Primus, Over the Electric Grapevine. Primus
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LES CLAYPOOL: “Too Many Puppies” was actually the first Primus song I’d ever wrote. That was when it was just me. [Laughs] That also reflects my youth and [my thinking at that time]: How can I write a song like “War Pigs” or something like that, that is really against the war and the notion of war? And how the establishment is always sending the young men to die under the pretense of freedom, in the name of oil—to an extent. That was my perspective. That was the only video that we had ever done that we had zero control over. In fact, we really didn’t do it—the record company just hired this guy to do it. I think he went on to become a pretty famous director. I don’t remember much about it. In fact, I had completely forgotten about it until I saw it years later, when we put it on the Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People DVD. I remember when they first presented it to us, we hated it. We were like, “What the hell is this?”
There’s always been this whole thing with me about avoiding the cheese, avoiding what was normal—or what people thought was normal. Sort of to defy the laws of tradition. That song [“To Defy the Laws of Tradition”] is one I had written quite a long time ago, so it definitely reflects a much more youthful perspective of the world. That sort of Fuck you, we’re going to do what we want attitude. I don’t think it really refers to anything in particular. There’s no real story behind it, except for just making a statement of, Hey, we’re going to be different. And it’s a rougher, braver path to be different, than to just go with the flow.
MATT WINEGAR: Nothing really sticks out, other than there was an unbelievable amount of weed. And Les had this odd thing that he thought was hilarious called “fart sandwich.” Les would be farting into his hands and cupping it, and then he’d come up from behind you and “gas mask” you with his hands. Like, the most intense, disgusting fart smell would just choke you. And he thought that was hilarious—he’d fart-sandwich everybody. I’ll never forget getting fart-sandwiched, man. It was traumatizing. And he’d always finish it up and go, “Fart sandwich!”
LES CLAYPOOL: Yes, the fart sandwich. That was actually invented by Trouz, but was originally called the “cup a’ smell.” In fact, I think Trouz used to deejay at parties as DJ Cup a’ Smell at one point. It was truly horrible if you were on the receiving end, but hell, when you are in a motor home—or “odor home,” as we called it—for hundreds of hours on end with a bunch of stoned dudes, flatulence becomes a huge source of entertainment. That’s nothing compared to the “fart syringe.” Somehow Trouz got hold of this plastic syringe that was about the size of a small flashlight and he would literally suck the gas out of his ass as he was expelling his fart. It had this little bent tip on it so he could sneak up behind you and squirt it right up into your nostril from the side. It was beyond horrible. He even got to the point where he would save the farts in the syringe by storing it in the freezer and getting you with it the next day. Good times.
MATT WINEGAR: I have some really cool recordings of Les in the studio, doing all his vocal tracks for Frizzle Fry. But I’ve never given them to anybody or released them—I’ve just had them. I’m sure Les would be completely horrified, so out of respect to Les, I’ve never copied them or given them out. I think I may have given Lefkowitz a copy at some point. But it’s Les stoned out of his mind, saying the craziest shit. Being ridiculous for hours. They’re pretty cool. I’ll have to give Les a copy. It’s no fun listening to yourself being recorded, I’m sure he’d hate it. But I’ve listened to them a few times over the years, and they’re hilarious. Amazing shit.
Les suggested that everybody in the studio—during Frizzle Fry—take acid. He wanted everybody—the staff . . . He wanted nobody there who wasn’t on acid. That was the plan. And I remember talking to him, going, “Dude, we can’t have everybody taking acid. Logistically, it’s just not going to work.” When Les said it, I remember poor Ron looking at me, going, “Please don’t make me take acid.”
LES CLAYPOOL: “John the Fisherman,” I remember years ago, I was watching the news and they had talked about, “There’s this fishing boat that’s gone down outside the Golden Gate Bridge”—I believe it was a salmon boat. Apparently, it had gotten struck by a cargo ship. They played the audio of this guy calling the coast guard, and it was unbelievably haunting to hear this guy going, “There’s a ship coming through the fog! It’s going to hit us! It’s going to hit us!” And then that’s all you hear. I remember hearing him say, “Oh my god, we’re going down,” or something to that affect. And that was it—that was all you heard. It just gave me chills. So I thought, What would be the story of this guy? So I built this whole story of John the Fisherman, and the notion that they get struck—I don’t know if it actually says it in the song, but, “Oh my god, we’re going down.” It’s taken from the account of this fishing vessel getting struck by a ship and it going down. And they never found anybody.
Now “Harold of the Rocks,” years ago, a good friend of mine . . . We had various managers throughout the years. And this friend of mine was acting as our road manager, and we said, “Hey, why don’t you just be our manager?” So he was living in this warehouse down in Oakland with this other guy that I used to call Greensleeves, because he was an artist—one of these guys that did the wild-style graffiti back before everybody started doing it. And his tag kind of looked like Greensleeves. They were living together, and all of a sudden we didn’t see him very often. We used to do this thing every Saturday where we would go to this bakery. So I saw this buddy one day at the bakery, and he just looked emaciated. He was like, “Oh, I’ve been fasting,” because he was one of these guys that was a health guy—but he also liked to party. So we didn’t think anything of it.
We ended up one night . . . The song, it’s almost verbatim if you go through the song. I was hanging out with this little punk rock girl, Wendy O, and we decided we were going to go see Schoolly D, so we called my buddy Trouz—we called him “Swamper” back then. So he said, “We’d love to go. Can we bring this guy Harold?” So they bring this guy Harold, and he was sort of this ghetto dude. And I brought my old boss Stan, who on the job, he and I always called each other “Gus.” So we go and see Schoolly D and we spend the evening with him, and I remember Stan saying, “Man, who’s this Harold guy? This guy is pretty bizarre, Gus.” Didn’t think much about it, it was just an odd night. And then there was a party awhile later that Harold was at. And he was this kind of down-and-out ghetto dude. He was really happy that we had taken him out to San Francisco. We come to find out later that all these guys were fully strung out on crack, and Harold was the guy who would get crack for them. So the song is all about a good friend of mine who nearly went down the tubes, because he and Greensleeves got strung out on crack. It was a bad time—he pawned off a bunch of stuff that he had. At the time, he was acting as our manager, and some money came up missing. He ended up paying us back, but he went down in the rabbit hole for a while and it was pretty bad. So that’s what the song reflects.
MATT WINEGAR: The “You Can’t Kill Michael Malloy” song was a thing I made at home, on a borrowed keyboard. It was just a piece of music that I woke up at three in the morning and had going through my head. I just went down and recorded it really quick. It was made right during those sessions, so I brought it over to the studio and was playing it in the morning. I usually listened to music before they showed up. And Les was like, “Hey, man, what is this?” And I was like, “I made this on my eight-track last night.” And he goes, “This is fucking cool. We should use this.” And I’m like, “You’re welcome to it. Use it.” He’s like, “Maybe we can use it as an intro for ‘Toys’.” We