When I walked into the studio for my interview with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme, he was fiddling with something on his belt. So the first thing I asked him was, "What are you doing?"
He looked up at me, holding a tiny metal cross charm on a hoop, and laughed. "I'm just trying things lately," he said.
Turns out, at that moment, he was trying out belt charms.
But that also sums up the new Queens of the Stone Age album, Perfecth, which finds the band branching out in new musical directions.
As you'll hear in our conversation, that attitude of "I'm just trying things lately" goes way beyond accessories for Josh.
He's been through a tumultuous few years in his personal life, including a couple of health scares, and he's come out of it seeming wiser, lighter and with a renewed sense of adventure.
As a person and a musician, he refuses to be boxed in.
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe's engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus. Our executive producer is Bruce Warren.
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