Desert rock godfather Brant Bjork has revealed that he thinks a Kyuss or Vista Chino reunion is still “absolutely possible”.
Bjork is heading to Australia for a solo tour this May, and his arrival down under comes achingly close to crossing over with another tour — one by his former Kyuss, Kyuss Lives! and Vista Chino bandmate Nick Oliveri, who’s in the country right now doing his acoustic thing.
It got us wondering whether we might see the stoner rock lords reunite any time soon, and possibly resurrect one of their iconic projects.
Following the drama that’s stalked the Kyuss name since the band’s 1996 breakup (with guitarist Josh Homme and later-era bassist Scott Reed suing Bjork, Oliveri and singer John Garcia over their use of the name Kyuss Lives! back in 2011) and Homme categorically shooting down any possibility of a reunion ever happening, fans would be forgiven for not getting their hopes up.
But, speaking with Music Feeds, Bjork says he’s not ruling out the possibility of a fully-fledged OG Kyuss returning one day.
“Absolutely, anything’s possible,” he says. “I mean, the impossible and the unthinkable has happened already — we got back together and had an amazing run.
“Josh [Homme] is just… he’s not an easy guy,” the multi-instrumentalist says. “And I’m not saying that I am either, we are who we are. But, you know, he has his own perspective on what Kyuss is and what it should be… and it’s hard to move forward without the original guitar player, [who’s] not wanting to participate and [wanting to] keep you from doing it.
“People forget that Kyuss was around for a short period of time and it broke up, and it broke up for [laughs] the same reason it broke up the second time,” Bjork adds.
“It’s a band that wasn’t really built with any kind of foundation for longevity to begin with. It’s almost as if to say we were lucky we got the record that we got out of it.
[But] anything’s possible, you never know.”
The rocker also reckons the band that Kyuss Lives! morphed into, Vista Chino, could see a comeback one day, and possibly even some new material.
We last saw them perform live in Australia at the 2014 Big Day Out, but chances are if they do return, it’ll still be a while before we see them back again.
“I have priorities at the moment, which is clearly my own music with my own band,” Bjork says. “But I have spoken to [bassist] Mike Dean and Nick Oliveri and I’ve spoken to Bruno [Fevery, guitar] on a number of occasions about Vista Chino.
“I haven’t talked to John [Garcia, vocals] about it at all since, but I’ve talked to the other guys and we’ve all mentioned to one another that we were sad to see the band basically stop, and that we were all collectively into the idea of, you know, creating some fresh music with Vista Chino.
“But all of that was said with the idea and understanding that we all have our own careers and own music. Vista Chino was never meant to be a full-time thing to anyone.”
But if Guns N’ Roses can do it, so can Vista Chino, right?
“We weren’t expecting it to be born to begin with,” Bjork laughs. “So of course, anything’s possible, yeah.”
You can catch Brant Bjork touring live across Australia this May, and stay tuned for Music Feeds‘ full interview with the dude, coming soon.
