The topic of "selling out" always seems to come up in hard rock and heavy metal circles, and it's usually the biggest crime a band can commit. But how much money would it take for you to turn back on your morals and just do something for the profits? For Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, that number has yet to be reached.
Homme recently told an anecdote of being invited to play a private birthday party for a family in the Middle East, he couldn't recall the exact country, and he said they offered a “a ridiculous, life-changing amount” of money, but because he looked up that family's and the country's human right violations, he didn't want to do it.
Instead, he got off on them coming back to him with larger offers, promises of private jets to fly out the band, and still saying no to somebody who expects money can fix any of their problems.
As Homme told Let There Be Talk when asked if money would get in the way of his creative desires to evolve, Homme added “Oh, money would never do that for me. Money is a byproduct of working hard and loving what you do. I don’t need money to be happy so I’ve enjoyed turning down big money.
“I actually love that – feels great to be like, ‘Oh, no. You thought you could buy what we do? Yeah, no.’ Like Dubai or something like that, I can’t remember, some families asked us to play his birthday party.
“I was like, ‘These people have played it…’ And that’s fine, I won’t mention them. But as Azerbaijan, it’s like a place with… Research this person, it is like against humanity or some shit.
“And the offer kept going up because we said no, and they said, ‘We’ll send a private jet.’ ‘You think that would do it? I get it. Yeah, that won’t do, by the way.’
“I got up to a ridiculous life-changing amount, it was like, ‘I see where the problem is – you think there’s a number that will do this thing, and that’s how you’re used to that. And you’re not used to this, which is – I won’t do it. I’m enjoying you keep coming back here to hear the word no, sad, and different stuff. You’ll hear it, this is getting better, the more money is, the better it is.’
“Because someone’s sitting there actually thinking, ‘Well, I can buy this situation.’”
When asked if there was any number that would get him to do cave, he admitted “Yeah, there’s certainly a number – I’m sure there actually would be at some point, but it would be so astronomical. I’m sure everyone’s got a number.
“The number would be out of whack, just to be funny. I had no money, and I was happy too. I would just bump into you, we would have the same conversation.”
[MetalSucks via Ultimate Guitar]
