Tuesday, December 14th 2010
News: Kyuss
Kyuss Are Fucking Dead (Kyuss Lives)
So far, we’ve been quiet about Kyuss Lives!, a project that’s “reuniting” Kyuss for the first time since their demise in 1995. Said project consists of original band members John Garcia, Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork, with guitarist Bruno Fevery replacing co-founder Josh Homme, who was largely responsible for shaping the band’s unique sound.
Now we have news that the band is set to record a new album with this lineup.
Speaking to Rock Sound, singer John Garcia said: “Our rehearsals are going so well that we’re thinking of doing another record… Brant, Nick and myself have collectively agreed that once everything is done live and we’re done with our solo projects, we’re going to do another record.” When asked about Josh Homme, Garcia gushed the obligatory compliments, then revealed that he wasn’t even invited: “Even if we asked him to do it, I don’t think he’d say yes, so I don’t want to set myself up for a big fat no which is 99.9 percent [likely] what he would say.”
The reaction is mixed, and the news has polarized us a bit, here at Antiquiet. As Homme himself put it in 2007, ”Kyuss was a really magical thing – and if you weren’t there, well, you weren’t. I’ll let other bands alter their great legacies. Kyuss has such a great history that it would be a total error. I like that nobody saw Kyuss. That sounds like a legend forming to me.”
We respect Garcia, Oliveri and Bjork, and they certainly sounded great when the latter two joined the aptly named “Garcia Plays Kyuss” at Hellfest this year (video above). But without Homme, such a reunion seems wrong on principle, a molestation of a phenomenal band’s legacy.
for whatever it’s worth, i’m the one guy around here who isn’t mad, and thinks this is cool. flame on.
I don’t object it either, but I would rather they didn’t reunite… To me, Kyuss belongs to the past, and I like to think about it that way, especially after reading what Homme’s said. I mean they might just do real good, but what of it? It won’t sound like it did earlier, and I really do love that sound.
I think Josh summed it up well, why rub your dick on something that was magical?
feelsgoodman.jpg
Because they need money and Josh doesn’t?
this is the answer
I’m torn…in one hand I’m blowing my proverbial load and with the other I’m wiping away the tears of disgust.
Its not Kyuss without Homme, but getting Garcia, Bjork and Olivieri together in a studio has some pretty promising outcomes ahead of it.
Dudes want to make music again. Homme doesn’t. I am fine with them making music again. I look foward to seeing what they can do. I’ll but the ticket and take the ride when they come to the Key Club next year.
I like seeing these guys working together. i dislike these guys working together under the name Kyuss.
I might be interested in hearing anything new….but it won’t be Kyuss in my mind. Now I know how the G ‘N R fans who heard Chinese Democracy felt.
If they wanna do another record – right on. Queens and Desert Sessions have always had a revolving line up and I don’t recall anyone taking issue with that.
its easy to view this as disrespectful towards Homme, but in all honesty it’d be nice seeing Brant playing his own songs like ‘Green Machine’ and ‘Gardenia’ behind the drums with his lifelong friends again. Could they go by a different name? Hell yes. would they get this much attention? hell no. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario.
It might be totally lame…but I’ll listen to the record and I’ll be at the show…because I need to be…
Another fucking sellout. Given this recent development, I wonder what Homme says about it now. I love me some Kyuss, but this just feels wrong. They knew that the only way to maximize their profit was to use the name, and they took that low road. Same old story………
My thoughts precisely, Zoop.
Yeah they’d be so much cooler if they just called themselves “Whitewater” and half the press picked it up that picked up the original story. Who the fuck cares what they call it. Get over yourselves. When you have done something that would put you in the position to make a decision like they have, then you can have an understanding of it.
I care what they call themselves. If they release a new record under the Kyuss name, it’s going to change my respect for these guys.
What respect for them? I’ve never seen anything on this site cover Brant, Nick or John’s other solo projects. You guys only care about Josh.
TRUE!
http://www.antiquiet.com/artists/mondo-generator/
Well sorry, make that 1/6 projects in the last 3 years, there was an MP3 posting I must have missed. It’s not like Brant hasn’t been making music all the time that could use some coverage. But fuck, as soon as “Kyuss” is mentioned they’re all over it and half of them don’t like the thought of it.
i’m a big fan of mondo and we’ve covered them. we’re huge fans of hermano and unida (garcia is possibly my favorite rock vocalist of all time), but they haven’t done anything in the time we’ve been around. i picked up brant’s album and didn’t dig it. didn’t have anything nice to say, or a reason to pick that fight, so i just didn’t. we dig josh, but while we all had mixed feelings about kyuss doing shows without him (i’m all for it, if no one else is), even i could agree that writing without josh is deviating quite a bit from the formula. i’d trade reeder for nick, too, and partly because it would make up a little bit for josh being out.
actually, looks like we haven’t covered mondo as much as i thought we did… we shot a (rare) show of theirs, but a proper review never materialized:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=88589&id=21317481646
Doesn’t seem right. Homme’s playing/songwriting style was a massive part of what made Kyuss work. Seems to me like Garcia & Oliveri have little else to do…
With all due respect to him, it’s easy for Homme to babble on about how Kyuss should stay in the past while he’s the main man in two different bands that are off touring the world, founded the Dessert Sessions, helped get Eagles of Death Metal off the ground, and has collaborated with a butt load of huge names. Meanwhile Garcia’s had label issues of every kind and has trouble keeping a band together for more than an album or two. Oliveri got fired from the biggest thing he’s been involved in since Kyuss (his fault, sure) and couldn’t even keep Mondo Generator on Ozzfest due to cash problems. I haven’t even followed Bjork’s stuff. Definitely Homme made his mark on the band, but unlike QOTSA all the guys had written material and made their stamp on the groups sound. Isay let them have their share of the credit for what they helped put together.
My only issue is: where’s Reeder?
I’ve always been torn over whether I prefer Reeder or Oliveri but you can’t have both at the same time. (If it weren’t for Oliveri being a founding member I think Reeder may have been a better choice to mesh with Bjorks style, plus Reeder has done more projects with Garcia over the years)
Oliveri wasn’t actually a founding member, Chris Cockrell played bass on their first album. Albeit with a slightly different band name, it was still Kyuss.
Unless of course we talk about pre-release shit, in which case you win as he did jam with them as a guitar player.
And for the record, I believe I’d rather Reeder be doing this over Nick.
I don’t have any trouble with this, at all. Let ‘em do their thing. Josh is doing great, has moved forward. Nick, John and Brant have FAILED moving forward, so I completely understand their wish to go back at the one thing they succeeded at. I’ll buy that record the day it comes out. I personally think that whole touchy “legacy” thing is bullshit, coming from the fans. I mean, these guys were there, they made the fucking thing themselves.
And excuse me, but they sound FUCKING INSANE in that video! They can’t do wrong, no way.
Kyuss without Josh will never be Kyuss. If they record and tour using the Kyuss Lives name, then I’m okay with it.
I was 8 when Kyuss split, so obviously I wasn’t there. However, I would love to see this band live. Here’s hoping they come down the East Coast in 2011.
yeah let the guys do their thing…I’d rather leave it alone but now that you’ve reunited, please, oh please come to Brazil!
now, on one hand they sound fuckin’ awesome in this video even though I guess Bjork hasn’t been drumming for a while. the guitar is probably the easiest sound to just duplicate anyway. on the other hand seeing Kyuss play “Gardenia” without Josh Home AND Scott Reeder is somewhat crazy. nevertheless they definitely should focus on Bjork’s stuff – Blues For The Red Sun plus Gardenia and “Whitewater”.
the main thing is that they were so cool because they were so fresh and original. now that’s gone.
Brant Bjork has produced some GREAT music since leaving Kyuss but not recently; Garcia is a much better singer now but he hasn’t done anything remarkable in a while and is not that pot smoking, screaming happy kid who sounded like he was sipping beer between verses anymore. the new guitar guy just has got to downtune his guitar and practice to duplicate every riff exactly like Homme did and everybody will be happy. Nick Oliveri is just Nick Oliveri.
all in all, no one can say anything. “Kyuss was always the ‘Josh and Brant Show’” (Josh Homme’s words) so as long as Brant Bjork is in it, no one can say anything.