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.
I worked for this audio company at one point called ADA, so we’d go to NAMM [National Association of Music Merchants] shows and all that stuff. I remember seeing this thing advertised—this bass Kahler [tremolo system]. And I thought, Holy shit. That looks amazing! So I got one through the company, and I actually had Dan Maloney put it on for me, because I knew he was good. He put it on there, and we had to change the nut around a little bit, because intonation is always an issue when you put these things on. They stay in tune to an extent, but not terribly well. So you’ve got to watch that. But that’s part of the Primus sound too—the intonation is pretty loose. [Laughs] And there’s a little bit of glory to that. Some of my favorite guys are these guys that play pretty janky instruments, and you kind of hear that looseness in pitch. I like that.
My dad was always a very practical fellow. He always said, “This music thing is fine and dandy, but you better learn a trade.” Because they were all a little bummed that I didn’t go to college. I was the guy in the family who was kind of smart, and I would have been the first one to go to college. But unfortunately I needed to work, because we didn’t have money. I couldn’t work, go to college, and seriously pursue my music thing. Since I was fourteen, I knew I wanted to be a professional musician, so I worked and played music.
My dad encouraged me to learn many trades, so I think my very first job, I worked in a cheese shop. But then I immediately went heavy into the automotive world, because it was such a huge part of my background. I was an assistant manager at the Shell station—El Sobrante Shell—and then worked for Big O Tires, busting tires. I mixed auto paints for a while. I went to work for an audio company, basically in assembly, shipping and receiving, and quality control. Did a little bench-teching while I was there. Then I became a carpenter. I really enjoyed carpentry, and you make good money as a carpenter. Then after that, we started making T-shirts—we’d print T-shirts for the shows. After that, I became a professional musician.
Chapter 2
Dad, What’s a Primate?
LES CLAYPOOL: So the next thing I know, I’m hanging out with Chris Cuevas, who I remembered from dropping out of high school. And he was this total punk guy—he had his sleeves cut off and his hair all spiky. He was always going to all these shows in Berkeley, and I said, “Look, I’ve got a car. You get us tickets for these shows, and I’ll drive.” So that was kind of the deal—he was always winning tickets off KALX and KUSF. Like, every day. I had just broken up with my girlfriend, so I was all bummed out, and he and I would go clubbing every single