Kyuss may have an impending reunion, as Brant Bjork has said he has reached out to Josh Homme. Speaking with TotalRock’s The Hobo on the Radio, Bjork made the comment, saying he reached out after Homme had admitted last summer that he has considered a reunion with Kyuss.
“I thought it was some healthy words and a healthy perspective on things,” Bjork said. “And it even went to the extent that a friend of mine was like, ‘Hey, you know what? Maybe it’s a good time to reach out to him.’ And I thought, ‘Yeah, it’s not a bad idea, man.’ … I think there’s no reason for us to just kind of … say, ‘Hey, why don’t we just go back and kind of try and plug into that time. Maybe there’s the ability where we can go back before all this stuff happened and try to communicate from that place. I don’t know. Maybe that’s a fantasy. I don’t know.”
Kyuss had formed in Palm Desert, California back in 1987, dissolving in 1995. The band first performed as Katzenjammer then Sons of Kyuss, their final name change, Kyuss, happening in 1991. While the band has had several iterations and lineup changes, the most notable had vocalist John Garcia, bassist Nick Oliveri, with Josh Homme on guitar and Brant Bjork on drums. The band released several albums, with their 1994 record, Welcome to Sky Valley, becoming their most critically acclaimed. Following the album’s release, Bjork left the band, citing a distaste for touring as his reason for leaving.
In 2010, the band tried to have a reunion, however Homme was not interested in participating. When the band tried to release music as Kyuss Lives!, Homme filed lawsuit for trademark infringement and consumer fraud, which led to Oliveri leaving the band in 2012 and a court ruling that Garcia and Bjork could not release audio recordings as Kyuss Lives!, forcing them to change their name to Vista Chino. The name Kyuss Lives! was allowed to be used, but only in live performances.
“My philosophy has always been, never do a reunion, never do a sequel,” Homme initially said about a reunion. However, last summer he appeared to change his mind, saying, “there have been times I thought it cannot end that way, and the only real way to end it correctly now would be to play. And because [Bjork and Garcia] sort of perverted the punctuation and they knocked the wing off this beautiful dragon that’s an ice sculpture, and the only way to put the motherfucking wing back on would be to [play again].”
After reaching out, Bjork said of Homme’s response, “And he was actually like, ‘Yeah, let’s talk, and I’ll get back to you.’ And I was like, ‘All right. Cool, man.’ And then it never happened. So I don’t know what to say about that.”
Bjork released a solo album, ManKind Woman, back in 2018. In 2017, Garcia released Coyote Who Spoke In Tongues, which featured his signature desert rock sounds. Homme himself has been immensely busy as the Queens of the Stone Age frontman, and has spent the pandemic performing covers of his various bands, including Queens of the Stone Age’s “Villains of Circumstance” and Them Crooked Vultures’ “Spinning in Daffodils.”
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