When Les Claypool wrote his first song for Primus in 1984, he faced a crisis of self-confidence. \u201cI was too embarrassed to sing in my apartment,\u201d he says on a video call. \u201cBut my roommate at the time was dating the preacher\u2019s daughter, and had keys to the church across the street.\u201d In the dead of night, the madcap bassist and singer took his recording equipment to the empty church, set up on the podium, and first sang his anti-war song Too Many Puppies, which recast soldiers as little dogs: \u201cToo many puppies are being shot in the dark!\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the first oddball creation of many: Primus\u2019s rubbery fusions of prog, metal and funk have made Claypool one of rock\u2019s most unlikely success stories. Albums such as 1991\u2019s Sailing the Seas of Cheese are cartoon lands filled with colourful misfits, largely drawn from Claypool\u2019s upbringing in blue-collar California, and given voices inspired by Mel Blanc\u2019s work for Looney Tunes. Today, Claypool has two platinum records, a legacy of influencing giants such as Deftones, and a global cult fanbase including Rush and Tom Waits. But his wackiness, along with his having written the South Park theme and popularised the fan catchphrase \u201cPrimus sucks\u201d, has made it hard to peel off the label of class-clown. \u201cThere\u2019s an iron hand in that velvet glove,\u201d he promises.<\/p>\n
His forthcoming album The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy, made with Sean Ono Lennon as the Claypool Lennon Delirium, is another eccentric invention. But beneath its story of a robot turning the world into paperclips, it asks real questions about humanity in the AI age. Coinciding with a career-spanning tour and Primus\u2019s first UK shows in almost a decade, it prompts a re-evaluation of Claypool, who \u2013 since that night in the church \u2013 has always said serious things in unserious ways.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Brought up by a family of mechanics, when Claypool attended high school \u201ceverybody wanted to be Eddie Van Halen<\/a>\u201d. Classmates included future Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett. But inspired by Rush\u2019s Geddy Lee and funk heroes such as Larry Graham, Claypool reached for the four-string: \u201cTo me the bass was a more sultry instrument, whereas the guitar sounded kind of wimpy.\u201d Cutting his teeth playing R&B in Hells Angels bars, he started Primus (initially Primate), playing over a drum machine. His strange style, filled with slap-bass, taps and chords, came from \u201cholding down the root of the bass but also trying to play the rhythm guitar parts\u201d.<\/p>\n Claypool began devising cartoonish characters, using voices including a signature nasally tone. He proudly recalls Public Enemy\u2019s Chuck D<\/a> telling him \u201cYou sound like Mr Magoo.\u201d But his creations often had a darker side. \u201cThere was a lot of alcoholism and drug abuse in our family, but we kind of laughed our way through,\u201d he says. This ability to find \u201chumour through pain\u201d gave him the characters for Jerry Was a Race Car Driver<\/a>, My Name Is Mud and Harold of the Rocks<\/a>: all zany yet troubled outsiders, who helped Claypool explore violence, addiction and other realities around him. \u201cI know most of these characters.\u201d<\/p>\n Primus started playing clubs, and in 1986 his astonishing bass-playing earned him an audition to replace Cliff Burton in Metallica. \u201cI didn\u2019t know how popular they were,\u201d Claypool says, and he misread the room. \u201cWe played a song or two and I said, \u2018Hey, you guys want to jam on some Isley Brothers?\u2019 Nobody laughed.\u201d If Claypool suggests his eccentricity blew it, Metallica\u2019s James Hetfield gave a different reason in the documentary Behind the Music: \u201cHe was too good.\u201d<\/p>\n Tim Alexander, Les Claypool and Larry LaLonde of Primus in 1991. Photograph: Gie Knaeps\/Getty Images<\/p>\n But Primus soon got their own shot at the big leagues, now in a classic lineup with guitarist Ler LaLonde and drummer Tim Alexander. The success of 1989\u2019s Suck On This and 1990\u2019s Frizzle Fry landed them a big-label deal with Interscope. \u201cI said: \u2018Well, we\u2019re going to be sailing the seas of cheese,\u2019\u201d Claypool recalls, meaning: \u201cWe\u2019re going to be thrust into the mainstream, and we\u2019re going to sink or swim.\u201d An alternative to 1991\u2019s more self-serious rock albums such as Nirvana\u2019s Nevermind and Pearl Jam\u2019s Ten, Sailing the Seas of Cheese went platinum, as did 1993\u2019s Pork Soda. Since then, he has had a mandate to be as weird as he likes.<\/p>\n The Claypool Lennon Delirium\u2019s new album The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy \u2013 a Technicolor psych-rock opera paired with a comic book \u2013 may be his strangest yet. Over the phone, Lennon describes meeting Claypool when his band the Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger supported Primus in 2015, bonding over \u201coddball stuff\u201d such as King Crimson, and deciding to collaborate. This third album was inspired by philosopher Nick Bostrom<\/a>\u2019s writings on the dawn of uncontrollable AI. Asked to \u201cdo something very innocuous like make paperclips in an efficient way\u201d, Lennon paraphrases, it may eventually \u201cturn the whole world into paperclips\u201d.<\/p>\n The album turns this into a story populated by Claypool\u2019s wacky characters, depicting the land of Cliptopia being turned into paperclips by the AI Cliptron \u2013 foiled by an art-loving youth, a seaman, talking manatees and a half-parrot half-ox. Refreshingly, it doesn\u2019t demonise technology so much as argue for human compassion as its necessary partner. Claypool\u2019s \u201cfunny bones\u201d, as Lennon credits them, make it sing, and helped to fuel Lennon\u2019s own contributions. \u201cI can be funny in life, but it can be hard to be funny intentionally in music. Being in a band with Les brings out that side of me,\u201d Lennon says, also noting \u201cThere\u2019s these deep layers of irony to everything he\u2019s doing. He\u2019s one of the best lyricists I\u2019ve ever met.\u201d<\/p>\n The album presents the power of empathy through a golden egg, shown in the comic book to soften Cliptron\u2019s chrome heart after it hatches \u2013 revealing a baby parrot-ox. \u201cOne of the biggest perspective-changing elements a person can go through is having a child,\u201d says Claypool, a father of two. Fatherhood also reinforced his imagination, basing Primus\u2019s latest album The Desaturating Seven on a bedtime story he and his wife read to their children. However, \u201cThere was always this element of embracing our childhood to Primus,\u201d he says, including their side-adventures on tours. \u201cAnytime we were near a Disneyland, me and Ler had to go.\u201d He leans forward, adopting his Magoo voice. \u201cUsually on some mind-altering substances!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n That whimsical streak has often meant he has been sold short. He traces Primus\u2019s \u201cjoke band\u201d label to 1995\u2019s Wynona\u2019s Big Brown Beaver \u2013 a silly, throwaway track thrust into the spotlight after it was chosen as a single by Interscope, earned a Grammy nomination, and garnered incorrect speculation that it was about Winona Ryder. \u201cIt was kind of a bummer.\u201d Today, the preconception that Claypool is a wacky humorist bothers Claypool less: he likens his more socially conscious music to Dr Strangelove<\/a>, which \u201ccan tell a story and make a statement, but it\u2019s humorous and entertaining.\u201d<\/p>\n While Primus\u2019s UK shows will be their first in nine years, Claypool is fond of Britain. He visited London\u2019s Tower Records in the 90s to buy tapes of British comedies including Blackadder and \u201canything with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson\u201d, sampling The Young Ones on Primus\u2019s Los Bastardos. He also bought Cannibal! The Musical here, by the future creators of South Park. Consequently, he knew their work, and accepted when he was asked to write the show\u2019s theme.<\/p>\n He has been reflecting on his past as he prepares his Claypool Gold US tour, featuring a stacked lineup of his acts: the Claypool Lennon Delirium, Primus and Les Claypool\u2019s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade. But for all the imaginary characters in his career, he looks back most fondly on the real people that have filled it, from Lennon to idols-turned-fans such as Tom Waits and Geddy Lee. Above anything, \u201cIf I was my 16-year-old self looking at me now, I\u2019d be way more impressed by the roster of heroes I\u2019ve gotten to meet, befriend and work with. That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about.\u201d<\/p>\n The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy is released 1 May on ATO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Les Claypool wrote his first song for Primus in 1984, he faced a crisis of self-confidence. \u201cI…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":540430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-540429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=540429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/540430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=540429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=540429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=540429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}