Josh Homme’s collaboration with Peavey for the Decade Too was the first time the Queens of the Stone Age man had released a piece of gear with his name on it. But he’d had offers to work on signature gear before – and even once turned down the chance to work with a company he loves.
The Peavey Decade practice amp was unveiled as Homme’s “secret weapon” back in 2021, and it’s since developed an almost mythical reputation as part of his elusive guitar rig.
When in Them Crooked Vultures, his supergroup with Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones, Homme showed it to the Led Zeppelin bass player, who laughed at the “piece of shit” amp before plugging into it.
Yet, before linking up with Peavey, Homme was in line for another potential signature release with a different company. But, in a soon-to-be-published interview with Guitar World, Homme explains why he ultimately turned them down.
“Years ago, Ampeg came to me about remaking the VT 40, and I was a little suspicious, because I've never really done endorsements,” he says. “That's not my thing. I don't work for you, man.”
Homme had famously turned to the bass amps and an exclusive use of the neck pickup of his guitars to forge his stoner rock-inspiring tone in Kyuss. As such, a signature model, from Ampeg’s side at least, felt like a sure-fire winner. But Homme’s reservations stood tall.
“With the way Ampeg approached me, what they wanted to do, and how they wanted to treat me, I felt like I was being used,” Homme returns. “It was like, ‘All right, you're the only person playing this since Keith Richards, so we want to use that image, but we want to make the amp like this…’
“Honestly, I wasn't having it. And I love Ampeg. I have so much Ampeg gear. But life is about what it is now, not what it was. I'm not a puppet that you can put your hand up its ass and make do stuff.”
The Peavey tie-in, he goes on to say, was different on all levels. Here, the collaboration produced a $399 combo amp, and a $199 pedal edition, that “every man, woman, and child could scrape up the dough to get.”
It seems to have sparked a newfound appreciation for signature gear, with other collaborations in the works, which he alludes to in his Guitar World interview.
Elsewhere, Homme recently credited ‘oompah oompah’ guitar for aiding his knack for writing off-kilter guitar riffs, and explained why much of his core songwriting takes place on an acoustic.
