In retrospect, is there anything you'd change about Sky Valley?
Homme: No. I haven't made a record yet that I'd change anything about, and I hope I never do. I put everything I have into every record I've ever made. I think Blues was a classic record for Kyuss, too, but I think Sky Valley was a little more understood in a way. To me, it stand the test of time a little bit better. But when you're done with a record and you agree to give it to the rest of the world, no matter what happens-I don't care if it's downloading or critical failure or acclaim or sales or no sales-it's not up to you and it's not your fault. You don't have to feel anything about it. A good review or a bad review, I don't feel anything about. It's nice to get one or the other, but it's not that nice.
Garcia: I don't think I'm happy with my vocals on a single song. I haven't heard that record in years, but anytime I hear Kyuss, I cringe, man, because I can sing so much better now. It bugs the fuck out of me. My voice right now would smoke all over that John. I hear it now and I wanna be like, "Step aside, kid. Let me show you how it's done."
Bjork: I'd get rid of "Lick Doo," obviously. That was cheesy. But other than that, I think it's a good record. I wrote a lot more on Blues, but the irony is that I don't necessarily prefer Blues to Sky Valley. I just prefer to rock. I prefer to let things naturally take their course. Blues was a very natural record, and I feel like Sky Valley was a very calculated, fabricated record. And when I hear Circus, I hear how it became even more calculated. Don't get me wrong-still great songs, great sounds, I love all the Kyuss records. But sometimes you have to sacrifice a certain feeling when you're being more calculated. Less feeling, more thinking.
Reeder: I wouldn't change a thing. Somebody emailed me just a few weeks ago, asking, "On the second chorus of 'Gardenia,' did you play a wrong note?" Man, I don't know! There are probably wrong notes all over the place on that record. But I enjoyed that things weren't taken too seriously. It wasn't like a band trying to make it big, careerists or whatever. We were just having a good time, getting free beer and wondering who fucked up and let us through the door. It seemed like a joke, like, "Uh, I think somebody made a mistake. We're not supposed to be here." It always felt like that to me. Good times, though.
It seemed like Sky Valley-and Kyuss in general-wasn't widely appreciated until a couple of years after the band broke up. Did you ever wish you'd gotten your due while Kyuss was still around?
Homme: No way. I feel so lucky that no one gave a fuck, because until you've learned to play for yourself, you haven't learned to play at all. In my way of thinking, you don't play for girls, money, fame or attention. You play for respect. It's the only gift you give yourself, and it can't be taken away. If you pay respect to yourself and those close to you, you're untouchable, unheckle-able. And that's all I've ever wanted to be-to have someone look and go, "I don't like it, but I know it's real, so I'm just gonna shut up." Nothing else really seems worth it. And if people were into us, I might not feel that way. So who cares? It's also why I'm not trying to milk the fuck out of it. I've never tried to dry-hump Kyuss' good name. I've been the source of stopping it for years.
Reeder: I don't know. It didn't seem like a big deal or anything back then. We were just shitting out the next batch of stuff. To have it still being talked about 14 or 15 years later just blows my mind. You know, I went to this thing a couple of weeks ago-it was Mike Watt improvising on bass and Raymond Pettibon improvising on canvas. Afterwards, there were these two 20-year-old kids there who saw me and were like, "Scott Reeder!" They wanted to take their pictures with me and stuff like that. I was like, "What the hell?" I haven't exactly been out there in the limelight you know? It's weird.
Bjork: I think everything happened in its appropriate way. Kyuss was what it was because of where we came from and where rock music was at that time. We weren't from Seattle, we were too lowbrow for that. We were dope-smokers-I was listening to Cypress Hill back then. Other than Monster Magnet, rock bands weren't talking about weed when we were around. A lot of that just had to do with the time. Black Flag wasn't totally into their trip. That's what made them do the things that they did. I mean, if the whole country is partying and smoking dope and you're Led Zeppelin, you're playing sold out arenas. Black Sabbath probably played to 10,000 people a night after Masters of Reality came out. Why isn't High on Fire doing that shit now? It's just way it is-it was a different time then. But we didn't need it. That was kind of my whole trip when I was in Kyuss.
Garcia: It's weird, man. These days, people are like, "Kyuss this and Kyuss that," and it makes me wanna go, "Where the fuck were you when we were together?" Now that Kyuss is disbanded, it's this legendary fucking band, but back then, we just did what we did. I'll tell you, though, when I hang out at the merch table after Hermano gigs, some of the younger kids will have all this Kyuss stuff, and it makes me feel pretty good about being 37. They'll ask me to sign Sky Valley and I'll see Josh's signature already on there-at the bottom, he'll write something like "Kyuss lives." So I started writing the same thing on the Kyuss records that didn't have this autograph on them, because I know that some of those kid will bring those records to a Queens show for him to sign. [Laughs] So that's kind of my of sending him a lette, like, "Hey, dude-it does live, just to let you know."
