No End To Sexy In Sight For Eagles Of Death Metal

Following a successful second album and a summer tour with Canada's Peaches, Eagles Of Death Metal will hit Toronto one more time as Saturday's second stage headliners at this weekend's Virgin Festival.

Death By Sexy was released this spring to very positive reviews. Frontman Jesse Hughes sat down with ChartAttack in July to talk about all things EODM.

What were some of the things you wanted to change after Peace, Love, Death Metal for Death By Sexy?
Jesse Hughes: A bass, for starters. We knew that in order for the first album not to sound like a fluke, the second album had to step up. So I wanted my songwriting to be better on this record and the production to be bigger. I think we achieved it. My songwriting got a bit better. We went to Sound City Studios to record the album and we used the same tape machine that Cheap Trick used to record three of their records, so we used old equipment instead of ProTools. And we just went for it.

How do you go about writing music?
I go and live life, and then I write everything in my bedroom, normally after I've come home from whatever it is, some wild run, and I reflect on it. And I just wanna be like my favourite rock 'n' roll heroes. I want to tell stories like they told, because that's what got me charged up about rock in the first place. And I also write songs for maximum posing potential — the kind of songs where you can pump your fist. That shit's awesome. For me, that's what's fun.

A lot of the songs are based around one line or phrase. Do they start that way when you're writing them?
It does normally start with a phrase or an idea, and that's the mark of my style of writing. I like repetition. I like the hook, then I like to leave it and then come back to it. The first album was a lot of one chorus and then beating it to death. But then I learned about something called a change, and something called a verse. And when I learned about that stuff, I started using it.Normally it's a phrase. "Get Your Motor Running, Come On Dance With Me," that's how that song started. I was telling this girl, "Come on, get your motor running, let's dance." Then I started singing it to her and boom, it became a song. "I Want You Soo Hard," those are true lyrics. I was writing it to a girl who told me she couldn't date me because a friend of ours, Brant Bjork, told her I was bad news. And so I thought, "I'll take the very words of rejection and wrap 'em up in a new package and I might get laid." And it worked.

It's got to be nice having guys like Josh Homme and Dave Grohl in your corner.
Josh is my very best friend, and he's been in my corner since I was 12 years old. He's always been on the playground with me when I had to face the bully. Dave Grohl, Jack Black, [The Strokes'] Fabrizio Moretti [and] Nick Valensi, all those dudes, they've sheltered me. I'm a weird dude and they're my friends and they've kind of recognized I'm a sensitive, weird dude, that I'm very enthusiastic about shit. A lot of the lessons I've learned, I've learned through experience and gotten to learn them because a dude like Dave Grohl leans over and goes, "Dude, check this out, this is what's coming next. Keep your head up." There's very few of us who do what we do, so I keep 'em close.

What are your thoughts on the internet as a means to promote your music?
It's an old-fashioned do-it-yourself instrument. But you have to be smart about everything, and you have to let the facts dictate your decision-making. The internet can be an invaluable tool. Think about it: we've recorded and produced our records on our own nickel and yet we've still managed to sequester major record deals via the internet. It's an amazing tool that you can manipulate profoundly because you can make something seem bigger than it is. "This website had one million hits." That doesn't really mean anything. It could be one dude hitting it over and over again.

Why did it take you so long to get to Canada?
You always want to save the best for last. It's true. Also, you should never go someplace just because you need to get there. You should go someplace because it's the right time to be there. Canada's been wonderful to us in many ways. The underground support we've received has been especially great in Canada. Some of the shows we played in the infancy of the band, where my confidence level was in a weird spot, we played a show in Vancouver that was so off the hook that we still talk about it. And think about it, we're North Americans. We're not just Canadians and Americans. We're kind of the same, except we've got more guns than you. That's why we get told what to do less. Just kidding.I was saying this earlier today: What the fuck is up with having every beautiful girl in the world here? Are you out of your minds? It's not a good way to have a faithful marriage, living in this town.

Do you guys party pretty hard on the road?
This ain't a bible study, we're here to have a good time. And can you imagine being in your house everywhere you go for 30 days? And getting to be in this house with four roommates who you never would have picked ever. You better be having a good time and you better be partying or else you'd hate each other. And believe me, the bunk area of a tour bus full of sweaty men has an interesting odour.

What can people look forward to on the upcoming DVD By Sexy?
They can expect to become impregnated immediately. It will heal the sick and it will make the blind see again. We had so much fun making the new record, and Liam Lynch, who has directed the new Tenacious D movie, came in with his camera and captured it. And when we were watching it at the end, we were like, "This doesn't quite capture it. It's too real." So we added imaginary characters: my talking rabbit Warren and the imaginary banana. Those are my friends. Because basically the whole time we were recording, Josh was like, "Dude, you're so out of your fucking mind, you might as well talk to this banana."

I've heard you refer to your moustache as the "Boomerang Of Love." What would it take to get you to shave it off?
It's also Mr. Ticklepants. I don't want to shave my moustache, because I'm feeling it right now. I think in rock 'n' roll there's a lot of retro attitude, and a lot of it is people saying, "Look how stupid we look." For me, it's like, "Look how hot a moustache can look. Come on, baby, I look like your dad when you were 12."