Chris Goss
Chris Goss is an American record producer and musician. Best known for producing records for Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age, he is regarded as an important figure in the development of stoner rock and desert rock genres. Goss is also the lead singer and guitarist of the hard rock band Masters of Reality.
For the musician and label manager, see London Elektricity.
Chris Goss
- Musician
- singer
- songwriter
- producer
- recording engineer
- Vocals
- guitar
- keyboards
1980s–present
Recording career[edit]
As well as being the founding (and only constant) member of influential desert rock outfit Masters of Reality, Goss is also well known for his production work on albums by Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age.[1] Largely credited as the Godfather of desert rock, Goss has on several occasions played down the importance of his role in this musical movement.[2] In 1999, he stated, "I can't make any claim at all to inventing desert rock, or stoner rock, or whatever you want to call it. I make rock n roll records, and hopefully try to make the listener feel like I did when I heard my favourite music."[3]
In 2004, Goss highlighted exactly what kind of music he created, "There's a bunch of weirdos that I work with all the time, and we make what I call 'out of whack' Rock records. That's what I do. When people want an 'out of whack' weird Rock record, they call me, and I take an 'out of whack' amount of money to do it, and I'm glad to be there. It's cool."[4]
In late 2004, Goss had to be hospitalized due to severe internal infection and the European leg of his tour in support of the new Masters of Reality album Give Us Barabbas had to be postponed indefinitely.[5] After his recuperation, he joined Jeordie White and Zach Hill to release I Got a Brand New Egg Layin' Machine, a "mini LP" released under the name Goon Moon.
Goss appeared with his longtime friend Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age as "The 5:15ers" at the "winter edition" of ArthurFest, performing an intimate set which was "crafted in less than a month as the duo was a rather late addition to the Arthurball line-up as Sunday's headliner".[6] Continuing with Goon Moon, Goss, White and Hill released a full-length album in May 2007 entitled Licker's Last Leg containing many guest artists synonymous with the desert rock scene.
Goss also joined Queens of the Stone Age and Billy Gibbons to perform "Burn the Witch" on Late Night with Conan O'Brien.[7]
In 2013, regarding Josh Homme's supposed decision to sequence the album Era Vulgaris using songs originated in a "Los Angeles studio without a single thing written, just to see what it was like to force songs out of his psyche", Goss was quoted saying: "I've seen him do that before with the Desert Sessions but never with Queens. The Queens of the Stone Age is a business, where he's the CEO. It's not run the same."[8]
In 2014, filming was completed in Las Vegas for Death in the Desert, a full-length movie for which Goss wrote an original song titled "Only the Lonely", performed by singer Roxy Saint, who plays the character Corey in the full-length film, which is directed and produced by Saint's husband, Josh Evans. It stars Michael Madsen, Shayla Beesley and Paz de la Huerta. The movie is inspired by the book Death in the Desert by Cathy Scott,[9] with the screenplay by John Steppling.[10]