and Mantia on drums. Primus
did regroup to tour a couple of
times over the last decade, but
Claypool says, “it just seemed
like it was a nostalgic thing . . .
we weren’t moving forward.”
But something happened in
2010. LaLonde and Claypool
were hanging out as friends again,
and on a whim, they got together
and jammed with original Primus
drummer Jay Lane—who cow-
rote the songs that got the band
a record deal in the ’80s but left
for good a month before they
went into the studio. Seemingly
just like that, the Primus magic
was rekindled and plans for their
recently released studio album,
Green Naugahyde, were underway.
It’s been 11 years or so since
Primus put out a studio album.
First off, why? And second,
what brought you guys back
together?
Ler LaLonde: Well, after the tour
for [1999’s] Antipop, we came
home and never really got around
to doing anything [laughs].
Usually, we come home from
a tour and eventually we start
something back up, but we never
ended up starting back up.
Les Claypool: By the end of the
’90s, we were so burnt out on
each other and the band and the
whole bit that we were just making crappy music—if we were
even making music. We were just
in different [head] spaces: I had
kids . . . they didn’t have kids . . .
and we’d been doing it for such a
long time that it was just time to
stop. For me, on a creative level,
it was just stagnant. I didn’t enjoy
playing my instrument, I didn’t
enjoy the music we were playing,
I didn’t enjoy the scene that we
had become a part of—we were
doing the Ozzfest and Family
Values tours and these other
things that were just way more
rock than I was really comfortable
with. I don’t want to knock any
of those scenes, but it just wasn’t
where my head was at. We called
LaLonde in a rare moment playing a Les Paul Custom at a 2008 Ottawa Blues Festival gig. Photo by VANHORN.CO
it a “hiatus,” but it didn’t look
very likely that we were ever going
to do it again—but, y’know, never
say “never.”
When I did Oysterhead, I
had this epiphany: “Hey, there
are people out there who want
to see you play your instrument,
and they don’t give a shit what
kind of baseball cap you’re wear-
ing or if it’s turned sideways or
how baggy your pants are.” It
was about showing your vul-
nerable side a little bit—going
out there and dancing on the
edge. It didn’t have to be perfect
and so calculated. It made me
excited about playing again.
We played Pink Floyd’s Animals
in its entirety, played King
Crimson, Larry Graham, and
Peter Gabriel—all these different
things that were just fun to do.
I spent a handful of years as a
kid playing in all these biker bars
with this R&B band, and this
was kind of like going back to
that again.
happening. So I finished up my
last [solo] album and was wondering what to do next—Oysterhead,
another solo record, another film
project . . . there were lots of different options.
Larry and I had started
hanging out again. He was in
a different [head] space, and I
was in a different space, and he
really wanted to do Primus. So
I said, “Let’s call Jay Lane.” Ler
had never played with Jay, but
I’ve played with him—besides
in the early days of Primus—in
the Frog Brigade, Sausage, and
[Claypool’s 1996 solo project]
Holy Mackerel. So when we
sat down with Jay and started
playing “Pudding Time” [from
Frizzle Fry], the room just lit
up. It was unbelievable. We just
looked at each other and started
laughing, because we knew this
was amazing and it was time
to do it again. So we decided
to do some shows, and then a
record . . . so here we are.
Les, what happened to change
your mind about the “hiatus”?
Claypool: Well, I went off and
did all kinds of stuff. These past
10 years formed the most creatively stimulating period of my
life. I bought an old Airstream
motor home and filled it up with
my favorite players and started
playing bars up and down the
whole West Coast. We were staying in motels and sharing rooms.
It was back to the trenches, and
it was amazing. That was with
[Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless
Flying] Frog Brigade.
Larry went off and did his
thing, too, but we ended up getting back together in 2003 to do
some touring, and we made that
little EP [Animals Should Not
Try to Act Like People]. That was
fun. And then we did it again
in ’06, but it just seemed like
it was a nostalgic thing and we
weren’t moving forward. A manager will always tell you—and
I’ve been through a few of them
lately—that “You’ve got to push
the brand, build the brand, build
the brand.” For me, that would’ve
been a great business move, but
on a creative level it was just not
What was so magical about that
first time playing with Jay?
