Backstage at "The Tonight Show" in Burbank, Joshua Homme is leading the Eagles of Death Metal from the stage through a maze of rooms and corridors, a series of unmarked doors and narrow hallways, to a quick meeting with the soundman, then back again and up to the dressing rooms.
He's a tall redhead in denim and black motorcycle boots, a rocker who's been here many times before, with the Eagles and as the leader of his own Queens of the Stone Age. His longtime best friend, singer-guitarist Jesse "Boots Electric" Hughes, walks a few steps behind with a thick auburn mustache, and a miniature dagger hanging from a chain around his neck.
The band will close the show, ripping through the raw, riff-based rock of "Wannabe in L.A." for host Jay Leno and a TV audience of several million. It's a big buildup to a blazingly quick performance, but Hughes gives the impression that he's having the time of his life. "I love every second I'm up there," he says of being onstage. "It's the greatest thing in the world."
The TV gig is in support of the latest Eagles of Death Metal album, "Heart On," which has earned some of the best reviews of the band's career so far. The current U.S. tour lands Wednesday at the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood.
The band's 2004 debut album, "Peace Love Death Metal," was rudimentary riff-rock in the tradition of the Ramones, AC/DC and Ace Frehley at their most stripped down and euphoric, with an excited clatter of horn honks, cowbells and Hughes' falsetto shouts of sexual innuendo and dancing all night. "Heart On" builds on that foundation, stretching out with new sounds and textures, and some of Homme's sci-fi guitar effects at the margins.
It was a long-term project pieced together and produced by Homme between Queens' gigs in studios spread from Fargo, N.D., to New Orleans to Amsterdam to Van Nuys.
"Queens is a grand vision to me," says Hughes, comparing the two bands, "and Eagles is like an idea: 'I've got an idea! Let's go hang out! You like the Ramones and "Brown Sugar"? We'll sing it a bunch!' "
That core mission hasn't changed, but there's a subtle, and growing, sophistication in the grooves. The elegant track "Now I'm a Fool" mingles acoustic and electric guitars for an understated tale of heartbreak beneath the sun and palm trees of Hollywood.
"From the second we started playing together, it was always serious," says Homme. "It's never been a side project, but both Jesse and I felt it was useless to try to fight against any of that stuff. It's too much talking."
