Jesse Hughes says he had to sell his soul to make rock 'n' roll in Los Angeles.
Now the devil is getting his due.
“Wannabe in L.A.,” the new Eagles of Death Metal single, on which Jesse “The Devil” Hughes makes his Faustian confession, has been added to MTV's rotation. Radio stations are jumping on it faster than any previous EODM single.
Rolling Stone and Spin gave the album from which it came, “Heart On,” four stars upon its Oct. 28 debut — making it one of the more critically acclaimed CDs with which EODM producer and multi-instrumentalist Josh Homme has been associated. Homme, who performs as the sisnger and guitarist for Queens of the Stone Age, attended Palm Desert High School with Hughes, and has remained friends ever since.
As deserving as “Wannabe In L.A.” is of L.A. anthem status, Hughes isn't ready to buy L.A. real estate just yet.
His heart is still in the Coachella Valley.
Growth of EODM
Hughes and Homme, formed EODM as more or less a rock 'n' roll dream.
“We wanted to live the dream,” Hughes said. “We wanted to Led Zeppelin it. Led Zeppelin went on the road and used the intensity of the road and the touring cycle to push their music. So Joshua and I did that. We wanted to live in Amsterdam for a month and record in an amazing studio and we did that, too. We weren't trying to do anything different, we were just trying to do it the same as Little Richard and Angus Young (of AC/DC).”
The first two CDs, “Peace Love Death Metal” and “Death By Sexy,” produced songs that made a lot of money through licensing for TV commercials. “I Want You So Hard (Boy's Bad News)” and “Speaking in Tongues” in particular gave EODM a career as concert and recording artists.
But Hughes felt a need to make their third CD really good.
“It's the first one where I feel like I'm going to get my feelings hurt if somebody doesn't like it for real. I worked on these songs. I suffered over them and Joshua and I really took it very seriously. So now it's a different thing. It's my ‘art' instead of my album.”
