His Masters Voice
Originally appeared in Classic Rock (2001)

Chris Goss spills the beans on new album and tour

Masters of Reality have just released their latest album, Deep In The Hole and announced a string of rare British dates. The band will feature Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age, and they play Glasgow Garage November 30, Manchester MDH Dec 1, London Astoria 2, Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall 3. Support at all shows comes from the highly rated Anyone.

Homme, former Screaming Tree Mark Lanegan (now a member of QOTSA) and Troy Van Leeuwen of A Perfect Circle are all among the guests who appear on ...Hole. Typically, this was more down to sheer good fortune than MOR mainman Chris Goss having produced both Queens and Homme's previous band Kyuss.

"Josh happened to be in Joshua Tree (California), recording The Desert Sessions at the studio next door," explains Goss. "People dropped by, it was spontaneous, and I just remember laughing for six weeks solidly."

His timing is good. Whereas Goss describes the album's 1999 predecessor Welcome To The Western Lodge as "a jagged, claustrophobic little bitch", Deep In The Hole is a pure classic rock record that doffs it's hat to The Beatles, Yes and Pink Floyd. But whether or not it achieves the success it undoubtedly merits, Chris has found peace with his status as a cult artist.

"A song on the record that Mark Lanegan sang with me, called 'High Noon Amsterdam', gets to grips with all that," he reveals. "It's basically saying that I don't care, that all the good shit is for free. Whether someone gets the record from their friend or takes it from the internet, whether it stays a cult album or explodes, it doesn't matter. I've still got a home and a private life that I treasure."

Goss has particularly fond memories of his last visit to the UK, at a packed Borderline in London in September '99.

"An older guy drove over from Wales with his wife - he must have been 70 years old," says Goss, still stunned. "It blew me away that someone like that would have everything I'd done and was into a record like Western Lodge. That was so cool."