Josh Homme grew up near Palm Desert watching goth employees at JCPenney give full gothic makeovers to older customers — and apparently that memory never left him. That’s the origin story behind “Where the Goth Girls At?“, the third advance single from Perfecth, the band’s ninth studio album, due October 30, 2026, on Matador Records. The premise is as specific as it is universal: teenage longing directed at the most intriguing people in any suburban room.
The Song and the Story Behind It
Homme’s nostalgia is the fuel; the JCPenney detail is the spark.
In a press statement, Homme described the song as being about teenage love and his fascination with goth girls growing up. That JCPenney image is not throwaway color — it’s the whole emotional engine. Wanting desperately to exist inside whatever world the coolest, most mysterious people occupy is a feeling most listeners will recognize. Homme just happened to find his version of it under fluorescent department store lighting. “Where the Goth Girls At?” follows “Insignificant Other” and “Easy Street” in the Perfecth rollout.
Key details on the release:
- Third advance single from Perfecth, Queens of the Stone Age‘s ninth studio album
- Album arrives October 30, 2026, via Matador Records; Apple Music lists nine tracks in the pre-release
- Video directed by Christopher Gruse and Tony Wolski, who also helmed the “Easy Street” video
- Cast includes comedian Steve Agee, dancer and artist Scarlett Kapella, and singer-actress Lou Lou Safran — all in visual roles; available sources do not identify them as recording performers
- Band continues their fall tour across North America, Japan, and Australia — specific dates and venues were not independently verified
What the Video Does With the Memory
Inside a deserted power plant turned gothic realm, the goth girls hold every card.
Gruse and Wolski set the video inside an abandoned power plant transformed into a gothic domain. Goth women run it. They convert everyone who enters — QOTSA members included — through heavy black-ink makeovers, absorbing outsiders into their aesthetic without negotiation. Surrealism as tribute.
Here is the move worth noticing: the song is built around longing to be near goth girls. The video hands them complete authority over everyone in the frame. That inversion functions as both the joke and the compliment — Homme’s adolescent fascination repaid with total surrender. It is worth flagging that this reading is analytical; neither the band nor the directors have described the video in these terms explicitly.
Three singles in, Perfecth is building a picture: personal mythology staged as theatrical spectacle. October 30 is when the full argument lands.
