BY KARL CORYAT
Driving up to the iron gate that guards Les Claypool’s
30-acre compound, it’s clear this is a home of the rich and
famous. Inside, you meet his wife, two kids, and two dogs; see
the pool and recording complex; and hike down the hill to the
pond where Claypool fishes. (Les quips, "Some people see it
and say, ‘That isn’t a pond—that’s a
lake!’") Is this just a prelude to another sad episode
of VH-1’s Behind the Music? Will the lifestyle force
Claypool to try to replicate his past successes, leading to the
desperate sellout that’s swallowed up so many before him?
Would it even be possible for Primus to do a ballad, let
alone with strings and a guest spot by Phil Collins?
Then you remember the refrain from the new Primus
record’s title song, on which Claypool defiantly
speed-growls, "I am AntiPop—I’ll run against the
grain till the day I drop!"
Primus has cleaned up its sound, gone back to writing good songs,
and enlisted production and engineering help from some big
industry names—all without giving up an ounce of what made
them the most alternative act this side of the Shaggs. "We
wanted to make a heavier record, which is definitely a reflection
on the way radio has been for the past few years," says Les.
"It’s like Lilith radio—so syrupy and wimpy and
boring." At the outset Claypool, guitarist Larry
"Ler" Lalonde, and drummer Brain drew up a wish list of
producers, including Roger Waters, David Byrne, and Peter
Gabriel. In the end Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom
Morello produced three cuts, and Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst
helped with a tune, as did Tom Waits, ex-Police drummer Stewart
Copeland, and even South Park co-creator Matt Stone. Other
important AntiPop ingredients: longtime Bill Laswell
engineer Oz Fritz and mixer Toby Wright (Korn, Alice In Chains),
who provided the crisp, clear sound lacking on the band’s
self-engineered efforts, particularly ’97’s Brown
Album. Toward the end of the sessions Primus refreshed its
live chops (and honed its metal mettle) with a two-month billing
on Ozzfest, a packed-house tour with Black Sabbath and friends.
Watching one of his original heroes, Geezer Butler, every night
kept Les firmly in touch with his headbanging side.
So even though Primus isn’t selling out anytime soon,
surely the 35-year-old Claypool is maturing as a bassist, boiling
down his style and playing only the right notes, yes?
After all, what kind of low-end veteran doesn’t say
he’s learning to play only as much as the song requires?
Then again, Les Claypool is the AntiPop … the man
you will not stop.
* * *
Do you find yourself playing less as you get older?
I’m actually playing more than I did on the Brown
Album. On that one I was trying to be more bare-bones. I
watch players who start to "mature" and say
they’ve been playing too much and want to get more
basic—but sometimes they go too far in that direction, and
it takes away the quality that made them an individual. For the
past few albums I’ve been thinking things like, [adopts
analytical tone] Well, James Jamerson would probably choose
something more conservative here. I wasn’t being myself as
much as I probably should have been. But for that time period
it’s what I was into.
What was your bass approach going into this project?
For one thing, there’s no fretless at all on this record.
Most of it is just straight-up 4-string. I was going to use my
Jazz Bass, but I have this Carl Thompson I’ve always used as
my backup; I just started playing it a lot, and it sounds and
feels awesome. So I called Carl and told him I wanted to retire
my main 4-string, the one with the whammy bar, because it’s
very midrangy. But it takes Carl a long time to make a
bass—he builds the damn things in his apartment—so in
the meantime I used my backup bass and my fretted 6-string.
Have we seen the last of the fretless 6?
I still love that bass—it sounds great—but with
fretless you have to pay attention to the pitches and all that.
That’s especially true of the 6-string, so it’s just
not that much fun to play onstage. Plus, I’ve heard some of
our live tapes, and my voice is going one direction with my bass
going the other.
You don’t tap as much as you used to, either.
I haven’t done much of that since Pork Soda.
Tapping never really flew with me. I like the rhythmic concept,
but some of it gets a little too noodly-sounding. For this record
I wanted to be aggressive without being noodly.
There were periods when the band as a whole got too noodly. Tales
from the Punchbowl is probably my least favorite Primus
album; it’s just us jamming in the studio trying to get the
record done, because we weren’t having that much fun. And
when we made the Brown Album all I was listening to were
Creedence Clearwater and Led Zeppelin records—so Brain got
the biggest drums he could find, and we stuck them in a room and
put up one microphone. It was this big, bombastic
sound—definitely an acquired taste. Tom Waits told me
that’s his favorite Primus record, because it has that
ugliness—but for most people it was not an easy pill to
swallow. Frizzle Fry is still the one for me, and for a
lot of people it’s Sailing the Seas of Cheese—but
I never really liked Seas of Cheese. The songs are good,
but I always thought the tones were kind of strange.
Why the shift to get producers and an engineer?
With the Brown Album I just had my head too far up my
ass. It was more about what we were into at the time, and not
necessarily what our fans wanted to hear. It might have been
boredom or the desire to keep stretching in different directions,
but sometimes we lose sight of what we might do best.
We worked with Toby Wright on Rhinoplasty [1998’s
collection of covers], and I love that record’s sound.
The songs are all over the map, but it’s very pleasant to
listen to. Sure, I love the dirtiness of a Tom Waits record and
the murkiness of some of the old Zeppelin or Sabbath
stuff—but Toby Wright was more into making us sound good
as a unit. It was no longer a case of, "Hey—let’s
make something that sounds like that old Creedence record."
Did you worry that having different producers would hurt the
record’s cohesiveness?
Totally—which is one reason we wanted Oz Fritz to
engineer the whole thing and for Toby to mix it. You get too
close to a project when you produce and engineer; you can’t
step away from it.
The thing that really made this one exciting was getting all
the different producers’ perspectives. It was nerve-racking
going to each guy, because we weren’t sure how it would turn
out. I mean, what if we worked with Stewart Copeland and it
sucked? What do you say to one of the most influential musicians
in your life? Fortunately, "Dirty Drowning Man" turned
out awesome—and it’s totally different from anything
we’ve ever done.
What was the songwriting process?
This time there was much more emphasis on scooping the cream
off the top. We went into the rehearsal space and jammed, and
when we came up with something we liked, we recorded it on a boom
box. Larry then took the tapes and put the best sections on a CD.
We listened to the first ten seconds or so of each part and gave
it a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. We just threw it away if it
didn’t immediately make us dance around and say,
"That’s awesome!" We didn’t want anything
that had to grow on us; it had to excite us right away.
This was the most work we’ve ever put into a
record’s music. We’ve put more work into recording
other projects—the hands-on knob-turning and all that
crap—but that was always a bit distracting. It helps a lot
to leave certain things to the other guys.
What are you listening to these days?
When I started working on AntiPop all I was listening
to was Johnny Cash and Bootsy Collins. Later I got into Woody
Guthrie, and I actually got way into Rob Zombie’s Hellbilly
Deluxe as well as the last White Zombie record. And then
because of the Ozzfest I bought all the old Sabbath records.
Geezer Butler is incredible; I tried to learn my fair share of
Geezer lines in high school. I wasn’t one of those guys who
learned a lot of songs, but I played "Paranoid" and
"Iron Man" in almost every band I was in.
Does listening heavily to other artists affect your bass
playing?
You know, I don’t listen to a lot of bass players or
listen for a lot of bass parts. If I were a guitar player,
I’d probably write the same lines I write on bass. It just
happens to be the instrument I picked up.
You’re singing with much more authority now.
I was having dinner with Stewart Copeland, and he said
something about my vocals. I was like, "You know, I’m
not really a singer—I’m a bass player who kind of
narrates the songs." But at the end of the dinner he looked
at me and said, "This is the one thing I want you to do:
Quit telling yourself you aren’t a singer. You can
sing—you have a great voice!" I was like, "I
do?" I had always been kind of embarrassed about my voice;
I’d try to hide it in a paper cup or put distortion on it,
and I’d turn it way down in the mix. Even [Metallica
guitarist] James Hetfield told me he’d rather hear a crappy
voice loud than a good voice quiet. That’s what happens when
you trust only your own ears for so long—you get trapped in
a bubble. It worked fine for a while, but you end up almost not
knowing what’s good anymore. You need to bounce stuff off
people and get fresh ears in.
Look for an in-depth lesson with Claypool in a future
issue.
| We sat down with Les Claypool
(well, we rode around in his SUV) and listened to a rough
cut of AntiPop. His song-by-song
comments: "Intro": This is just a
few seconds from "Coattails of a Dead Man,"
with Tom Waits playing Mellotron [an old sampler-like
keyboard instrument that plays analog tapes of real
instruments].
"Electric Uncle Sam": That’s my
fretted Carl Thompson 6-string. We recorded it in Los
Angeles with Tom Morello producing. [Longtime Primus
A&R man] Tom Whalley is now the president of the
massive machine Interscope Records has become; I played
this tune for him, and he actually applauded when it was
over. It was the first time he’s ever applauded
after hearing a Primus song.
"Natural Joe": We got to do the South
Park theme because Matt Stone is a huge Primus fan.
When we were in L.A. we asked Matt to come in and produce
a song for us. He was like, "What do I do?" So
I said, "We’ll just play a bunch of stuff, you
pick the stuff you like the best, and we’ll make a
song out of it." It was like having our fan club
there, deciding what they wanted to hear—and it
ended up being one of my favorite tunes on the record.
I played my Carl Thompson backup 4-string for this
one. I’ve gotten to the point where the fretted 6
feels second-nature; I don’t have to think about it
much. For me to play a 4-string now is like a guitar
player picking up an old Strat—it just feels so
natural.
"Lacquerhead": Fred Durst had always
wanted to produce us. This song was inspired by him
saying, "You guys need to get back to your old rock
stuff and just slam it!" He was like a mad
cheerleader and was instrumental in kicking us in the
ass: "Come on, do one of those old Les Claypool
things!"
This song is like it’s made of sections of old
Primus songs; the beginning is kind of like "My Name
Is Mud" [Pork Soda], the chorus is very much
like "Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers" [Sailing
the Seas of Cheese], and that dun-dun-dun-CAN-dun
riff in the chorus is like "Jellikit" [Suck
on This].
"The AntiPop": The label was
skeptical about us going in and doing our own record
again, so we did a demo with Oz Fritz at my studio, and
it came out really well—especially this song. So we
decided to put the demo version on the record, though we
spruced it up a bit. We had a whole different version
mixed up with vocals and everything, but Larry and Brain
kept saying the energy was better on this one—even
though I thought the tones were terrible. Brain played
that huge drum fill in the middle because we kind of made
a mistake and he thought we wouldn’t keep the take,
so he was just screwing around.
"Eclectic Electric": I sent this one
down to Tom Whalley, figuring he’d hate it since
it’s this huge eight-minute thing with all these
different parts. But it’s his favorite song on the
album. It’s also probably my favorite song I’ve
ever written. I sat down one day with a delay and started
playing into a DAT machine, and it just fell together
really nice. It’s probably the first time I’ve
ever played through a delay—I just had never gotten
to it. I’m not a big gear guy; I hate going through
the learning curve, and I hate reading manuals. I’m
even the same way with basses—for the last five
years I’ve been wanting to try a new bass but have
never gotten around to it. My old 4-string is just like a
comfortable pair of old shoes, and I just kept going back
to it—even though I didn’t like the sound that
much.
Those sustained notes toward the end are just slow
string bends. The delay makes it kind of lag behind.
"Greet the Sacred Cow": This is one
of the record’s better-sounding songs. I used the
delay again, but besides that, I don’t remember what
I was running through. That’s too bad because
it’s the tone I’ve been striving to get all my
life. The bass is so tight-sounding, and now I don’t
remember how I got it.
In the middle section, where I’m sliding into
that low F#, it kind of sounds like an envelope
follower—but I’m pretty sure it’s not. For
some reason the slide gives it that sound.
"Mama Didn’t Raise No Fool": Tom
Morello plays the intro. There’s definitely
something to be said for playing with a guy who’s as
strong a musical presence as Tom, who may be the best
guitarist I’ve ever played with. Usually the other
guys write to support my part—but this was his riff,
so I wrote my parts to support it. That’s rare for a
Primus song; of the hundred-odd songs we’ve done
over the years, there’s only a handful that
aren’t built around my bass line. This is my fretted
Carl Thompson 6.
"Dirty Drowning Man": This song came
from a riff I wrote years ago. Those high notes in the
intro are just straight plucks; the part reminds me of
Leroy Gorman from Bow Wow Wow, who used to do a lot of
that high plucking stuff.
Stewart Copeland really built this song; it has so
many layers. He refused to play on the recording—but
we did get to jam with him, which was awesome. He’s
one of these guys who stares at you while you’re
playing, with this eager look on his face. It was kind of
freaking me out, but still it was one of the greatest
things I’ve ever done.
For the end of the tune, Stewart wrote out the vocal
parts for me, with all these strange syllables. He was
like, "Okay—say, ‘wa-ho-yay,
wo-hey-hah.’" He definitely took the song
places we never would have thought to take it.
"Ballad of Bodacious": This used to
have a totally different bass part. I was the only one
who liked it, so I re-wrote it to follow the kick drum
instead of the guitar part. The first time I heard this
bass tone I thought it sounded weird—but now I love
it. It sounds like it’s in the toilet or something.
"Power Mad": Another prime example of
Tom Morello’s groove—he just nailed it all
together. Usually the groove role is either mine or
Brain’s, but here all of a sudden someone else was
doing it. Even if we made a slight mistake while we were
recording, Tom would just power through it with his
groove. I used my Carl Thompson 6.
"The Final Voyage of the Liquid Sky":
The record easily could have gone in this
direction—more spacious, eclectic, and progressive.
For the intro I used my old ADA MP-2 preamp, on a
distortion patch, with all the bottom end pulled out. I
wanted it to sound really small, like it was going
through an AM radio. Then when the songs kicks in I hit a
pedal and I’m at full bandwidth.
"Coattails of a Dead Man": I knew
this would be magic. Originally it was this Woody
Guthrie-like acoustic-guitar thing, but Tom Waits heard
it and said stuff like, [in gravelly voice]
"Let’s make it sound like it’s going
through the meat grinder!" Seeing Tom hunched over
the Mellotron, playing that crazy part with his weird,
almost double-jointed hands, was one of the most
incredible things I’ve ever witnessed. Brain was
banging on this old wagon-wheel hoop and big marching
bass drum Tom brought over.
I played my [no-name] electric upright, just plucking
the downbeats. It’s the only song on the record
where all the basic tracks were one take—including
my vocals. When we were done I said to Tom, "Let me
know if there’s anything else that needs to go on
the song." He called me a couple of days later and
said it needed some glockenspiel—so we added that,
which was the perfect final touch.
|
AntiMatter
To record most of AntiPop Les Claypool used his
longtime backup Carl Thompson 4-string; for the L.A. sessions
with Tom Morello he played his fretted Carl Thompson 6. As
always, Les recorded direct with no miked-amp tracks. For most
songs he plugged into his trusty ADA MP-2 guitar preamp (not the
same model as the MB-1 bass preamp he shilled for years in the
now-defunct company’s ads). For "Eclectic
Electric" and "Greet the Sacred Cow," a rackmount
Lexicon MPX G2 multi-effect served as both preamp and delay. In
certain places he also used an MXR Phase Shifter, Larry
Lalonde’s vintage Mu-Tron, and "a Korg envelope
follower of some sort." Engineer Oz Fritz recorded both
processed and dry signals on Les’s 1" 16-track, the
same machine used for Brown Album but at the
higher-fidelity 30 ips tape speed. Toby Wright mixed to 1/2"
analog, with some vocal overdubs and other sounds added by
Digidesign Pro Tools, which was synced to the master tape. On
several songs Les used an Access Virus analog synth, not only for
bass parts (such as the "AntiPop" intro) but for sounds
like the electronic ambience throughout "The Final Voyage of
the Liquid Sky." He triggered the synth with a set of MIDI
pedals.
For the AntiPop tour Les will rely heavily on his new Carl
Thompson 4-string (above), which he received just after the
sessions were done. "This is the most awesome instrument
ever," Claypool gushes. "I’ve never seen an
instrument like this; the whole thing is incredible." In
addition to his synth setup and several pedals, he’ll bring
an Ampeg SVT-III head, two MESA/Boogie 2x15 cabinets he’s
had for years ("they still have mud on ’em from
Woodstock ’94"), and two MESA/Boogie Powerhouse 1000
4x10 + 1x15 cabs.
| The Zenyatta
Mondatta Connection Many die-hard Police
fans choose 1980’s Zenyatta Mondatta
[A&M] as the band’s top  achievement. "Zenyatta
is one of my all-time favorite-sounding
records," says Les Claypool. "In fact, I even
mentioned that to Stewart Copeland, and he replied,
‘Thank you—I’ve always said that,
too.’" Even though Copeland produced only one AntiPop
song, there are strong similarities between the two
albums. Both share stripped-down arrangements,
crystal-clear production, and moments of trippy, spacious
improvisation (particularly the prog-rock opus
"Eclectic Electric," which toward the end bears
striking similarities to "Shadows in the
Rain"). But  what exactly is the elusive common thread?
"Toby Wright was sending us rough mixes while we
were on the Ozzfest tour, and when I came home we remixed
almost every song," Les explains. "One of the
things I had him do was crank up the hi-hat and cymbals
so they’d be right there. I think that’s
what gives it that Zenyatta Mondatta
sound—the cymbals are so in your face."
|
|
selected discography With Primus: (on Interscope) AntiPop;
Rhinoplasty; Tales from the Punchbowl; Pork
Soda; Miscellaneous Debris; Sailing the
Seas of Cheese; (on Caroline) Frizzle Fry; Suck
on This. With Sausage: Riddles Are Abound
Tonight, Interscope. Solo album: Les
Claypool & the Holy Mackerel Present Highball with
the Devil, Interscope. With Rob Wasserman: Trios,
MCA. With Tom Waits: (both on Island) Mule
Variations; Bone Machine. With Alex
Lifeson: Victor, Anthem/Atlantic. Compilations:
Chef Aid: The South Park Album; Music for Our
Mother Ocean; Eye Sore: A Stab at the Residents;
In Defense of Animals; The Beavis and Butt-Head
Experience. Soundtracks: Brainscan; Airheads;
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.
|
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