nicole_powers

Jesse Hughes loves women. I mean, he really loves women. If you read the first of our Eagles of Death Metal interviews with Joshua Homme, you may have got the impression that the boys, who grew up together in Palm Desert, are shameless flirts. That's doubly true with Hughes, the second half of this fun-loving act.

An old-school Southern charmer (Hughes's family moved to California in 1979), when he's not exercising his powers of seduction, he spends much of our interview impressing upon me how wild and wicked he truly is. However, the effect is ruined and redemption is found with an unexpected phone call from his mom.

While a polite, well brought-up boy, who wears clean underwear and socks (more on that later), lies not far beneath Hughes' rock & roll veneer, he does have the odd bad habit his mom's not yet managed to iron out -- tardiness being the one that's most pertinent to our interview. Having cancelled then rescheduled our little tte--tte, Hughes is running nearly an hour late by the time he finally calls in.

Jesse Hughes: Sorry it took me so long to get hold of you baby.

Nicole Powers: Well good things are worth waiting for, is that not right?

JH: I hope so. I hope I'm to be that reality for you.

NP: So the new album, I was going to start with the cover 'cause the imagery is kind of interesting, a bloody heart being squeezed by a well manicured hand, with blood red nails digging into flesh.

JH: Well, basically my heart is forever going to be in the clutches of women.

NP: Your buddy was telling me it was because the album is dedicated to the heartland.

JH: Heart On definitely came from that, but the beauty of rock & roll is there's nefarious and cross-purposes often, do you know what I mean?...Ultimately the reason it's called Heart On is because the heart of Eagles of Death Metal belongs to women everywhere.

NP: You smooth talker you. The cover's also got an old school heavy metal vibe to it hasn't it?

JH: We wanted an album that looked liked our favorite records. I want to feel like I did something that belongs to be put up with my heroes you know. However presumptuous that may be, it's a goal that I think is worth fighting for.

NP: So who were some of your heavy metal heroes?

JH: I remember the first concert I ever went to. My dad took me to see KISS and Ted Nugent at the Greenville Memorial Auditorium in 1976. I remember thinking KISS, their show was insane, but I remember even being six years old and knowing that when Ted Nugent came out he rocked heaviness from his songs without fire and spitting blood. I didn't think one was better than the other...they were both heavy but different.

NP: You wrote this album on the road. Were you writing in the back of a bus?

JH: Oh yeah, it's like living the dream. Eagles of Death Metal really has only been about two best friends having the shits and giggles good time of their life...Our fantasy has always been to do it Led Zeppelin style. Led Zeppelin did all their shit on the road. When they were touring they'd write and record. So when Queens did the first leg of their tour around the States I went on the bus with them and it was awesome...This album, just to record it was a fucking dream because we got to do all of these things that we'd always fantasized about.

NP: Talking about finding your dreams, in one of your songs you say you had to sell your soul. Do you feel like you had to?

JH: Well, you know the price of admission is what it is I guess. I never felt like I had to, but I've had the nickname The Devil my whole life, and I've always believed in letting the facts dictate the terms of your decisions, and if it looks like an Indian, and smells like an Indian, then it ain't fucking John Wayne. So that being said, I knew coming into rock & roll that it weren't no fucking Bible study, and since every world must have a god, I knew it probably wasn't the holy lord that I go to church and worship and so I just figure, price of admission, I wanna play.

NP: It's hard to be rock & roll in this day and age. We're in the dull era of the well-behaved rock star.

JH: You're absolutely right. Danger; You can't have guaranteed results, you can have everything be safe, but you also need to have a modicum of decorum, you know what I'm saying? I mean, when the moment seizes me, I go for it but the consequences for those moments are so extreme now, you know what I mean. You can't throw a TV out of hotel room anymore without going to jail.

NP: This is true.

JH: What I like to do is throw it and make it look like it came from someone else's room, and call the front desk and complain and watch as they go to jail and know I've done something really evil. Just kidding.

NP: Experts at throwing TVs out of windows know that you need a very long extension cord, so when you throw the TV out the window you can have it switched on with the volume set to high. That way you have a sound and light show as it's falling.

JH: That is bad-ass baby. Or you could connect it to a car battery, so when it landed it actually really exploded. When we get done with this interview you and I need to set a date where we can do some rock & rollin'.

NP: I'm no amateur rock & roller.

JH: I wouldn't mind chasing some night with you darling, I can tell you that right now.

NP: So you say your nickname's The Devil. I guess I should ask how you earned that name.

JH: Joshua gave me that name when I was thirteen...I used to get picked on a lot, and when I would get picked on severely, or if it really made a point to me, I would get vengeance, but I would get vengeance in the way that I could, which was mostly clever and all consuming. Joshua once witnessed me in the moment I was about to enact vengeance upon someone, and he just said, "you're the fucking devil dude," and it stuck.

NP: You have a history of devil worshiping tracks on your albums: "Chase The Devil" on Peace Love Death and "Kiss The Devil" on Death By Sexy. What's the most satanic song on this album?

JH: You know the first description of the devil in the Bible, and of evil in general, is very interesting, and it's this: Now the serpent who is the more subtle of all the creatures of the garden. You're the first person who's ever almost accurately nailed what I think is those songs. Like "Kiss The Devil" -- "Who will love the devil? Who will sing his song?" In the South there was an old concept of evil spells simply being put into songs to get the people to innocently sing along. But if you call the devil, whether you believe in him or not, he will eventually show up. On this album, the devil is almost in every song, and now he's more subtle than all the creatures of the garden.

NP: And you're hoping that enough people play the song backwards at the same time you're going to have some kind of rising from the dark side.

JH: Led Zeppelin did it baby, why not us.

NP: So is it worthwhile spinning the album backwards?

JH: I would like to ask every person out there to spin it backwards, and I want to know what they get 'cause they might hear messages I can't hear and I want to know if the mother ship is calling me or if it's going to be hotter in hell for me than everyone else.

NP: So what would your idea of hell be?

JH: I think it's eternal falling. I think it's being cast into a pit that has no bottom. And it's a place of heat, and gnashing of teeth, and ghouls in the darkness stomping out at you, and grabbing you, and tearing at your flesh forever. That's what it seems like to me.

NP: Talking of going to hell, your music's very Hollywood-centric, women-centric, and rock & roll centric. Is it because that's your life?

JH: It is. You tend to write what you know. And this album especially, it's Hollywood-centric, and it's not celebrating the worst elements of Hollywood or the pretenses and the sliminess. I experience Hollywood at night, normally after the bars close. I'm a night creeper you know. Hollywood, L.A., The Valley, the 101, Laurel Canyon, [they] become alive. I kinda understand how the Red Hot Chili Peppers write a song with L.A. as almost a romantic character in it.

NP: I get pissed off that so many people rag on L.A. because it's a fucking great place.

JH: It is man, it is. It's just, the problem with L.A...It's been infiltrated by a very bizarre self-deceit. No one's from L.A., they're all coming there for one reason, to be famous. There's nothing more self-interested or self-centered than that ever. So you've got a bunch of people pretending that they're not there for fame, when everybody is. Everybody's pretending like they're not caring more than anything, and that can fuck everything up, and it brings out the worst in people no matter what.

That's why when I show up in L.A., it's like, fuck, this is Hollywood, I want to make some money, and I'm going to sell my songs to commercials. Fuck yeah man, I ain't pretending like I'm here to save whales. It ain't no fucking Bible study. I came here to shake my dick and have a good time, and Hollywood has really let me do that I gotta tell ya.

NP: But the flip side is that some of these songs deal with loneliness too.

JH: Yeah, this album, you know, as much as I talk like a tough guy, I was married square before rock & roll came and took me. It really did take me. I didn't do anything to be in a band. I'm a romantic too. I love women. My mother's probably the greatest person I've ever known...My concept therefore of women is not that sort of bizarre boys club chauvinistic shit. I like girls, I hang out with girls, I love women, I think they're fucking amazing. So for me, when I get sweet on a girl, I get interested and invested, and then Hollywood makes it easy to get hurt even if someone doesn't mean to hurt you, do you know what I mean?

So yes, this album was a weird album because Joshua really wanted me to [include] "Now I'm A Fool." That song was hard for me to put on the record because for me Eagles is about "everything's rad," and "check it out I'm dancing," but I guess that doesn't really stop that, it just demonstrates the raw human a little bit I guess.

NP: It gives the album balance.

JH: I typically write most of the songs for the record before we start to record you know, and Josh was like, we need an "Already Died," we need a song to give this album some depth. And I was experiencing a romance in a way with a friend of mine who actually is one of my best friends, and the song started really with me making an adult decision, like the only way I'm going to be friends with her is if I stop pursuing the romance. I started to get to the point where I saw that maybe I was threatening one of the few true friendships that I've had. That's a really big fucking decision to come to, you know, and so I started writing this song. Music, or any art, has a way of approximating something, so that song is sort of an approximation of that moment with me.

But it's also got the joy of women. Like "High Voltage," I wrote that for Kat Von D, because that fucking girl's bad ass. I was spinning one night, Hollywood rolling, it was like five in the morning, she was still at her shop with a couple of people, her High Voltage shop, and I came rolling in, we had fun. I'm home by seven in the morning and I'm sitting thinking what a fucking rad night that was. I love this job. Bomb, "High Voltage," and then it came out, do you know what I mean? Rock & roll for me is Parliament and Funkadelic, and that's what that song sounds like to me. I was trying to butt fuck the Rolling Stones with Parliament

NP: I think you achieved it with that song.

JH: Why thank you darling.

NP: Mick Jagger's ass should be feeling really sore right now.

JH: It should be raw and bruised, and you should feel very good about yourself Jesse.

NP: So what's the plan tour-wise? You've toured with some crazy people over the years.

JH: Oh yes. Right now we're on tour with The Hives, and we have Joey Castillo drumming. Fucking badass.

Oh my god, my mother's on the other line. Let me just tell my mother I'm going to call her right back. Hold on. Don't go anywhere.

NP: I won't.

[break]

JH: Hello. That was my mom and my son. My son was on tour with me for the last four days, he's my little rock & roller, and when he left last night with my mother it was very heartbreaking for me. I hate it when he leaves you know. And so my mom just picked him up right now and he was calling me and he was like, "Dad when I woke up this morning I wanted to cry because I wanted to be with you. But I was like, I've got to put on a brave face because my dad would want me to do that. So I just wanted you to know that when I got to school I wasn't crying."

NP: Aah.

JH: What do you say to that shit? You know like here I am on this interview trying to seem like this badass rock & roller, clearly trying to flirt with you, and here my son knocks me at my feet.

NP: It was actually at the point that you didn't let your mom go to voicemail that I knew that the devilish shit was a bit of a faade.

JH: It's got a reality to it, but my mother, she scares me more than other peoples' moms, you know what I mean? When she gets pissed: I have an old school, old fashioned kind of Southern mother who was brought up in the sixties generation so she's hip, but to her there's right and wrong boy, and you just don't cross the line. So when my mamma calls it's like, "Oh shit, it's mom, everyone hide the drugs," you know. But I'm in my own house.

She's been staying at my house and I've just got my new collection of pornos, and I'm watching them, and the funniness and the weirdness of being in your own home, and being a grown fucking thirty-something year old dude, and scrambling for the remote to try and switch the fucking TV/VCR button before your mom walks in -- it's pretty funny.

NP: So does she still do your laundry?

JH: She does, twice a week. But again I come from the theory that a family is bigger than you, and it doesn't matter exactly where you live. My mother's house is two miles from mine but we're a family. My father's dead, they divorced before he died, so I got to look out for my girl.

NP: And moms like to be able to fuss over their sons.

JH: Absolutely, that's half of it. If I'm going out in the cold, and as I'm putting on my jacket she'll tell me to put on a jacket. I've just got to let her do that shit.

NP: And she makes sure you go on stage with clean socks.

JH: And underwear no shit! We had a laundry facility at the venue we played at, and I was able to do my laundry. She comes off the tour bus with my bag and says, "I noticed you've got your jeans, I wanted to make sure you got your underwear and your socks clean," and I'm like, "Oh fuck, did you just say that in front of the guys? Not in front of the guys mom!" Sometimes I find myself dong that too, "Ah mom, not in front of the guys."

NP: You'll always be twelve in front of your mom.

JH: That's like with anyone. You're always going to be the thing, it's how you were introduced, you know, and I was introduced to my mother as her baby child.

NP: So does your mom support your choice of career?

JH: She loves it. When I sing the song "Whorehoppin'", it has the words "shit goddamn" in it, she winces, every time, I can see it. She stands at the side of the stage, and every time I would talk to the crowd and every time an expletive would slip out I'd find myself automatically looking to the side of the stage and going, "Sorry mom!"

I think there should always be a line you don't cross in anything...Cussing in front of your mom, you don't have to do that. It's like taking the time to go into a relationship just to cheat seems really fucking pointless to me. It lets everybody know that you're going to fucking cheat on the closest person to you, so in business you're probably going to cheat too.

NP: So, bottom line, it doesn't matter how rock & roll you are you just can't cuss in front of your mom.

JH: I like that. That should be a song. Real rock & rollers don't cuss in front of their mom. Like a billboard, or a public service announcement with me with the F word being blocked out of my mouth.

NP: A YouTube public service announcement.

JH: Yeah, a YouTube video of "You don't cuss in front of your mother."

NP: You make the video and I'll post it.

JH: And then you and I will post it and can eventually have our night of rock & roll chasing the night into Hollywood.

NP: I was reading an anthropological book called Watching The English, and it had a chapter about flirting. Flirting in England is a very different thing to flirting in America. Flirting in England is actually good manners; It acknowledges that's someone's attractive and it's a mechanism to help the conversation flow.

JH: What it does is politely cater to the realities of men and women, and their real different needs.

NP: It's a subtle form of flattery. It doesn't have to be about sex, it's a matter of etiquette.

JH: My job is to flirt, in a way. That makes total sense to me. That is an awesome way to put it actually darling, and I think I'm going to steal that from you.

NP: And the interesting thing is, in England, the more upper class you are the more it's ingrained, whereas the working class were always told that if they didn't follow the Ten Commandments to the letter they'd burn in hell. It was a way of keeping them down.

JH: That's a fact... I remember in the South, which remains still very English in a lot of ways...I'm Jesse Everett Hughes IV, so I come from a really old Southern family, and the notion of the mistress was an accepted thing amongst I guess you would say the higher classes. A southern gentleman would have his kids, have his plantation or whatever, and the wife was respected in the right way, but it was just a sort of an unspoken agreement that everyone understood what a mistress was. It's not necessarily something I subscribe to, but it's an interesting way to understand or to see how people can actually like live and let people be people. An unrealistic expectation is only, and will ever be, just that -- an unrealistic expectation.

NP: I should let you go because you have your son to call back.

JH: I don't want you to let me go baby.

NP: Well, if you love someone you have to set them free.

JH: [laughs] That was good girl. I love you for that one. That was good.