Why Josh Homme wanted to film a concert inside the Paris Catacombs

CBC

21-07-2025

Last summer, Queens of the Stone Age became the first-ever band to perform inside the Paris Catacombs, where the remains of more than six million people are held.
That performance was captured in a new concert film and five-song EP, Alive in the Catacombs.
In an interview with Q 's Tom Power, frontman Josh Homme says the concert is something he's been trying to make happen for 20 years, but he's been fascinated by the Catacombs since he was a kid.
WATCH | Official trailer for Alive in the Catacombs:
"When you're young, you never think you're going to die," he says. "It all seems so far away. And people never talk about things like that unless it happens, and it's terrible. So I just think the taboo nature drew me in close. And I think the art of it — the way these bones were so lovingly, respectfully stacked — it just caught my eye. I just couldn't believe that that was OK."
The first time Homme had ever been in the Catacombs was to perform with his band, though he had tried to see them before.
"For the better part of 20 years, it was just something that every time we would go to Europe, I would say, 'Hey, let's try to play the Catacombs again,'" he says. "It was almost a joke to myself because it had not happened."
But after finally getting permission to hold a concert there, Homme got incredibly sick. Immediately after his performance in the Catacombs, he had to fly back to the U.S. to get emergency surgery.
"What are the chances that I myself would be in a very dire situation at the same time, after all those years of waiting?" he says. "They're so small that it felt meant to be. And again, you know, there's some that would say, 'It's just a pile of bones and nothing is meant to be, everything's chaos.' And that's OK, too. I'm fine with someone saying that. I don't care about that. I'm saying it feels meant to be for me."