Josh Homme — the piratical leader of renegade rock’n’roll titans Queens of the Stone Age; a musician deeply embedded into the fabric of modern rock (Dave Grohl, Iggy Pop and Alex Turner have all called upon his services), and a frontman whose loose hips and considerable charm once gave him the early nickname Ginger Elvis — has that most humanising of things: a bit of a cold. He slumps face first onto the sofa of his posh London hotel, a 6ft 5in tree felled at the ankles, and groans. He would quite like a respirator, he jokes, but in the absence of the required tech, we will crack on.
Bleary-eyed from a 17-hour drive from Antwerp last night — the previous stop on a short, stripped-back European tour celebrating their recent Alive in the Catacombs film (“We won’t play many gigs like this. This will not last,” he warns) — it’s endearing to see the towering frontman of one of the world’s most beloved rock bands in a moment of such normality. But then again, over recent years, Homme has been laid bare — not just musically (though their performance in the hallowed, gothic Parisian tunnels, as seen in the film, did necessitate a total reworking of their material), but in his life as a whole.
