Nick Oliveri

Nick Oliveri is best known as the bassist/singer for Queens of the Stone Age and an original member of Kyuss. But in addition to his more renowned projects, he's also been a member of shock-punkers the Dwarves, and also fronts his own side band, Mondo Generator. Hailing from Coachella Valley in California (a small resort community of the Palm Desert -- right near the Joshua Tree National Monument), Oliveri befriended local guitarist Josh Homme early on. The two would eventually begin to jam on punk favorites together (due to the intense desert heat, rehearsals were held in bandmember's bedrooms rather than garages), and when singer John Garcia and drummer Brant Bjork eventually signed on, Kyuss was born during the late ?80s. Instead of specializing in any of the then-prevalent hard rock styles (thrash, glam, etc.), Kyuss' music often resembled classic Black Sabbath, due to its slow grooves and detuned guitars - yet Oliveri's punk roots could be detected in the mix as well. The group's hot and humid surroundings also found its way into the music and approach as well, as Kyuss quickly built a following by playing all-night ?generator parties,' out in the middle of the desert. A collection of early tracks, Wretch, followed in 1991, but failed to capture what the group truly sounded like. With the emergence of such similarly styled bands as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains, the musical climate seemed perfect for a group like Kyuss, and the group delivered one of the decade's most underrated (and subsequently influential) releases, 1992's Blues for the Red Sun.

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