What Queens of the Stone Age song is Elton John in?

Josh Homme has told Radio X more about Elton John's appearance on the forthcoming Queens Of The Stone Age album.

The superstar is set to appear on the new LP …Like Clockwork, which is due in June and appears on the track Fairweather Friends.

Homme told Radio X how Elton got in touch with the frontman. "He was in a car listening to Them Crooked Vultures and his assistant said: you need to hear Queens. The guy driving the car was an old room-mate of mine! So all of a sudden I get a phone call at my house on a Sunday. I picked up and he said: [does the voice] 'Hello Josh, this is Elton'. I thought someone was messing with me. 

"He said, 'The only thing missing from your band is an actual queen!' I said, Honey, you have no idea."

"When he walked in, he said, do you have a ballad for me or what? I said no. We tracked lived for three hours, playing a rock and roll song. We just had a blast, he became part of our band. What really dawned on me what a music lover, what a workaholic he is. 

"The session had gotten really dark. When he left, we were on cloud nine. We got fired into the abyss of doing something we really loved again."

Of the record, Homme says: "I love to surprise people, I love to musically hang em upside down by their ankles and wring em out like a wet towel, you know what I mean? That's my goal. Mystery and surprise. I want to do that to people, because I want people to do that to me."

Queens of the Stone Age had some surprises in store for fans when they returned to the stage for their encore set at the Forum on Feb. 17 — including a cover of Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."

For that number, along with several other encore performances, the band was joined by producer Mark Ronson, who helmed the Queens' 2017 Villains LP. "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" marked the third number in the encore set, following "The Vampyre of Time and Memory" and "Broken Box" — the latter of which received its first concert airing in over a decade.

While the Forum show was the first time Queens of the Stone Age performed "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," it isn't the band's first connection with Elton John. As fans will no doubt recall, John contributed piano and vocals to "Fairweather Friends," a cut on the 2013 QOTSA ...Like Clockwork LP, and although their collaboration started with John calling frontman Josh Homme to quip that the band needed an "actual queen," it clearly blossomed into something deeper.

"He called me on the phone and it took me a minute to work out if I was being punked or not," Homme admitted. "He came in and we tracked a rock song live together, which was a wonderful experience. That's what collaboration is all about, learning something from someone else and about someone else and maybe reminding them of something they enjoy too. To experience that with Elton was wonderful."

Meanwhile, Queens Of The Stone Age have released a video teaser for their forthcoming new album, ‘…Like Clockwork’. The 23 second-long video, which shows the vinyl version of the record being cut whilst a new song by the band plays in the background. The slow paced ballad is a departure from Queens Of The Stone Age’s heavier style and sees frontman Josh Homme singing in a falsetto.

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‘…Like Clockwork’ is made up of 10 tracks and was produced by Homme and the band at Pink Duck in Burbank, California. It was recorded by Mark Rankin with additional engineering by Justin Smith. The album contains a list of guest stars, including Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner, Dave Grohl, Elton John, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, and Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters.

The band’s only confirmed live UK date this year is at Download Festival (June 14-16) at Donington Park.

Josh Homme has revealed that he and Queens Of The Stone Age enjoy a “strange chemistry” with Sir Elton John.

“He’s a workaholic,” Homme said. “He’s a music fan who’s constantly searching for new music to get involved with. He’s signing acts from YouTube, it’s really intense. He’s always playing 200 plus shows a year and he’s an amazing piano player.”

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Discussing ‘Fairweather Friends’, the track they recorded together, Homme continued: “He called me on the phone and it took me a minute to work out if I was being punked or not. He came in and we tracked a rock song live together, which was a wonderful experience. That is what collaboration is all about, learning something from someone else and about someone else and maybe reminding them of something they enjoy too. To experience that with Elton was wonderful. There are piano-based, mellower songs on our record but that’s not really the point. It’s about strange chemistry and doing what you’re not supposed to do.”

Meanwhile, Queens Of The Stone Age have announced six UK and Ireland arena tour dates to take place in November this year. Starting in Glasgow on November 16, they will then visit Dublin, Belfast, Manchester and Birmingham before ending in London with a headline date at London’s Wembley Arena on November 22.

They will play:

Glasgow Hydro Arena (November 16)
Dublin O2 Arena (17)
Belfast Odyssey (18)
Manchester MEN Arena (20)
Birmingham NIA (21)
London Wembley Arena (22)

Tickets go onsale on Friday June 21 at 9am. To check the availability of Queens Of The Stone Age tickets and get all the latest listings, go to NME.COM/TICKETS now, or call 0844 858 6765

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