Joshua Michael Homme III (/ˈhɒmi/ HOM-ee; born May 17, 1973) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. He is best known as the founder and only continuous member of the rock band Queens of the Stone Age, which he formed in 1996 shortly after breakup of his previous band Kyuss. Homme is the band's primary songwriter and mainly sings lead vocals and plays guitar. He also plays drums in the rock band Eagles of Death Metal, which he co-founded in 1998.

Homme began his career as the co-founder and guitarist of the rock band Kyuss, with whom he performed from 1987 to 1995. He then served as a touring guitarist for the rock band Screaming Trees from 1996 to 1998, leaving to start Queens of the Stone Age. He has also overseen a musical improv project with other musicians (mostly from the Palm Desert Scene) known as The Desert Sessions since 1997. He formed the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures alongside Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones in 2009, releasing their eponymous debut album later that year. In 2016, he produced, co-wrote, and performed on the Iggy Pop album Post Pop Depression. He has also been involved with acts such as Royal Blood, Foo Fighters, Run the Jewels, and Arctic Monkeys.

Joshua Michael Homme III was born in Palm Springs, California, on May 17, 1973. He grew up in a well-known family in and around Palm Desert, California; his paternal grandfather, Clancy "Cap" Homme, moved to the area from North Dakota and was an early settler of the Valley. Cap has a private street named after him in Rancho Mirage, marking the original road to the Homme ranch, as well as a park named after him in an exclusive enclave of the Valley. He later discussed having to "create [his] own fun" as a child growing up in the desert, stating that he did not start playing music to "get girls or make money" and that he assumed he would grow up to be a contractor like his father.

Homme also has ties in Idaho and has talked about his formative experiences there, such as seeing Carl Perkins perform at the Sandpoint Music Festival and the first time purchasing his own electric guitar (an Ovation Ultra GP) in a Sandpoint music store. He began playing guitar at the age of nine, after his parents denied his wishes for a drum kit. He took guitar lessons for the next few years but his teacher mostly focused on polka, so he supposedly did not learn of a barre chord or a pick until his third year of lessons, lending to his unique playing style. He joined his first band, Autocracy, in 1985 at the age of 12. Despite his musical success, he continued to work on his grandfather's farm until releasing the first Queens of the Stone Age album at the age of 25, because he "didn't want to lose [his] grip on reality".

In 1987, when he was 14 years old, Homme formed a punk rock-influenced heavy metal band in Palm Desert High School called Katzenjammer with schoolmates John Garcia, Brant Bjork, Nick Oliveri and Chris Cockrell. Homme was the band's guitarist. After changing their name a few times, first to Sons of Kyuss (they released an EP of the same name), they finally shortened it to Kyuss. The band garnered a cult following by the early 1990s, often driving for hours to isolated locations in the desert and plugging into generators to perform. These events, known as "generator parties", became urban legend among rock subculture. The band became both famous for their heavy, down tuned, groove oriented music, and infamous for their backstage fights with local LA bands when they traveled into town to play gigs. This soon brought the attention of Chris Goss, who became the band's mentor, helping the band sign to a label and eventually producing them exclusively in an effort to preserve their sound. Due to Homme being younger than 18 at the time of the band's signing, his parents signed the contract on his behalf. Kyuss released four albums (Wretch, Blues for the Red Sun, Welcome to Sky Valley, and ...And the Circus Leaves Town), of which the final three Goss-produced efforts are often cited as cornerstones to the development of the stoner rock genre in the 1990s.

When Kyuss split up in 1995, Homme moved to Seattle, Washington, briefly abandoning his desire for a music career and attending the University of Washington to study business. During this time, he fell back in with old musician friends such as Ben Shepherd and Mike Johnson, and eventually agreed to join the Screaming Trees as a rhythm guitarist on the summer Lollapalooza tour in 1996, a replacement for Johnson, and that continued into the following year. Homme and vocalist Mark Lanegan became close friends during this time but, disliking the rest of the band's continual disharmony, began considering forming his own band. He founded Gamma Ray, a group more centered on his unique style and tastes, in 1996. After a cease and desist from a band of the same name, this band became Queens of the Stone Age.

Homme lived in a squat in Amsterdam's Spuistraat for several months in 1996, which set forth events that would help kickstart the band. Roadrunner Records approached Homme to contribute to the label's compilation Burn One Up! Music for Stoners, which led to the first Queens of the Stone Age song, "18 A.D.", written with Dave Catching featuring Catching and members of Dutch stoner rock band Beaver on bass and drums. Homme also produced a song by Beaver for the compilation.

The band's first release under the new name was the Kyuss/Queens of the Stone Age compilation EP, featuring tracks from both Kyuss and songs recorded from the Gamma Ray EP sessions from 1996, released in late 1997. Queens of the Stone Age released their eponymous debut album in 1998. Initially, the band consisted of various friends of Homme's from the Seattle area. Homme had asked a number of singers, including Lanegan, to perform as lead vocalist for Queens of the Stone Age, but by the time of recording the band's debut album, he had moved back to Palm Desert and the band was pared down to just Homme and ex-Kyuss drummer Alfredo Hernandez. Homme was left to cover every other instrument and ended up singing for the first time in his career. Shortly after recording, Homme and Hernandez were joined by bassist and vocalist Nick Oliveri and guitarist, keyboardist, and lapsteel player Dave Catching, the band was now composed entirely of ex-Kyuss members and roadies.^{[citation needed]}