Kyuss Lives! soon won’t be worthy of its name anymore, no need for a funeral. The semi-reunited early-’90s California stoner-rock band will be reincarnated. Kyuss Lives! members Brant Bjork, John Garcia, and Nick Oliveri have announced a new project called Vista Chino. Joined by guitarist Bruno Fevery, the band says it’s recording new songs for a planned 2013 release and tour. The Kyuss Lives! name will be retired after Australia’s Soundwave Festival early next year.
The official statement doesn’t give any reason for the name change, but it appears to have been effectively a legal requirement. As Rolling Stone reported, in August a federal judge in California ruled the band could use the Kyuss Lives! name in concert but not for recordings, and that even then the members might be at risk of additional litigation. “It may be in Defendants’ best interest to begin re-branding under a new name,” U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero wrote in his ruling. Kyuss Lives! have evidently taken that advice.
The legal decision came after Josh Homme and Scott Reeder sued their former Kyuss bandmates for using their old band’s name with Kyuss Lives!. Homme and Oliveri also played together in Queens of the Stone Age, though Homme ousted Oliveri in 2004. Oliveri has had an embattled several years, but Vista Chino isn’t his only positive-seeming development recently. He also has apparently contributed vocals to a song on the new QOTSA album, where he looks to be joined by Dave Grohl and Trent Reznor. And fans of QOTSA’s 2002 landmark Songs for the Deaf say: hear, hear!
