Queens Of The Stone Age have just shared their first new song since 2023’s Times New Roman, and it finds frontman/guitarist Josh Homme joined by the Highway Queen herself, Nikki Lane.
The song is called Easy Street, and it’s a majestic tangle of acoustic guitars, hand-claps for rhythm, seasick synth swirl and Homme and Lane playing Bonnie and Clyde, their voices riding off into the sunset.
““It’s kind of a funny song,” says Homme. “It’s like hitting your funny bone, where it’s funny because it hurts and it hurts because it’s funny. You’re serious, but it’s funny.”
QOTSA fans might already have heard Easy Street live. The band played it during their 2025 Catacombs tour. Lane is fantastic, returning the favour and guesting on a Queens track after Homme played guitar and drums on her 2022 studio album, Denim And Diamonds. He also handled production and mixing.
He does so here, too, sharing the credits on Easy Street with QOTSA bassist/keys player Michael Shuman. This is a shambling psych-country ballad. There was no need to overwork the production, and they didn’t. Homme says they played fast and loose with it. And that was the point.
“We made it the way you’d make a demo,” he explains. “No click track, mistakes left in. It speeds up, it slows down, the claps aren’t great, but they’re not bad, and a bad clap adds this human thing you can’t fake.”
Truth. Also, that disembodied skirl of synth is untethered to any grid. It’s an element of melodic anarchy that seems to have a similar effect on the rhythm. QOTSA want us to revel in the accidental happenstance of it all.
We live in a world of quantized metrics, truly weird shit like looksmaxxing, and people being conspicuously online, optimising their lives for the edification of strangers, people they will never meet – and for machines and bots too – and that seems weird.
Easy Street, says Homme, is a reminder to celebrate the messiness of being human.“It’s not just about silliness. It’s about understanding the imperfection of your life,” he says. “The song, like your life, is in the mistakes. Its imperfections are unbeatable.”
The video, directed by Tony Wolski and Christopher Gruse, is pretty cool too. You can check that out above, and save/buy the single here via Matador. Queens Of The Stone Age’s stadium-filling tour with System Of A Down and openers Acid Bath continues tomorrow night at Tottenham Stadium, London.
See Queens Of The Stone Age for full dates and ticket details.
