. it would be Elektra Records Vice
President of A&R Steve Ralbovsky who initially showed interest in the group. He soon started
reaching out to Metallica and Nirvana and industry agents and managers about Kyuss and
the response was overwhelmingly positive and soon enough the band was signed to the label. Elektra
would release Welcome to Sky Valley in June of 1994 and it's regarded by many fans of the band
to be their finest work. But the band underwent another lineup change which delayed the album’s
release by several months with drummer Brant Bjork telling Louder Sound. “There was just a
lot of politics involved at that point,” he says, “and the band had started to disintegrate from
all the business and politics and all the stuff that’s just not fun to take responsibility for
when you’re that young.” In a separate interview with Rolling Stone he said
Josh and I were the creative force within the band and after the completion of our second record,
blues for the red sun, we devolvped opposing views on how the band should exist and operate.”
He would be replaced Alfredo Hernandez. Their new label Elektra would struggle to market
the band as they couldn’t be pigeonholed into one category. Something frontman John Garcia shed some
light on during an interview with Loudersound revealing “Elektra flew us out to New York,
and we sat in a huge conference room and everybody ran around the table introducing themselves.
We had a huge team of people. Back then the music business was a lot different than it is now.
Anyway, I don’t think they knew what do with us. We got a little bit of airplay on MTV,
but I don’t think they got it. They just didn’t know where to push Kyuss. But Guitarist Josh
Homme thought the fact that the band couldn’t be pigeonholed was exciting telling Billboard
”We have a pretty cool audience and their pretty different from each other. Chances are, you’ll see
a 20 year old next to a 60 year old speed freak." To support Welcome to Sky Valley, the band
toured with Dinosaur Jr, Fishbone, Ween and Biohazard, bands just like
Kyuss sound couldn’t be more different. As the band turned their attention to what
would be their final studio album as a group, 1995’s And the Circus Leaves Town. The recording
of the album was not a positive experience as John Garcia remembering “it was a horrible f&&&&
record to make. Josh and i were clashing all the time and had creative differences.
In a 2009 interview with bassist Scott Reeder he would claim
“While recording circus soooo much money was getting thrown out the window. We were
in one of hte most expensive studios in hollywood just for recording overdubs.
People running around to get you food, cigarettes anything you wanted. There was also a bit of
bickering going on and i was pretty stressed. Too many weird vibes. It wasn’t the way things are
supposed to be. And i had this crazy idea that you should actually be able to hear the bass. Everyone
was a little too stoned." And Reeder would go on to reveal that they blew even more money remixing
the record because the bass was inaudible. The record also received less favourable
reviews than the band’s two previous record. The group's final record wouldreleased in july of
95 and Elektra wanted to promote the band across alternative and hard rock/heavy metal formats
in addition to skate, surf and snowboard shops and even tattoo parlours according to Billboard
Magazine. The campaign was futile though as the the group’s did a short tour in the States
and Europe before they called it quits in October of 1995. The band was supposed to
open for Monster Magnet that same month but it was over. The move even took their label by surprise.
Initially it was reported by MTV that personal reasons weren’t behind the split but Drummer
Brant Bjork would tell loudersound the final straw that broke the camel’s back revealing “The writing
thing is what made the band implode,”. “We had a publishing company and everyone got 25%,
whether I came with more material or Josh did, which was pretty much the case.
It came to a point where Josh wanted to break up the publishing individually,
and by doing that you are breaking up the spirit of the band. That’s exactly what happened.”.
In 1997 A Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age compilation EP was put out. And Queens of the
Stone Age was guitarist Josh Homme’s new project, which we’ll talk about in a bit while in In 2000,
a compilation album, Muchas Gracias: The Best of Kyuss, was released by Elektra.
Following his time in Kyuss, Homme would go on to play guitar for the Screaming, which I've done an
entire video on about their long and complicated history. The link is down below. It was around
the time Homme was playing in Screaming Trees, that he formed his own hugely successful outfit
Queens of the Stone Age. The other former members of Kyuss would pursue other musical projects with
Nick Oliveri hooking back up with Homme in Queens of the Stone Age until his departure in 2004
and drummer Alfredo Herndnez would also play in the band as well. In 2006 former Kyuss frontman
John Garcia joined the band on stage to perform a few Kyuss songs fueling speculation of a reunion
but Homme shot those down a year later. In November 2010, Garcia, Oliveri and
Bjork started touring under the monicker "Kyuss Lives!" Initially Josh Homme had no opposition to
the name and was initially supportive. It wasn’t until it was revealed that Kyuss Lives announced
that were going to record an album and release a live record that the legal trouble started.
Homme filed a federal lawsuit against Garcia and Bjork claiming"trademark infringement and
consumer fraud" over the use of the Kyuss name despite the fact Bjork had originally created the
name.A judge would rule that the band could perform live using the monicker but not release
new material so the band changed their name to visto Chino and only put out one record..
Regarding the possibility of a kyuss reunion with Josh Homme has always ruled it out but
last year he seemed to change his tune saying "There have been times I thought (Kyuss) cannot
end that way, and the only real way to end it correctly now would be to play," he'd say.
That does it for today's video guys thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like button
and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.