10 Perfect Albums With Dark Backstories
6. Like Clockwork - Queens of the Stone Age
From the minute that Joshua Homme started Queens of the Stone Age, he always meant for the band to be a bit of a celebration of music. His old band Kyuss had always kept the same stoner rock ideals for most of their run, and this was all about getting together with your friends and having a good time. You can have a little too much fun when you're on that streak though, and Like Clockwork came about after Josh came back from the other side.
Just a few months before the band started to work on the album, Josh had to go in for surgery and ended up flatlining while the doctors were working on him, with his nervous system completely shutting down and hs heart stopping for a few minutes. While Josh was lucky to be alive, he had said that he lost a bit of himself on that operating table, being unable to hear music in his head the way he used to do in Queens' glory days.
He had made it through in one piece though, and Like Clockwork is as much about survival as it is about celebrating, having songs that bring together that old school Queens sound like My God is the Sun as well as tracks like I Sat By the Ocean, where Josh seems to take inventory of his brush with mortality. Being on the edge of death really helps to put things in perspective, and with songs like this, Josh seemed to be playing every note like it's the last thing he'll ever do.