← all Middle 8 videos
11:00 · 1,751 words of transcript · watch on YouTube
- Six years passed between albums, filled by producing the Arctic Monkeys' third record, playing in Eagles of Death Metal and Them Crooked Vultures, and a second child.
▶ 00:00:21
- In autumn 2010 Josh Homme was hospitalised for nearly two weeks with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection and bedridden for months afterwards.
▶ 00:00:41
- His heart stopped during the surgery meant to treat it, and he has said that even after being revived he felt a part of him had been left on the operating table.
▶ 00:00:56
- The lineup churn preceded all of it: Dave Grohl returned to Foo Fighters, Mark Lanegan became a guest only, and firing Nick Oliveri left Homme considering ending the band for good.
▶ 00:01:31
- The complication was mechanical. Doctors found a problem with his oxygen tube during surgery and had to revive him with a defibrillator.
▶ 00:02:47
- The band's own members pushed him to start a sixth album as a way out of the depression, and he first tried to get Trent Reznor in the producer's chair before they self-produced it.
▶ 00:03:02
- Reissuing and touring their debut in full each night is what defined the new record. It had been heading toward a bluesy James Brown album and came out a trancey, broken thing.
▶ 00:04:11
- Joey Castillo was let go about a third of the way into recording, and Dave Grohl happened to be available to play the rest, which is where the album's title came from as an inside joke about nothing going smoothly.
▶ 00:05:39
- Fairweather Friends, with Elton John on piano, is about which friends stayed through the depression and which did not.
▶ 00:07:28
- It became their most acclaimed record since Songs for the Deaf, three Grammy nominations, and their first album to reach number one on the Billboard 200.
▶ 00:08:24