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The Big Show with Troy from Queens of the Stone Age! · The Hauraki Big Show

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: The Hauraki Big Show with Jase, Mike and Keezy. Tune
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: in weekdays at 4 on Radio Hauraki.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: It's Pugs and Mogi here from the Hauraki Big Show
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: after a classic Zoom debacle.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: We're joined by a very special guest.
• 0:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Troy Van Leeuwen, guitarist for Queens of the Stone Age.
• 0:19
  Speaker 4: How are you going, you absolute backbone?
• 0:25
  Speaker 5: Well, it's good to be with you guys. What time
• 0:27
  Speaker 5: is it for you?
• 0:29
  Speaker 4: It's approaching 6 p.m.
• 0:30
  Speaker 5: Hi.
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, and it's also daylight saving, so it's beautiful
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: and light out there. We're fast approaching summer, and it
• 0:39
  Speaker 4: doesn't seem to be a coincidence that you guys sort
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: of plan your tours for Australia and New Zealand around
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: about this time of year, I think. I'm pretty sure
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: the vast majority of you manage to get out on
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: motorbikes and get a look around the country. Is that
• 0:52
  Speaker 4: about right?
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: That's something that we've done in the past.
• 0:56
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that is definitely a way to escape the winter here.
• 1:02
  Speaker 6: Although I live in California, I wouldn't really call it winter.
• 1:06
  Speaker 6: But you know.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: What I'm saying. Dude, this is great. This has actually
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: given me an opportunity to try and solve a problem.
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: You guys live in LA. The weather's normally great. You
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: come down here. It's summer. It's in Sydney. All across Australia,
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: it's always between 40 and 1,000 degrees outside. New Zealand,
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: it's a little less hot than that. I've got a
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: real problem, man. I've turned 50 today. I've got a
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: real problem with summer fashion from the waist down. Now,
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: you guys probably, I'm sure, just wear jeans. You would never,
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: ever even think about wearing shorts. But in New Zealand,
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: the young fellas here like Pugsan, they wear shorts and
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: then they wear sort of business socks pulled up halfway
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: up their calf and then some kind of a comfortable sneaker. Man,
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: I fucking hate it, man. But I don't know what
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: to do because my only other option is tight jeans
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: and sweaty balls.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that sounds like a dilemma. By the way, happy
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: birthday to you.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: Thank you, mate.
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  Speaker 6: And, yeah, that's a look that's kind of universally, I guess, accepted,
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  Speaker 6: like here too.
• 2:19
  Speaker 5: Yeah, right. Kind of everywhere. Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: But do you do it? No.
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: No, no, no. Oh, no.
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: No, no, no. Do you ever wear shorts if you're
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: not swimming?
• 2:30
  Speaker 5: Listen, you know, when I do swim, yeah, I wear shorts, yeah.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: I thought you were going to say I wear pants.
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: I don't dive into a pool with my vampire cape on.
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: But is that the only time you're wearing shorts is
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: when you're swimming?
• 2:45
  Speaker 5: Kind of is, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, that's when
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: it's called for for me. But I'm not judging, you know.
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: Everyone likes to... Everyone, you know what? Life is short.
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: You've got to be comfortable.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree. I agree. Well, you haven't helped me
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: at all there, but I was hoping you'd just bag pugs.
• 3:01
  Speaker 6: Sorry.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: I was hoping you'd bag pugs and we could get
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: on in with our lives.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: He was setting me up.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Well, since we're on the bagging each other route with
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: our clothes, Mogi's renowned around here for wearing jeans and flip-flops.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Skinny jeans and flip-flops. I don't know what your thoughts
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: are on that.
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: Well, you guys, you're going at each other. Okay.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: You're mediating us, man.
• 3:21
  Speaker 5: If you want, I'll go. I'll go hard.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you'll get the rhythm for it. That's kind of
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: what the whole show is based on. You just drag
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: each other.
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  Speaker 6: Well, flip-flops and jeans, you know, that's a whole other offense,
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: you know, speaking about fashion.
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: So, you know, I might be more inclined to judge
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  Speaker 5: you for that.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: Is that right?
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  Speaker 5: The shorts and... Yeah.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: Oh, right.
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: You got to commit yourself.
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean?
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: It's like either shorts or full goth, you know, regalia.
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: Then I've got to go with the boots. All right.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: I'll go on the beach in my boots and jeans.
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: The last time you guys were here, I've, I've seen,
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: I've seen Queens of the Stone Age probably six or
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: seven times across the last 25 years. You guys were
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: out here a couple of years ago, um, And it was,
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  Speaker 4: and I've seen in my life, God knows how many
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: hundreds and hundreds of gigs. And that gig was top
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  Speaker 4: five for me of all time. Absolutely unbelievable. How was
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: that tour for you? And I know it's probably impossible
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: for you to remember individual gigs, but how was that
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: tour for you?
• 4:29
  Speaker 6: Well, I would say that every time we go down there,
• 4:34
  Speaker 6: we enjoy ourselves extremely. It feels kind of, you know,
• 4:38
  Speaker 6: like I said, you know, I'm from California. It feels
• 4:43
  Speaker 6: like California to me. And it feels like another sort
• 4:46
  Speaker 6: of like home, you know? And so every time we,
• 4:50
  Speaker 6: we go down to, you know, to see you down there,
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  Speaker 6: it just feels like naturally. And I know not a
• 4:58
  Speaker 6: lot of acts get down there. So your audiences are very,
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: very excited to see us. And that makes us play better.
• 5:05
  Speaker 6: I think it makes the energy better.
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: I want to say I think Jack Black might have
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: showed up to that gig.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: He did. I saw him. He might have been wandering around.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: He was around there at that time.
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: He was wandering around. I'm sure he was filming probably.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: Something down there at the time.
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: But Minecraft, that's right.
• 5:28
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, so I remember that gig. I remember it being
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: very good, and we went out afterwards, and we had
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: a great time. So, yeah.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was an all-time. And what sort of struck
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: me was the staging of the show as well. And
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: it seemed fairly obvious, but hopefully I haven't got this wrong,
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: like jeans and flip-flops. But the staging of the show,
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: the lighting and everything, was like it was you were
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: in a church. that was sort of seemed to be
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: the way out. And it was like, you guys were
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: preaching rock and roll. Um, and that, that Josh was
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: the preacher and he came out into the crowd and
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: he put hands on and all that sort of thing.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: Have I got that right?
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: You doubt. Yeah. I would say that that sounds about right.
• 6:12
  Speaker 6: Uh, it was probably, if I'm not mistaken, it was
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: probably during a song called straight jacket fitting. Does that sound?
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It could well be. Yeah.
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: Um, But yeah, so that definitely probably happened that night.
• 6:29
  Speaker 6: And yeah, our stage set up at that time had
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: this pyramid kind.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: Of looking lighting rig.
• 6:36
  Speaker 6: And so it very much was intentionally like ominous, like, well, yeah, we,
• 6:42
  Speaker 6: you know, we worship the devil.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, g'day, Matt.
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, hi, mate, yeah.
• 6:49
  Speaker 8: Look, if you want the chance to win all our
• 6:52
  Speaker 8: on-air competitions and stuff and get amongst the live conversation,
• 6:57
  Speaker 8: tune in to the Hauraki Big Show, four to seven
• 7:00
  Speaker 8: weekdays on Radio Hauraki and iHeartRadio.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: The Hauraki Big Show with Jase, Mike and Keezy. Tune
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: in weekdays at four on Radio Hauraki.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: The other thing with you guys is I think it's...
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: You see a lot of chat online from other bands
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: about just how good you guys are, about how tight
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: you guys are, that you're pretty scary as a live act.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Do you put that down to your consistency? Because especially
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: the early days for Queens, there's such a huge sort
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: of rotating list of members. They sort of came and went.
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: But since 2013, you guys have had the same five guys.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: It's that real consistency. Is that what's really driven that tightness?
• 7:49
  Speaker 6: I think the tightness is definitely because of, you know,
• 7:52
  Speaker 6: that search for the right guys and the right, you know,
• 7:56
  Speaker 6: combination of players. It took that kind of that long,
• 8:01
  Speaker 6: you know, because I was there for, you know, since 2002.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: You know, that was back when we had Nick and
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: Lannigan and Joey C.
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: Some personalities in there.
• 8:12
  Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean, and so, you know, you've got all
• 8:14
  Speaker 6: these big personalities and, and, you know, throughout the years
• 8:18
  Speaker 6: we've had, you know, we've, we've gone through people and that's,
• 8:21
  Speaker 6: and that's fine.
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: And, you know, everyone's cool.
• 8:24
  Speaker 6: Everyone's, you know, we saw Nick the other night, you know? And, uh,
• 8:28
  Speaker 6: so for me, uh, this kind of discovery of this
• 8:32
  Speaker 6: group of guys has really been consistent. where there's a
• 8:35
  Speaker 6: great balance of that danger that you're talking about. Cause
• 8:39
  Speaker 6: everyone is, you know, a little fucked up and also
• 8:44
  Speaker 6: very consistent.
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 8:46
  Speaker 6: And so, so for me, it's kind of that magic
• 8:50
  Speaker 6: balance of, of danger and, and ability to maintain the
• 8:56
  Speaker 6: wheels on the, you know, the train.
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: Yeah. So, So that's kind of the.
• 9:03
  Speaker 6: Balance we've been shooting for over the years, and I
• 9:05
  Speaker 6: think we've done a good job of kind of keeping
• 9:08
  Speaker 6: both parts intact. Because we do play rock and roll,
• 9:12
  Speaker 6: and it should be dangerous, and people should be scared,
• 9:15
  Speaker 6: and that's okay.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and back in 2014, I've done a lot of
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: jobs in my life, and one of them was a
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: driver for bands, and I drove you guys when you
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: were on tour. with Nine Inch Nails down in Wellington.
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: And I remember being back, and that was a hell
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: of a run as well. You guys would toss a coin,
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: I think, each night to decide who went on first. Yeah,
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: it was so sick.
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: That's right, that's right.
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: And so I remember being there and being backstage, and
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: it was huge for me, man, like seeing you guys,
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: like I was a younger man and it was, you know, just,
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: it was huge for me to be in that kind
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: of proximity. But being backstage the gig finished, essentially. So
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: it was after you guys played, you came backstage and
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: before the encore. And you came backstage and I was
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: a couple of metres away from you guys, got into
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: a circle, and there was what I can only describe
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: as a fairly heated debate about how well you felt
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: you had or had not gone on stage. and then
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: you went back out on stage. A guitar went flying
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: at one point. The crowd absolutely loved it, but what
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: that really did for me is up until that point,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: I was like, oh, you know, sex, drugs, and rock
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: and roll, isn't this a fun life, blah, blah, blah.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: But just how hard you guys work, there must be
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: a real thirst to be there for you guys to
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: be considered the best in the world, there must, but
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: you guys must hold yourselves to a really high standard.
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: And what was clear to me was you weren't fucking around, man.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: This was serious business.
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah. Oh, you know what?
• 10:56
  Speaker 6: I'm glad that you got to witness that. Cause that's
• 11:00
  Speaker 6: what most people don't see. You know, uh, we do
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: take our, the way we present ourselves very seriously and,
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: There's no room for, you know, any kind of slack.
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: It's a very tight ship that we try to run drunkenly.
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: But like I said, there's a good balance of like,
• 11:26
  Speaker 6: we're fucking serious. And if we don't have, you know,
• 11:31
  Speaker 6: we don't maintain, you know, our sense of like what's
• 11:36
  Speaker 6: great then it kind of falls apart so so yeah
• 11:40
  Speaker 6: there's no like room for for like slack you know
• 11:44
  Speaker 6: it's it's.
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: A very we take it seriously.
• 11:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah there is that kind of idea that that you
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: know artists are people that sort of happy fucking around
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: uh but art is really really serious to the people
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: that create.
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: It for us it is yeah yeah for sure um
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: But I'm glad somebody got to see a guitar smash
• 12:05
  Speaker 6: because it doesn't usually happen.
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: No, I mean, it went sailing over John's head. I
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: don't know quite how much it cleared him by, but
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: the audience were loving it.
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: He's still with us. He came out on stage.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: Now, the other thing that I've seen that you guys
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: have done recently was you did a live show at
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: Joshua Tree. And I'm wondering if there's– because I've seen
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: some pretty shabby phone footage of it. And I was
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: wondering if there was going to be a concert film
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: that came out because you guys played I Never Came,
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: which never seems to make the list whenever I see
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: you guys live.
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: Well, okay. I'll put that down as a note. So
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: New Zealand, I Never Came.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: Oh, mate, that's an all-timer.
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: Well– Honestly, we've been playing it a lot lately. Oh, great.
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: We did it every night when we did the Catacombs
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: tour here in the States.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: And I'm sorry we didn't get to come down to
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: see you guys. But you know what?
• 13:10
  Speaker 6: I'm going to put that in the request pile because
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: we play it a lot, in case you didn't know.
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: Excellent.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Well, I will be there when you play at the
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: end of the year on December 20th, I think it is.
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: December 20th? I think that's probably the last year.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Hey, Troy, getting into these new tunes that you've been
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: putting out in the lead up to Perfect, which I love.
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: It's a mouthful.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: You said it with such command.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Obviously, it's a clear artistic choice that they have like
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: a less pristine sort of polished version.
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: Sound.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Um, can we expect that with the rest of the album?
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Is that like a running thing there?
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: You guys are just stripping it back a little bit
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: and going for something that's a little more organic.
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: I would say there's a lot of organic feel to
• 14:07
  Speaker 6: this record. Um, and I, you know, it's funny, people
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: don't like this word, but I think of the word
• 14:14
  Speaker 6: simplicity and I think there's a beauty in.
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: Simplicity, you know, cause look at the fucking world we
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: live in.
• 14:21
  Speaker 6: Um, So for me, there's an unvarnished presentation of raw
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: but open feelings. So to me, the more you get
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: into the record, it's heavy not so much in the
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: distortion and the guitars, big guitars and drums.
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: It's heavy in the content. And so the record, to me,
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: feels more like.
• 14:51
  Speaker 6: An unraveling of layers of depth that, at this point
• 15:00
  Speaker 6: in our lives, we've played a lot of heavy music
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: over the years.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: And this is different kind of heavy. It's more emotionally heavy.
• 15:08
  Speaker 7: It's more honest. So yeah, for us, this record is
• 15:17
  Speaker 7: I mean, they're all supposed to be different, and this
• 15:20
  Speaker 7: one definitely is.
• 15:21
  Speaker 6: And so there's more rawness, and there's more openness, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: there's more beauty.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: After doing the catacombs, there's more strings. I'll just say that.
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: And there's always a bit of Josh crooning as well,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: which I think people respond well to.
• 15:44
  Speaker 6: Well, I do think at heart he really does want
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: to be, you know, like Roy Orbison, you know, or
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: Dean Martin, you know.
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: Well, recently we went and saw Inglebert Humperdinck, who's 90
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: years old and still absolutely cranking them out, man. So
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: that could be you, all things going well or really terribly.
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: We'll see.
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man. Hey, thanks so much for your time, man.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: Can't wait for this album. Perfect drops on October 30th
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: and down here in New Zealand. We'll be seeing you
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: on December 20th up here in Auckland. It'll be sold
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: out just like the last one and all the times before, man.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: Thanks so much for your time.
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: It's a pleasure, guys. Have a great day and we'll
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: see you when we get down.
• 16:28
  Speaker 7: There, right?
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: You're a good man.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: Thanks, mate.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: See you, Troy.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: The Hauraki Big Show with Jace, Mike and Keezy. Tune
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: in weekdays at 4 on Radio Hauraki.