Queens Of The Stone Age: "We Got F**ked!" (Interview)

The 13th Floor spoke to Queens Of The Stone Age bass player Michael Shuman just a few days after their truncated appearance with Trent Reznor on the Grammy Awards broadcast. As you will hear, Michael is still sore about the way they were treated by the show’s producer…but he is excited about touring here with Nine Inch Nails.

Listen to the interview here:

Or, read a transcription of the interview with Queens Of The Stone Age bassist Michael Shuman here:

MD: You guys are coming here with Nine Inch Nails and which people are very excited about that. I assume you’re not touring with Nine Inch Nails at the moment, is that correct?

Michael: No we’re not, but we just spent a lot of time together preparing for the “Whammys”.

MD: Right. There’s a bit of controversy towards that as far as the end result. How do you feel about how that went down.

Michael: Uh, I think we got fucked.

MD: (laughs) I guess you could say that. I did see the entire performance.

Michael: How did you get to see that?

MD: I believe Pitchfork had a clip of the whole thing somewhere.

Michael: Of the whole thing; really?

 

MD: Of the uninterrupted performance.       (Here’s the clip of their uncut rehearsal)  [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa_wV_TQLoM]

Michael: Yeah because I was wondering the same thing. How do people who want to see that performance see that thing? Because everything I heard, I had to see it, I had to watch it once to see how bad it really was. And it was bad. I was wondering if I could see it real quick. But it’s good that it’s out there.

MD: It is good that it’s out there. How does that make you guys feel about doing things like the Grammys? Do you have to rethink about how you approach things to get stuff in writing to make sure stuff like that doesn’t happen again?

Michael: Yeah you do. And I personally didn’t…I know Josh handled like the arrangement and you know and Trent; that was the producer and how it was going to go down. But yeah I definitely think we have to rethink that and you know everyone is going to point fingers at someone else to get the blame off them. You know I must say this, cos I don’t really give a fuck, but like, not only did they blame CBS for the ads but I must say when I watched it back, the direction was horrendous because all of a sudden they go back to the song and do a long shot through the bleachers rolling the credits. And if I were the director, why would you have to do that? Why not just keep the original close ups? It was just horrible. It was horribly done.

MD: Well the Grammys have a history of screwing things up one way or another. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. And there’s a lot of folks watching here in New Zealand. They usually don’t air live here but they made a special exception because Lorde of course was getting an award or two. Anyway I’m curious as to how the tour with Nine Inch Nails affects you guys. Do you approach doing the show differently when it’s a double bill like that as opposed to your own show?

Michael: Yeah, I mean we agreed to set it up that each night we’ll choose who goes first by the flip of a coin. So that changes everything. Usually we’ll be headlining a show and there’ll be no question as to who’s ending. Which makes for some interesting friendly competition. You always want to kind of one up who you’re playing with. It’s actually a great feeling to have some competition. It makes it fun. Also trying to win over, there’ll be a lot of Nine Inch Nail fans that won’t necessarily be Queen fans and don’t know much about Queen so then we’ll have to win over some people too. It’ll make it fun. It should be exciting.

MD: (laughs) And I assume you guys have a good inter band relationship if you’re going to spend some time on the road together.

Michael: Oh yeah. It’ll be a bigger family on the road because…yeah.

MD: Now within the band there have been quite a few changes since the last time you were here, particularly in the drummer’s seat. You know there’s always a rather tight relationship between the drummer and the bass player. How has that affected what you do in the band.

Michael: Well, I got a taste of multiple drummers when we were doing the record. So I guess I was kind of used to someone else. But I’ve always been a fan of Jon (new drummer Jon Theodore). Growing up when he was playing. So it was a pleasure and an honour to have him playing with us. It’s just a different thing. He’s a totally different drummer than Joey. But in some ways, actually in most ways it’s a lot more fun. You can do different things that you hadn’t done in the past; and a different way of playing. He has a great pocket. It’s great to watch too.

MD: And the songs themselves from Like Clockwork, do they tend to change once they get onstage and you guys live with them for a few months? It had been a while since the album came out.

Michael: Yeah for sure. And you know we didn’t have a chance to tour on any of the songs or get into the mindset when we were making the record. It always happens. You do the record one way. You get on stage and you end up playing differently. Just because it’s natural to. And also Jon did a different spin on some things. And also those songs suit him really well so I think. When you see the show it will make a lot of sense I think. Maybe he was the piece we were looking for.

MD: I read somewhere Josh was quoted as saying you guys have quite a few other songs that you haven’t recorded which you will be recording again before the end of the year. Do any of those songs show up in the concert? Or are you holding back and focusing on stuff that’s been released already?

Michael: Yeah, no, we were not playing any of that stuff. It’s a lot of material for one guy to pick up. This new record is very detailed and we’ve got very detailed on how we play all the songs live. Take that whole record and five others and it’s a lot of stuff for one drummer to handle in a short amount of time. It’s funny for him to do. And also we just want to enjoy playing that record. We like to play almost every record off the song every night.

MD: So I guess with the new drummer sitting in, it gives the band a chance to rethink which songs, especially from the catalogue that they’re going to be playing and concentrating on, and just kind of re-jigging the whole set list. Is that right?

Michael: Yeah totally. And because we wanted to play most of the new record every night, if not all of it, we started to cater to that record and create a set list from the songs from the other records that were bold would fit nicely into that whole thing. And I think we did a great job; you’ll see this. I think the fans are really going to enjoy it.

MD: What kind of feedback do you get from them? Do you get people who are kinda ‘Why didn’t you do my favourite song?’

Michael: Yeah. People usually want to hear their favourite old songs. We play new songs and they are kind of like ‘eh.’ But we’ve been surprised that people are happy that we’re playing all these new songs. And I guess we did some right.

MD: It’s a great record so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be happy with most of it I would imagine. So your other little side project Mini Mansions, I know you did a couple of shows last year and it’s been a while since you did some recording. Is that still an ongoing concern of yours as well?

Michael: Yeah I mean I was just recording yesterday.

MD: Oh cool.

Michael: My mind can’t really stop like my body. So I work whenever I’m not doing Queen. I think all of us are pretty good at doing something else. And I’m no exception. And there will be some new stuff in…in the not, won’t be too soon. In the future we’ll be doing some stuff. You’ll see some new stuff coming out.

Queens Of The Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails will tour New Zealand in March. Click here for more ticket and tour info.