Queens Of The Stone Age‘s Josh Homme has opened up about his history of ‘bullying the bullies’ in the audience, with the hope to “prune out racist, homophobic, misogynistic assholes”.
Homme has often made headlines with his history of calling out members of the crowd at QOTSA shows – often taking on hecklers or targeting gig-goers for inappropriate or abusive behaviour.
“Once in Holland, I think it was the Lowlands Festival, I saw a guy punching a girl in the face, right by the front row,” Homme told NME for this week’s exclusive cover interview. “My whole life, I hate watching people get bullied and so, in a manner of speaking, you turn and you try to bully the bully. I have done that many times. I’m the only one with a mic so I think sometimes it perhaps looks like I’m bullying somebody – and I actually am.”
He continued: “I think I’ve always been trying to prune our audience [of] racist, homophobic, misogynistic assholes. The idea is to have our audience be an open-minded group of individuals. I think that’s why even picking Ronson initially [was] to chase people away.”
Queens Of The Stone Age’s Mark Ronson-produced new album ‘Villains‘ is out now – scoring the band their first ever No.1 album.
Queens Of The Stone Age’s upcoming tour dates are:
NOVEMBER
Saturday 18 – LONDON SSE Arena Wembley
Sunday 19 – MANCHESTER Arena
Tuesday 21 – LONDON O2 Arena
Thursday 23 – EDINBURGH Usher Hall
Friday 24 – DUBLIN 3Arena