| July 22, 1999 - MTV News: Queens Of The Stone Age In Backstage Brawl; Band Lands New Deal
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by staff |
A backstage tiff between California hard rock trio Queens of the Stone Age and the Brit band Terrorvision resulted in the arrest of QotSA's bass player, Nick Oliveri, at the Big Day Out festival in London earlier this month, as QotSA frontman Josh Homme told MTV News.
According to Homme, Oliveri was taken from the site by British bobbies and jailed for a couple of hours following an altercation on July 10 that included Homme throwing a punch at a Terrorvision crew member. Oliveri was released without being charged.
Britain's "New Musical Express" reported that the fight started when the allegedly inebriated Oliveri and his bandmates first took their time vacating the dressing room they were sharing with Terrorvision and then repeatedly returned to the facility, further invoking the wrath of their trailer mates. "NME" reported that Terrorvision's press spokesperson referred to QotSA as "pissed-up American arseholes who couldn't hold their lager."
Homme admits that he and his bandmates had been drinking, but he told MTV News that they were far from drunk and that the story should have read "pissed 'off' Americans, not pissed 'up.'"
The frontman said that the situation was resolved after the band paid off the wronged roadie.
"Being the band they are," Homme told MTV News, "they hit us up for money. We didn't want to pay them. We were sure we would have won in court, it was self-defense, but we had a gig the next night and figured it would be cheaper just to pay."
He added that the two bands again shared the bill a few days later in Athens. "'Terrifiedvision' tried to get us booked into a different hotel," scoffed Homme.
Meanwhile, QotSA is about to sign a deal with an unnamed major label. The band's management confirmed that the deal is done, although it has yet to be announced.
The current QotSA album, a self-titled CD issued on Stone Gossard's independent Loose Groove label last September, will be re-launched by the new company this summer. Studio whiz Tom Lord-Alge just completed a remix of the band's single, "Regular John," which is targeted for mid-August.
Queens of the Stone Age grew from the now-defunct Kyuss and includes former Kyuss members Homme, Oliveri, and drummer Alfredo Hernandez.
The group opened the Smashing Pumpkins' club tour in April and is scheduled to do the same for Ween from August 6 in San Francisco though to August 24 in Atlanta. The trio will then be embarking on its own solo tour which (so far) takes them through to mid-September.
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