Influences (1960s to mid-1980s) Like most subgenres of music, the origins of stoner rock are hard to trace and pinpoint. Nevertheless, several known progenitors and signature songs are widely credited with helping to shape the genre.
Blue Cheer is considered one of the pioneers of the style; as
AllMusic author Greg Prato puts it, "When talks about 'stoner rock' come up, one band that tends to get overlooked is Blue Cheer." According to critic Mark Deming, Blue Cheer's first album,
Vincebus Eruptum, "is a glorious celebration of
rock & roll primitivism run through enough Marshall amps to deafen an army," not unlike the heaviness of
MC5's
Kick Out the Jams and
the Velvet Underground's
White Light/White Heat.
Rolling Stone claims, "What stoner rock delivers, slowed down and magnified, is the
riff, the persistent legacy of Mississippi blues.
Led Zeppelin and
Black Sabbath were the first to make a monolith of it."
Sir Lord Baltimore were called "the godfathers of stoner rock" by
Classic Rock magazine, who went on to state that
Leaf Hound have been cited for influencing countless bands in the stoner rock movement, including
Kyuss and
Monster Magnet. James Manning of
Time Out London recognises
The Beatles' "
I Want You (She's So Heavy)" as "laying the foundations for stoner rock with the relentlessly spiralling outro".
Buffalo's 1973 sophomore release
Volcanic Rock has been "heralded as the first great stoner rock record," the song
Sunrise (Come My Way) "has since been shamelessly cannibalized for its parts by more stoner-rock bands than you can shake a bong at," and the songs
Till My Death and
The Prophet have been likened to later stoner rock.
Primevil's album ''Smokin' Bats at Campton's'' has been called a "touchstone" of stoner rock.
Jim DeRogatis has said that stoner rock bands are "reaching back for inspiration to the psychedelic, proto-metallic jamming of bands like
Cream,
Black Sabbath,
Deep Purple, and
Hawkwind." According to DeRogatis, the roots of stoner rock can be heard on Black Sabbath's
Master of Reality, Hawkwind's
25 Years On 1973–1977 box set, the aforementioned Blue Cheer album, Deep Purple's
Machine Head and
Blue Öyster Cult's
Workshop of the Telescopes. Black Sabbath's
Master of Reality is often cited as the first album of the genre, and
Martin Popoff states: "When '
Sweet Leaf' kicks in, one witnesses simultaneously the invention of stoner rock".
Allmusic summarizes this unique fusion as follows: "Stoner metal bands updated the long, mind-bending jams and ultra-heavy riffs of bands like Black Sabbath, Blue Cheer, Blue Öyster Cult, and Hawkwind by filtering their psychedelia-tinged metal and
acid rock through the buzzing sound of early
Sub Pop–style
grunge."
Early development (late 1980s–1990s) The doom metal band
Trouble introduced
acid rock elements on their 1990
self-titled album, which became even more prominent on 1992's
Manic Frustration. Similarly, the British doom metal band
Cathedral increasingly moved toward a psychedelic/stoner sound over the course of their first three releases, culminating in the critically acclaimed 1993 album
The Ethereal Mirror. During this same period, heavy metal band
White Zombie achieved multi-platinum success with their two
major label albums, significantly expanding the heavy music audience with their groove-based, sample-laden "psychedelic horror" sound. During the early to mid-1990s, a number of southern-California bands developed the style that would be called stoner rock. In 1992,
Kyuss emerged from the
Palm Desert Scene with
Blues for the Red Sun. Critics have hailed it as "a major milestone in heavy music," while
NME described their music as an attempt to figuratively melt "a hundredweight of hot desert
sand into metal". In 1992,
San Jose doom metal band
Sleep released their album ''
Sleep's Holy Mountain'', and along with Kyuss were heralded by the heavy metal press as leaders of the emerging stoner scene. A year earlier,
New Jersey's
Monster Magnet released their debut album
Spine of God, which displayed fewer metal influences but was psychedelic and sludgy, in the vein of their California peers. Together with these three bands, southern-Californians
Fu Manchu, who released their eponymous album in 1994, are credited with being "one of the most enduring and influential bands" of the genre. In 1994, San Francisco's
Acid King and Britain's
Acrimony released their debut albums, both of which adopted this psychedelic approach to doom metal. Though more closely associated with the
grunge movement (which itself sometimes influenced, was influenced by, and occasionally overlapped with stoner rock), with their 1994 album
Superunknown being described as a "stoner rock classic". Other influential bands from this era include
Clutch,
Sons of Otis and
Corrosion of Conformity.
Middle years (1995–1999) Kyuss broke up in 1995 after the release of their
fourth album, with many members going on to develop the stoner and desert rock scene through new projects. In August 1997, Kyuss'
Josh Homme founded
The Desert Sessions at the now-famous
Rancho De La Luna in
Joshua Tree, California. This musical collective brings artists together for impromptu writing and recording sessions that yielded ten albums between 1997 and 2003. The project has included members from Kyuss, Fu Manchu, Soundgarden, Monster Magnet,
Goatsnake, earthlings? and
Eagles of Death Metal, as well as
PJ Harvey,
Dean Ween and others associated with the
Palm Desert scene. Also in 1997,
Roadrunner Records released the stoner rock compilation
Burn One Up! Music for Stoners, which includes many of the aforementioned bands, as well as a track by Josh Homme's new band
Queens of the Stone Age. They soon expanded the catalog to include artists who stylistically fit with those bands. This resulted in the formation of
MeteorCity Records and the release of the compilation
Welcome to MeteorCity in 1998, which included established desert and stoner rock acts, as well as new bands established by
John Garcia of Kyuss,
Ed Mundell of Monster Magnet, and
Pete Stahl of Goatsnake.
Songs for the Deaf, their next release in 2002, included
a single from the album peaking at No. 1 on the US
Modern Rock Tracks. Another label focusing on the international stoner rock scene was
Small Stone Records, which released a number of compilation albums of stoner rock bands doing covers of 1970s music, including
Right in the Nuts: A Tribute to Aerosmith (2000), ''
Sucking the 70's (2002), and Sucking the 70's – Back in the Saddle Again'' (2006). In 2002, the
Orquesta del Desierto was formed, featuring key members of the major desert rock bands and released two albums. In 2009, the magazines
Decibel and
Terrorizer released issues featuring a list of the 100 greatest and most important albums of the 2000s, respectively. The stoner band Electric Wizard's
Dopethrone was featured on both lists, being placed 10th on Decibel's list and 1st on Terrorizer's list. Since Kyuss' break-up, the success of the bandmates' other projects has caused the Kyuss back catalog to become more widely listened to and their fanbase has inevitably swelled. The sound has been continued on by directly descendant bands Unida,
Slo Burn,
Hermano,
Mondo Generator,
Fu Manchu,
Brant Bjork and the Bros, and at times by Queens of the Stone Age, who have since largely departed from Kyuss' stoner rock sound, and reject the label, preferring the term "desert rock".
The European scene: stoner rock and beyond As acknowledged by
Dave Wyndorf, the lead singer of
Monster Magnet, in a 2015 interview: "Europe is really good for psychedelic music." So much so that some US stoner rock bands will even choose to tour Europe rather than North America. Founded by a French aficionado of stoner rock, the website MoreFuzz.net has been a big promoter of the stoner rock scene in Europe and internationally. Stoner rock bands in Europe, much like their North American counterparts, mix elements of heavy rock music with
psychedelia and
acid rock. The influence of
Black Sabbath or
Blue Cheer can be heard – among other examples – in bands such as the Swedish
Graveyard and the German
Kadavar. Instrumental stoner rock bands such as
Karma to Burn are rare in the US but are more frequent in Europe. ==See also==