Josh Homme picks his favourite Nirvana album

As one of the most influential modern rock stars, Josh Homme has paved a consistent and celebrated path over the past three decades. In the 1990s, he became Kyuss’ guitarist, lending a huge hand in establishing the stoner rock movement. Later, Homme flourished as the frontman and bandleader of Queens of the Stone Age, with whom he innovated a distinctive, explorative brand of hard rock.

In the late 1990s, Homme befriended the former Nirvana drummer and present Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl. The kindred spirits hit it off immediately, and in 2001, Grohl famously offered his drumming expertise to Queens of the Stone Age, recording beats on their

Speaking to the NME in 2023, Homme reflected on his longstanding friendship with “He’s one of the longest romances I’ve had that’s worked,” he said. “He’s such a good guy, but I also love his dark side.” Later, he added, “I love mixing our watercolours together like that, just in conversation. We go to this place – that I won’t name – just to eat breakfast and waffles and talk about times.”

During his years playing with Kyuss, Homme was a big fan of the contemporary grunge wave and, like practically everyone, was inspired by Nirvana’s genre-defining work. As a purveyor of all things heavy and distorted, Homme favoured Nirvana’s 1989 debut album Bleach over its more refined and critically acclaimed follow-up, Nevermind, and Kurt Cobain’s expansive swansong, In Utero.

“By 1989, it seemed like punk rock had sort of died, and I thought Nirvana were picking up where Black Flag and GBH had left off,” Homme told Spin in 2003, picking out Bleach among his all-time favourites. “I remember thinking I didn’t want my band to sound anything like Nirvana because they had set the bar so high. I didn’t want to get too close.”

Elsewhere in Homme’s album selections were early classics on his evolutionary trail, such as Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life. He also saved apace for GBH’s City Baby Attacked by Rats and Black Flag’s My War. Discussing the latter, Homme recalled the Henry Rollins-fronted band as a crucial influence on Kyuss.

“One of the things about SST bands is that each one sounded completely different, and that really permeated our scene,” he said. “If you sounded like any other band in our town–or any other town–you were ridiculed. It became a hellbent search for originality. I loved Black Flag’s Jealous Again and Damaged, but it was My War that really summarised Kyuss’ approach to punk.”