When Les Claypool wrote his first song for Primus in 1984, he faced a crisis of self-confidence. “I was too embarrassed to sing in my apartment,” he says on a video call. “But my roommate at the time was dating the preacher’s daughter, and had keys to the church across the street.” 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: “Too many puppies are being shot in the dark!”
It was the first oddball creation of many: Primus’s rubbery fusions of prog, metal and funk have made Claypool one of rock’s most unlikely success stories. Albums such as 1991’s Sailing the Seas of Cheese are cartoon lands filled with colourful misfits, largely drawn from Claypool’s upbringing in blue-collar California, and given voices inspired by Mel Blanc’s 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 “Primus sucks”, has made it hard to peel off the label of class-clown. “There’s an iron hand in that velvet glove,” he promises.
