Nirvana: the band that “destroyed everything” for Josh Homme

Posted On March 22, 2025March 22, 2025

During rock music’s pangs of existentialism during the rapidly evolving 2000s, with hip-hop and R&B ruling the roost, there was only one band that truly held an authentic link to the classic rock of yesteryear.

While Britpop had curdled into the drippy, soft indie peddled by the likes of Travis or Train, Foo Fighters’ formulaic stasis had already begun to ossify early on in the decade, and The Darkness’ hi-camp glam pastiche was too cartoony to take seriously. It took desert rock ensemble Queens of the Stone Age to light a path out of nu-metal’s wilderness.

Starting the decade strong with Rated R, frontman Josh Homme embraced focused hooks and pared-down chords wrapped in splashes of dusky psychedelia, which was dubbed “robot rock” by the man himself. This way of doing things brought them enormous critical acclaim and commercial success that eclipsed former band Kyuss. Maintaining a confident trajectory with 2002’s Songs for the Deaf, for some time, QOTSA offered the alienated metalhead who was confused by Kerrang TV’s saturation with frosted-tipped rappers and cookie-monster turntablism, a portal to where rock was supposed to be exciting. It was the same mystical, evocative well-spring, supped from Led Zeppelin or The Stooges, that ensured their rock enshrinement.

Like the best of them, QOTSA too began to drift into its own hype, indulging in rock’s tired machismo with such glee that Homme, “lost in performance”, kicked a female photographer in the face in 2017. Still, it can’t be overstated how pivotal their first few albums were in encouraging hard rock fans to find their feet again.

Playing in the hardcore heavy-metal band Katzenjammer as a teen, Homme’s exposure to one seminal band’s overlooked debut set a new standard of effective simplicity packed full of power. Speaking to Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard in 2007, Homme cast his mind back to Seattle’s burgeoning late-1980s alternative scene before its eventual Billboard explosion: “I will never forget the first time I heard Nirvana, and when I heard some singles and then Bleach, I thought ‘what the hell is this and why has it destroyed everybody else that I am involved in?’”.

The scuzz-out punk with a touch of left-of-the-dial college rock that would be termed grunge was already bubbling with vitality before Nirvana cut their debut LP. Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, and Mudhoney all had significant releases out there. Jack Endino was recording Seattle’s up-and-coming in his Reciprocal Recording studio, and Alice in Chains had ditched their former hair metal pomp to help score some of the city’s most thunderously stirring LPs.

There was little reason to think Nirvana would dominate the next decade with their stripped-down sludge punk. Recording their debut with Endino for a little over $600 for 30 hours of recording time, frontman Kurt Cobain’s love of The Beatles’ pop heft and wider sonic dynamics would lay dormant till their iconic sophomore effort Nevermind—an album where all band members strove to achieve a beefier, accessible production for greater chart appeal. But even on the lo-fi Bleach, Nirvana’s knack for masterful simplicity was well realised amid the record’s hissing murk.

“It was like I’m pissed off,” Cobain confessed to Spin in 1993, reflecting on the album’s visceral energy. “Don’t know what about. Let’s just scream negative lyrics, and as long as they’re not sexist and don’t get too embarrassing, it’ll be okay. I don’t hold any of those lyrics dear to me.”

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