Eagles of Death Metal

What started as an innocuous side-project — a kitschy little experiment to pass the time in Palm Desert — has exploded into a full-fledged career for Jesse Hughes and his best pal, Josh Homme, of Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss fame. Things started out innocently enough — the Eagles started as a spin-off of Homme's The Desert Sessions, a cute little musical improv series. Three sleazy rock albums later and the band has taken off to heaps of fame and fortune, all set in place by 2004's utterly infectious Death by Sexy. The band even elicited a rather vitriolic reaction from none other than Axl Rose, dubbing the desert rockers as the "Pigeons of Shit Metal." After listening to Chinese Democracy, it's fair to say Axl would be the authority on what passes for shitty music these days. Unfazed, Jesse "The Devil" Hughes fronts the band with every ounce of his exuberant kitsch-rock antics, making the crowd believe that every inch of his being is dedicated to sleazing it up on stage while thrusting and thrashing away. While it sometimes may be intolerable, it is certainly almost always a sight to behold.