10 Musicians Who Came Back From Huge Band Breakups

By the end of the '90s, there was no way to actually keep Kyuss going anymore. Their usual brand of stoner rock had started to run its course, and the only way to actually preserve the band is to have it dissolve in on itself, or else they'd be treading water for the rest of their career. Joshua Homme wasn't done creating music though, and the next few years saw him drifting into the desert and coming up with something a lot more robotic.

While Queens of the Stone Age have a more solidified lineup these days, the idea was originally to have a bunch of Josh's friends coming together for a jam session, with Homme acting as the sort of mastermind behind every single track. Drafting in some of his fellow rock legends like Mark Lanegan from the Screaming Trees and Dave Grohl on drums, QOTSA managed to outshine Kyuss in the public eye, bringing stoner rock to the masses on records like Songs for the Deaf and Rated R.

Stoner rock is only a small facet of what they do though, and Josh has made it a point to reinvent himself on every single record, if that means stripping things away on albums like Era Vulgaris or focusing on some darker lyrics on an album like Like Clockwork, which came after a fairly lengthy brush with mortality. Queens might seem like a band of brothers onstage a lot of the time, but there's nothing that makes it onto a record that doesn't get past Homme's seal of approval.