THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO CHRIS GOSS

You can't rush art. Mindfulness and spirituality matter. There are times to keep music simple. Be receptive to the vibrations of the world... These are among the things that shape his world view.

- Jo Kendall

Masters Of Reality mainman and noted Kyuss/ Queens Of The Stone Age desert-rock pioneer/ producer Chris Goss has just risen and is partaking of his first coffee and smoke of the day, while talking to Classic Rock. “The pictures I saw as a kid of Keith Richards and Jimmy Page with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, I can’t shed that,” he says. “I associate the action with rebellious music, and so I'll die right along with them, I suppose.”

A witty interviewee as dry as the Joshua Tree area of California where he lives, with more than 40 years of music business experience, Goss imparts wisdom on the importance of Brian Jones's hair, sunrise light frequencies, old-school studios, the magic of jamming with Ginger Baker, and why the heck it's taken 16 years for a new Masters Of Reality album, The Archer, — his “most personal, less esoteric” — to reach our ears.

CREATING ART TAKES AS LONG AS IT TAKES

“Especially if you want it to be personal and not obligatory. Creation happens in the brain over a period of time, not where you say: ‘Okay, I’m under contract to do an album, therefore I have to make music now.’ I have to be inspired to write an album. The period of time between 2009 and the present was ‘interesting’, but it’s probably more ‘harrowing’ when relating to the psychology of the world during the last sixteen years. Not much music inspired me in that time, but the loss of Bowie, and the release of the Blackstar album, was such an incredible way for him to go — he was the first artist to actually analyse his death in public — that was somewhat of an inspiration to stop thinking about things, get off my ass and just do it. I felt like I had some kind of analysis to add. I have had a tendency to be very esoteric in my musical announcements, and this record took a left turn into a more personal state of being. I’d found the fodder for The Archer in my own crisis, not the world’s.”