delay the band’s set for as long as possible, so that I could ensure Rick Rubin would have arrived by the time they played. [Laughs] I didn’t exactly kidnap Curveball, but I convinced him to get in the van with me. I think he needed some sort of throat spray for an ailment he had at the time. So we just took off. The band’s set was almost canceled because Dale Gloria [who ran the venue] was so mad. But they played, and I don’t remember if Rick Rubin got to see them or not.
LES CLAYPOOL: The Curveball thing just wasn’t working. There were some issues, as there just is. So we were once again without a drummer, so I called Jay Lane, because he was sort of a local hero, and said, “Hey, Jayski.” Well, he wasn’t even Jayski then, he was just Jay Lane. We all worshipped Jay Lane. And I said, “Hey Jay, do you know of any drummers? We’re looking for a drummer.” And he’s like, “DUDE, I’M IN! I WANT THE GIG! I’M IN!” And we’re, “Oh my god, this is the drummer from the Freaky Executives.” Because they were huge back then in the Bay. And I called Todd: “Hey, Jay Lane wants to be our drummer.” And he was like, “You’re kidding me!”
CHRIS “TROUZ” CUEVAS: [The Freaky Executives] always blew me away. We went to those shows and had the best time, because it was like going to see Morris Day and the Time. I have a lot of fond memories of Jay back in the early days, and that whole funk/world beat scene was pretty cool.
JAY LANE [Primus drummer 1988–1989 and 2010–present, Sausage drummer, Frog Brigade drummer]: I would have to go back to Proposition 13—and let’s not get right into politics already—but yeah, it was Proposition 13 in 1980 that wiped music and arts out of the public schools in San Francisco. It was a tragedy. And I was fortunate enough right then, I think I was going into high school that year—right at the year that the teachers were fighting for their budgets and to maintain music in the schools. I had a really cool band teacher in junior high school that turned me on to jazz music. And that got me all obsessed with music—listening to Weather Report, Stanley Clarke, and fusion stuff back in the seventies.
I had been taking drum lessons before that, then my mom suggested I go to this place called Cazadero Music Camp in Northern California. I grew up in San Francisco, so I met a bunch of kids that went to Berkeley High School, and kids from East Bay, where they still had their music program thriving. So there were all these talented kids and kids in bands. I came back from that music camp and went back there the next year, kind of bonded with a few of these kids, and ended up joining a band in Berkeley after high school with some of these kids.
From there, I joined another band in Berkeley. The first band was called the Uptones, the second band was called the Freaky Executives. The Freaky Executives rehearsed at a studio in Emeryville, right next to Berkeley, that a bunch of bands rehearsed at. And Les had a room there—he, Todd Huth, and Peter Libby used to play and rehearse there a lot, and they were gigging as Primus. So I knew Peter for a while—we’d go and hang out in his room and work on drum stuff. And I got to know Les. Then Peter was out of the group and they got another drummer called Curveball, and I knew Curveball. Everybody was in this larger music scene. So I ended up joining Primus. That was 1988.
LES CLAYPOOL: We started playing with Jayski, and all of a sudden everything clicked—you could just feel the band come together. It was as if we had this really cool car, but it was only firing on seven cylinders. And then along comes Jayski, and boom!
JAY LANE: The thing was, I was coming from this funk background, so I was coming from playing with a lot of bass players who played that plucking style. So for me, I fit right in. I was like, Oh yeah, I can just go right with that.
LES CLAYPOOL: We had all this material we had written over the years. You have to figure, we’re into the band by this point by about three years, so we had a pretty good collection of material. Because what we would do is Todd and I, we would make a demo. We made that first demo, and then we worked and played these shitty gigs for fifteen people. We were this oddball band. And it wasn’t until Fishbone and the Chili Peppers started touring through the Bay Area that people were like, “Oh, we can stick Primus with these guys.” So we would get these opening slots for both those bands.
NORWOOD FISHER [Fishbone bassist]: It was when Primus opened for us [the first time Fisher heard Primus]. It’s all kind of blurry. [Laughs] I don’t think they had an album out. We had been going into the area, and there was this band, this trio, called Dot 3. When I first saw Primus, I was like, Oh, they’re kind of like Dot 3, because they had a badass bass player—but he was more Geddy Lee–like. But they were doing something different. It was wilder—Primus was way further to the left. And what Les was doing was wilder than Dot 3. In my mind, I’m thinking it was closer to the mid-’80s than the late-’80s when we first did this stuff with Primus. Les’s technique was more unique.
ANGELO MOORE [Fishbone singer and saxophonist]: We were all playing at the same level of clubs. And we were way more in each other’s scene. So before everybody got split up, it was more of a community thing. We’d either be playing in Los Angeles or San Francisco. I know that Primus was more of a San Francisco kind of band. So when we would go up there, I remember them being in the area and in the scene—before everybody took a step up in the industry.
NORWOOD FISHER: Fortunately, for the fans, all the bands that were linked together as a scene, they were all really different. That was the beauty of that time period, when I look back on it. Really, what they did, they were drawing from a whole other energy. The dynamics of the band were really pronounced—really high highs, and really quiet parts. They were really playing with the outside. They were really on the fringes. And it was not a pop band. But it was catchy, nonetheless. And it was funky. But it was funky unlike the funk that came before it. [Primus’s sense of humor] was some of the funkiest parts of it. That’s one of my favorite parts of P-Funk, the sense of humor and the irony. So that part of it was really attractive.
LES CLAYPOOL: When Jayski joined the band, all of a sudden you could just feel it—you could feel the band come together. We reworked all those old songs into Jayski’s style, with his really crispy, intricate hi-hat work.
JAY LANE: It was different [playing with Les and Todd], because it was a real cozy feeling. It was just these two dudes in this room. We would just get together in that room and jam and rehearse. Back in those days, it was before everyone had a home studio, with computers and stuff. You weren’t doing much recording, unless you saved up some money and went to someone’s studio. And that was really rare. But we ended up doing that anyway—we recorded a demo tape. I can only compare it to what I was listening to at the time, so at the time, it reminded me of King Crimson. I was really into that stuff—King Crimson, Peter Gabriel. And playing with Les was kind of like that. But it was also a little fusion-y too, because he has a nice bass-plucking style.
DAVID LEFKOWITZ: The sound with Jay Lane was a different thing. It was still Todd Huth, obviously, but it just coalesced with the groove. The fact that everybody was influenced by this funk-oriented sound and Jay was a funk drummer—it just took it to a new level.
CHRIS “TROUZ” CUEVAS: Early on, I don’t know if I totally identified with it. I thought it was pretty cool, but I think at first when I heard it, I was like, This is Les’s thing, I’m going to support him. It’s interesting. But it really did grow on me—especially when the funk metal scene started forming, and there were other bands playing more hard rock/thrash stuff with funk bass lines. Y’know, Chilis, Fishbone, and some more local peers. Once that melded together, I got a lot more into Primus’s music, and became not only someone who was helping them out or working with them, but I definitely became a fan, as well. All our friends rallied around their shows. It would be a party every time they played.
DAVID LEFKOWITZ: At that time,
