A group of goth girls working the makeup counter at JCPenney, who couldn't resist giving the old ladies who came in a goth makeover too — this is a scene Josh Homme carried with him from his teenage years in suburban Palm Desert, and it's now become the starting point for Queens Of The Stone Age's new song "Where The Goth Girls At?" The track is the third single released from the band's ninth studio album, *Perfecth*, set to drop October 30th, following the earlier releases of "Insignificant Other" and "Easy Street."
"Watching the goth girls working the counter at JCPenney and giving goth makeovers to the old ladies, that's when I knew the only place I want to be is where the goth girls at," Homme said. "Teenage love, ain't it grand?" The lyrics circle around teenage crushes and the urge to be noticed, while the arrangement builds from a stripped-down guitar riff into an explosive chorus, layered with strings and brass for extra weight.
The music video reunites director duo Christopher Gruse and Tony Wolski, who also helmed "Easy Street." The visuals feature waves of black ink flooding an abandoned power plant, with appearances from comedian Steve Agee, dancer and artist Scarlett Kapella, and singer-actress Lou Lou Safran — plus the QOTSA members themselves make cameos. In the video, the goth girls "transform" everyone they encounter into their ideal version of themselves.
The album title *Perfecth* is a word Homme coined himself. He says the word "perfect" has never been honest — nothing in the world is truly perfect — so he came up with "perfecth" to describe it instead. "Nothing in this world is perfect, but everything looks like it's perfecth," he said. "It's funny to say out loud with the band, but it's not as funny when you're alone." The album's concept also draws inspiration from kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer, and features nine tracks exploring love in relationships with family, friends, and everything in between — "significant and insignificant" alike.
This marks the band's follow-up to their widely acclaimed 2023 album *In Times New Roman*. The band is currently performing as support for Foo Fighters, with a stop at Bourbon & Beyond 2026 on September 24th before wrapping up this leg of the tour in Las Vegas on September 26th. They'll then head to Iceland on October 24th, marking the band's first return to the country since 2005, before continuing on to Singapore, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
