In a recent conversation with Guitar World, Nick Oliveri revealed that there is no bad blood between him and Josh Homme after he quit Queens of the Stone Age.
“We accomplished more, I think, than we ever accomplished outside of knowing each other within other bands. So, I don’t know… I’ve got nothing bad to say about the dude,” the musician said about Homme. “We’ve had our moments; it’s all water under the bridge, and everything’s good.”
“We still pick up where we left off whenever we see each other,” Oliveri noted about his current relationship with Homme. “We still talk on the phone. We’re still good friends. Josh is a good dude, and we get along well. I wish him all the success in the world; I just wish he’d take Mondo Generator [Oliveri’s band named after the Kyuss song] on tour with them [Laughs].”
In 2002, Queens of the Stone Age released their third album ‘Songs For The Deaf,’ followed by a tour. After the tour, Josh fired Nick due to allegations of abuse against Oliveri’s girlfriend.
“A couple of years ago, I spoke to Nick about a rumor I heard. I said, ‘If I ever find out this is true, I can’t know you, man,’” Homme told Billboard in 2005 about Oliveri’s departure from the band. “Because music and my life are the same things, there are no rules until something massive happens.”
The singer continued, “Nick was over here in England with Mark Lanegan, and something happened again, and he almost didn’t make it out of the country. That’s not music anymore. They don’t understand what it’s like to sit there and feel helpless. When you have your chance to make your statement, which for me was firing Nick, that’s what I did.”
Homme also said in another interview, “It feels almost like my kid went to jail, or I got out of jail. I can’t tell which one. I still love the guy, man. And Nick had a vital spot in the band. Nick has great energy. He scares people, I guess. He doesn’t even know why I kicked him out. In the press, he admitted he threw bottles into the audience, but he’s saying, ‘I do it for the fans. Isn’t that what they want?’”
“But what Nick did was come up to me between the first and second song and say, ‘This audience isn’t good enough? They’re sh*t,’ and then he threw full bottles of Corona at them, like a baseball pitcher,” Josh added. “Is that for the fans? That’s not my style. I get drunk with the fans. I don’t throw bottles at them.”
Later, in November 2012, Nick contributed vocals to a Queens of the Stone Age song on their album ‘…Like Clockwork.’ He also reunited with the band on stage in Portland in April 2014.