See Queens of the Stone Age’s Guitar-Less Take on ‘Villains of Circumstance’
Queens of the Stone Age served up a guitar-less, strings-laden rendition of their “Villains of Circumstance” during a visit to Later… With Jools Holland Tuesday.
For the unique performance, QOTSA’s Josh Homme and, on piano, Dean Fertita guide a strings section through the Villains closer, stripping the atmospheric track of its anxious guitars and driving percussion that flare up on the song’s choruses.
The sparse take on “Villains of Circumstance” mirrored the version Homme debuted onstage at the 2014 Meltdown Festival, where he was accompanied only by an acoustic guitar.
The Mark Ronson-produced Villains marks Queens of the Stone Age‘s seventh studio LP and first since Homme teamed with Iggy Pop for that rocker’s 2016 comeback LP Post Pop Depression. Speaking to Rolling Stone about his new album, Homme explained how the band stays sharp and ferocious as the members enter the midpoint of their forties.
“The minimum obligation if you get to be in a band for your life and you’ve been doing it this long, is that you would throw everything into each record,” Homme told Rolling Stone. “The minimum obligation.”
Hear the Villains rendition of “Villains of Circumstance” below: