in that band for about a year, and just kind of got tired of that scene, and there were some personal issues—just band shit. So I went off, and I had this band S.T.A.R., Sax Trumpet and Rhythm. At that point, I was so much into the funk and the soul, and even a lot of the fusiony stuff that was going on, with Stanley Clarke, the Dixie Dregs, George Duke, Ronnie Laws, and all these different people. So I had this sort of soulful jazz band.
Then I played with Blind Illusion again, with a different lineup—I was with Blind Illusion three different times. Did that for a little while, then that fell apart again, and I went and played with the Tommy Crank Band, which was probably one of the best things for me. Basically, it was just a paycheck for me. Because I had this drummer that I would play with quite a lot, Mark Edgar, and he was playing in the Tommy Crank Band. And the Tommy Crank Band was basically an old rhythm-and-blues band that played Booker T. & the MG’s, James Brown, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, the Meters. And a lot of this stuff, I didn’t even know who the hell a lot of these artists were. Though I’d heard a lot of the music on AM radio growing up as a kid—a lot of Motown and whatnot. But it was funny, because I was learning Meters songs, and I didn’t even really figure out who the Meters were until years later. But I would learn these songs for this band. And I was the youngest guy in this band by far—some of the guys were in their thirties. And here I was, a nineteen-year-old kid.
We had a horn section—a sax and trumpet—Tommy played B3 and Rhodes, a guitar player, bass player, and drummer. One of the drummers we had at one point was Dave Bartlett from Tower of Power, and Norbert Stachel was in the band for a while, and he went on to play with Sheila E. It was a really, really cool band. But we basically played biker bars up in Northern California—and this was back when . . . there were no weekend Harley riders. None of these dentists on Harleys. It was like, Hells Angels. And that’s what I did every weekend, was play these bars. You’d play four sets a night, sometimes three to five nights a week. It really was a huge learning experience for me, because I learned all this old rhythm-and-blues music, playing with guys like Dave Bartlett, that just kept on me. Because I knew how to do all the noodly-noodly-noodly stuff, from playing all that progressive music in high school, and listening to Stanley Clarke and whatnot. But having to go play this other music for a living, and having the background of playing in the jazz band when I was high school, that stuff was very educational. Really rounded me out.
CHRIS “TROUZ” CUEVAS: Back then, I wasn’t as interested in that kind of cover-band sort of rhythm-and-blues music, necessarily. Back then, a copy band was kind of dumb to me. Les looked so different from the rest of the guys in the band—they were all bikers and macho-looking dudes. And he was a skinny, pompadour-wearing guy. So I didn’t really get into their music much. I was more into funk and soul and different rock. But Les was always cool because he was eclectic. He loved funk and soul, and he loved rock. I think that’s why we hit it off so well musically. Kirk was always more into straight rock—straight metal.
LES CLAYPOOL: The trumpet player wanted to play some more contemporary tunes, so we would be playing “Standing on Shaky Ground” or some Righteous Brothers one minute, and then we’re playing a fucking John Cougar song! That was the least exciting element of playing in the band. But playing “Gimme Some Lovin’” and Teddy Pendergrass’s “Get Up, Get Down, Get Funky, Get Loose,” and some Tower of Power, that shit was great . . . We got to open for Gregg Allman one time; we played a couple of shows with John Lee Hooker, which was unbelievable.
The only real downside to playing in a band called the Tommy Crank Band (yes, that’s his real name) and playing biker gigs three to five nights a week was that there was a tendency to be surrounded by methamphetamine everywhere you went. Hell, I remember some gigs where part of our pay would be a big baggy full of speed. We had one drummer, who was actually amazing, his name was Jack Hile, who’d hit that bag and sit and tell stories from his past. He was an ex–minor league pitcher who toured with some heavyweight rock bands in his past, and was also drafted and sent to Vietnam as a helicopter gunner. He had some incredible tales to tell and he and I had a great musical rapport. Cool cat, always wondered what happened to him.
But anyway, we’d do these gigs and Tommy would always have a big party at his house afterward and his house was this big crash pad in El Sobrante. We’d stay up all night smoking cigarettes, doing key-loads of crank, and chatting up biker chicks. It was weird and somewhat counterproductive, because you’d work all night to get laid, and then your pecker would be so tweaked out it would hardly work or you couldn’t cum. I didn’t last too long in that scene. I realized that crank made my pecker shrivel and the cigarettes made my car stink. Also, the whole crank thing has been a big issue within my family. I’ve seen my uncle and a couple of cousins go down from that shit, and addiction is very prevalent in my gene pool. Anyone paying attention will see the multiple addiction references that tend to thread throughout my lyrical endeavors over the years. I do have to say that some of the coolest, sweetest, and most giving people I ever met were in the Tommy Crank Band; especially Tommy himself, and his big brother and manager, Harold.
Going back a bit, early on, I had always wanted a Rickenbacker 4001 so I could be like Geddy Lee and Chris Squire. I just didn’t have any money. I remember Rush was my very first concert. I was with this other bass player, Bill Petersen, he was in another band. And he had a nice, big, giant amp, and he just got a Rickenbacker 4001. He was pointing to the stage, because Geddy’s gear was sitting there before the show. And he’s like, “That’s just like my bass!” And I’m just sitting there going, “Goddamn, man. I wish I could get a Rickenbacker.” So when I finally had saved up enough money to go get a Rickenbacker . . . I had played that Memphis for a couple of years before I got a job and saved up enough money to go get a bass. And I went to the store, and I’m talking to this guy at Leo’s Music, and he’s like, “Ah, you don’t want a Rickenbacker. Those things are terrible. They’ve got two truss rods, and they always break.” And he totally talked me out of getting a Rickenbacker, and talked me into getting this Ibanez Musician EQ. I remember Sting was playing one at the time, so it wasn’t terribly bad.
So I got this Ibanez bass. I used to polish it and I worshipped that thing. It was easy to thump and pluck on. Then one day, I was at Leo’s Music, because you used to go to Leo’s Music and just hang around, stare at the stuff, and dream. I go in there, and there’s this Carl Thompson bass sitting there. I had become a huge Stanley Clarke fan, and I remember on his I Wanna Play for You album, there was one picture of all of his basses laid out on the porch of his house, and he had a couple of Carl Thompsons. I thought, Whoa, look at that thing! So there’s a Carl Thompson sitting there, and it was marked six hundred bucks. I picked it up, started playing it, and I was like, “Oh my god!” It was the most amazing bass. It was the easiest bass that I ever picked up. I could play all these things that I couldn’t imagine before. It was unbelievable.
So I went home, and I had some money but not a lot. I scraped, scrimped, and dug around. I even had a checking account at that time. I went and borrowed some money from my mom, to get six hundred bucks. I come back down and I had exactly six hundred dollars—I didn’t even have enough for tax. I get there, and they had marked up the bass to a thousand dollars. So I go find this guy—I think his name was Kip or something—and I go, “Man, I looked at this bass the other day, and it was six hundred bucks.” And he goes, “Yeah, well, Leo came in and said, ‘These things are really rare,’ and wants a thousand bucks for it.” I’m like, “Man, you told me I could get it for six hundred bucks. I have six hundred bucks, I’m here to buy it. What can you do?” So he went in the back, talked to somebody, and says, “Yeah, I’ll sell it to you for six hundred.” And I said, “Well, all I’ve got is six hundred,” and he says, “It’s six hundred . . . plus tax.” So I wrote a bum check for the tax! [Laughs] I somehow got it to clear, I don’t know how I got that sucker to clear. So I got the Carl Thompson bass, and that was the beginning of me using that Carl Thompson bass for . . . shit, I used that thing for thirty years or something. I still own it. I put it in semiretirement, because it’s such a precious instrument to me. I don’t like taking it out on the road so much anymore.
