Queens Of The Stone Age, “Easy Street” is released: watch the video of the new single featuring Nikki Lane

After sharing the stage with Nick Oliveri for the first time in twelve years and also making a stop at the I-Days in Milan as an opening act for System Of A Down, Queens Of The Stone Age continue their European tour by releasing “Easy Street”, the first unreleased song since “In Times New Roman…” in 2023. The single, available today through Matador Records, anticipates the return of Josh Homme's band to North America, where from August they will share a series of stadium concerts with the Foo Fighters.
The piece, presented live for the first time on the opening night of the Catacombs Tour last year, surprises with its atmosphere far from the hard rock that made the group famous. “Easy Street” is in fact a song with psychedelic and country-tinged tones, built on acoustic guitar, synthesizers and a deliberately irregular rhythm, with Josh Homme intertwining his voice with that of alt-country singer-songwriter Nikki Lane.
Accompanying the single also comes a video clip directed by Tony Wolski, leader of Armed, together with Christopher Gruse, based on an idea by Homme himself. The film opens with the bloodied singer running in slow motion along a suburban street chased by a crowd of surreal characters. The other members of the band also appear throughout the video, disguised as Juggalos, Santa Claus, cowboys and other unlikely pursuers, as well as a cameo by actor Diedrich Bader (“The Drew Carey Show”), before an ending that reverses perspective and pays homage to those who live on the margins of stereotypes. Watch the video for “Easy Street” below.

The collaboration between the two is not new. In 2022 Homme produced “Denim & Diamonds”, Nikki Lane's fourth album, helping to orient her sound towards rougher and desert territories, while he himself participated in the song “First High”. “Easy Street” now renews this artistic partnership.
From a lyrical point of view, the song tells of a toxic relationship crossed by contradictory feelings, alternating romance and bitterness. Some lines are intended to provoke discussion, such as: “Violence is never the answer, you say / I question how he's not been punched in the face” (“Violence is never the answer, you say / I wonder how he hasn't been punched in the face yet”), followed by “I'm not like that anymore, been dead a long time / I don't believe in luck, so you can have mine” (“I'm not like that anymore, I've been dead for a long time / I don't believe in luck, so you can take the mine”).

Homme described the song with a metaphor that perfectly summarizes its spirit: “It's a pretty funny song. It's like when you bump your elbow: it makes you laugh because it hurts and it hurts because it makes you laugh. You're serious, but at the same time it's funny.” The frontman also explained the choice to keep the spontaneous character of the recording intact: “We recorded it as if it were a demo. No click tracks, we left the errors. Time speeds up, slows down, the hand claps are not perfect and precisely this human element is impossible to recreate artificially”.
For Homme, those very imperfections are the heart of the song: “It's about understanding the imperfections of your life. The song, just like your life, lives in mistakes. Its imperfections are unbeatable.”