Remember the summer of 2005? Seems so long ago, doesn't it? Led Zeppelin had yet to reunite (they still do, really), the Foo Fighters had a hit record with 'In Your Honor,' and Queens of the Stone Age released not one but two albums sandwiched by a blockbuster tour. Still, that's the year when Foo frontman Dave Grohl dropped the big one in a Mojo Magazine interview.

No, he wasn't planning on reuniting Nirvana by filming a reality-TV series about the search for Kurt Cobain's replacement. Instead, he was looking to form a new power trio featuring him on drums, naturally, QOTSA's Josh Homme on guitar, and ... drum roll please, Mr. Grohl ... Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones on bass.

"That's the next album," he told Mojo at the time. "That wouldn't suck."

When speaking of inspiration, many musicians will say a song, lyric or riff "came out of nowhere" and ended up being a hit. For the Dead Weather, the same can be said for almost every aspect of the band's existence.

Starting from their formation, the combination of the White Stripes' Jack White, the Kills' Alison Mosshart, Queens of the Stone Age keyboardist and former Waxwings frontman Dean Fertita, and Raconteurs bassist "Little" Jack Lawrence is the fortuitous result of circumstance and chemistry. "The Raconteurs and the Kills were on tour together and at the end of it, I lost my voice and actually slipped a disc in my neck and I couldn't sing," White, who mainly handles drums in the group, tells Spinner. "We asked Alison if she could sing my songs at the end of the set and she did, so we started all performing onstage together. We had one day left in Nashville and we said 'Let's do a 7" together, just do something,' and we ended up writing songs and becoming a full-on band."

As if he wasn't busy enough with the White Stripes and the Raconteurs, Jack White is launching a third band he's branded the Dead Weather. The group's debut CD, 'Horehound,' will be released in June via his Third Man imprint, and the band will tour sometime this year.

White announced the band and plans for the disc yesterday in Nashville, where he hosted a private party. Attendees -- including White Stripes drummer Meg White, Sheryl Crow and Martina McBride -- were among the 150 guests invited to hear the new disc and witness a performance by the new foursome, which also includes Alison Mosshart of the Kills, Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age and Jack Lawrence of the Greenhornes. Fertita and Lawrence also perform with White in the Raconteurs.

Eagles of Death Metal -- the second musical outfit of Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, who produced the Eagles' forthcoming record, 'Heart On' -- unveiled the video for their first single, 'Wannabe in L.A.' The clip finds a giant Pin Art toy visualizing the band's desire to head out West. Check out the premiere below.

It looks as if Queens of the Stone Age mouthpiece Josh Homme has done some soul searching since word got out about his verbal assault against a fan in a week ago. And while Homme's repeated utterance of the term "faggot" on a widely seen video stunned music fans globally, he insists his tirade was not homophobic.

Check out Homme's open letter, released late last week:

"Member of the Peanut Gallery:

Some journalists & citizens on the internet are wondering: Q? Am I a homophobe because I included a slang for gay in with other 'acceptable' curse words during a verbal lashing I gave a young concertgoer, after being hit by his shoe, during a show the other day? A= Nope. My gay family and friends, as well as myself, KNOW I am not a homophobe. For years now I've known gay is not a choice; one's skin color doesn't determine one's intelligence level; and red hair doesn't mean you're someone's stepchild. You see, it's not the words, it's their intent. I never said, nor suggested, that being gay is wrong, but apparently, based on your outrage to my flu-infused rant, you do! By that logic, I also told that young whipper snapper I'd have anal sex with him. How can I possibly reconcile these opposing viewpoints? I called him a p---- too. Does it mean I hate our one worlds' collective vagina? I never have been nor intend to be politically correct. That's your cross to bear.

Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme evidently went mental last Friday at Oslo's Norwegian Wood festival, reacting to a shoe throwing incident with a homophobic rant that he just might struggle to recover from. During a cover of Queen's song '3's and 7's,' Homme was struck and subsequently tore into the young attendee, calling him a "twelve year old c--t", before really letting the kid have it.

Homme clearly overreacted and repeatedly used the term "faggot" while the fan was escorted out. The attendee, who threw up devil horns with his hand and smiled during his forced removal, also received the kind of distasteful threat (suggesting that he and the kid have forcible sex while his friends look on) that you'll have to hear to believe. How ironic that the whole outburst took place during a Queen cover.

• M.I.A. will launch a North American tour, set to kick off with her appearance at this year's Coachella Festival on April 26 in Indio, California. The London artist will bookend the trek with a performance at Bonnaroo on June 14 in Manchester, Tennessee.

• Singer Sean Levert, son of O'Jays singer Eddie Levert and brother of late singer Gerald Levert, died Sunday night after a medical emergency in a Cleveland, Ohio jail. He was 39.

• Rage Against the Machine, Metallica and the Killers will headline this year's Reading and Leeds Festivals. The event, which will also feature performances by Queens of the Stone Age, MGMT, Bloc Party and the Raconteurs, takes place August 22-24.