Songs for the Deaf is the third studio album by the rock band Queens of the Stone Age, released on August 27, 2002 by Interscope Records. It features guest musicians including drummer Dave Grohl, and was the last Queens of the Stone Age album to feature bassist Nick Oliveri as a band member.
Songs for the Deaf is a loose concept album, taking the listener on a drive through the California desert from Los Angeles to Joshua Tree, tuning into radio stations from towns along the way such as Banning and Chino Hills.
Songs for the Deaf received their first gold certification in the United States. One million copies were sold in Europe, earning a platinum certification from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in 2008. Three singles were released: No One Knows, Go with the Flow, and First It Giveth.
Songs for the Deaf was the first Queens of the Stone Age album that featured Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters on drums, who also toured with the band. He replaced drummer Gene Trautmann, who started working on other projects.
Grohl had admired Queens of the Stone Age since they opened for Foo Fighters, and had wanted to appear on their previous album Rated R. Guitarist Josh Homme, with whom he had been friends since 1992, while Homme was the guitarist for Kyuss, invited him to join in October 2000. Grohl admitted that he had not drummed for a long time and added that fronting a band was “tiring”.
Songs for the Deaf was the last appearance on a Queens of the Stone Age record by Brendon McNichol (lap steel) and Gene Trautmann (drums). It was also the last album to feature bassist and vocalist Nick Oliveri as a full-time member, as he was fired following the tour.
The album also included the first musical contribution to a Queens of the Stone Age album by multi-instrumentalists Natasha Shneider and Alain Johannes. Shneider and Johannes, alongside Songs for the Deaf touring recruits Castillo and Troy Van Leeuwen of Failure and A Perfect Circle would subsequently become full-time Queens of the Stone Age members and contribute to the follow-up album Lullabies to Paralyze, released in 2005.
Rounding out the core recording lineup of Homme, Oliveri, and Grohl, was singer/songwriter Mark Lanegan, formerly of Screaming Trees, a band that Homme had toured with previously.
Lanegan joined the band as a full-time member in 2001 after having guested on the band’s previous album, Rated R, and provided additional songwriting and lyrics, in addition to lead vocals on several songs.
Tracklist:
- The Real Song for the Deaf
- You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire
- No One Knows
- First It Giveth
- Song for the Dead
- The Sky Is Fallin’
- Six Shooter
- Hangin’ Tree
- Go with the Flow
- Gonna Leave You
- Do It Again
- God Is in the Radio
- Another Love Song
- Song for the Deaf (Contains a hidden outtake version of “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” with all lyrics replaced with manic laughter.)
- Mosquito Song (hidden track)
International bonus track - Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy (The Kinks cover)
US vinyl bonus track - Bloody Hammer (Roky Erickson cover)
Queens of the Stone Age
Josh Homme: vocals, guitar
Nick Oliveri: bass guitar, vocals
Dave Grohl: drums
Mark Lanegan: vocals
Additional musicians
Alain Johannes: lap steel guitar, e-bow, organ, piano, flamenco guitar, theremin (Tracks 3, 6, 7 and 12)
Natasha Shneider: e-bow, organ, piano, theremin (Tracks 4, 6, 12 and 14)
Gene Trautmann: drums (Tracks 1 and 8)
Dean Ween: guitar (Tracks 6, 9 and 14)
Brendon McNichol: guitar (Track 8)
Chris Goss – guitar, keyboard, backing vocals (Tracks 5 and 10)
Paz Lenchantin: strings (Tracks 2 and 14)
Ana Lenchantin: strings (Tracks 2 and 14)
Molly McGuire: accordion (Track 14)
John Gove: horns (Track 14)
Kevin Porter: horns (Track 14)
Brad Kintscher: horns (Track 14)
Radio DJs
The songs on Songs for the Deaf are interluded by staged bits of radio chatter with guest DJs. In order of appearance:
Blag Dahlia as DJ “Kip Kasper” of KLON – KLONE Radio of Los Angeles
Alain Johannes as DJ “Héctor Bonifacio Echeverría Cervantes de la Cruz Arroyo Rojas”
Chris Goss as DJ “Elastic Ass” of KRDL – Kurdle 109 of Chino Hills
C-Minus as DJ for KOOL
Casey Chaos as station ad promoting “All Death Metal, all the time.”
Jeordie White as DJ Tom Sherman of Banning College Radio
Lux Interior as DJ for AM580
Jesse Hughes as Preacher
Natasha Shneider as DJ for WOMB – The Womb
Dave Catching as DJ for WANT of Wonder Valley
Technical personnel
Josh Homme: production
Eric Valentine: production, recording, mixing
Chris Goss: recording, assisting production
Adam Kasper: production (“The Sky Is Fallin'” and “Do It Again”), mixing (at Conway Recording Studios)
Alain Johannes: recording (“Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy”, at Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, CA)
Brian Gardner: mastering (at Bernie Grundman Mastering, Hollywood, CA)
Dan Druff: guitar technician
Hutch: sound technician
Bob Brunner “Mates”: pre-production
Mark Lanegan (November 25, 1964 – February 22, 2022).
