Episode 1475 - Les Claypool / Marc Ribot
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening how's it going uh you know if you got a kid in the car you know what's up
Marc:Got a DM from a mother who has a child on the spectrum who apparently started walking around school saying, What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fucknicks?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:How is a kid not going to get excited about what the fuckers?
Marc:Come on.
Marc:I'm excited about it.
Marc:But anyway, if you've got kids in the car...
Marc:It's your choice.
Marc:I'm not saying this is all going to be filthy, but I guess sometimes you don't know what's coming, right?
Marc:Right, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:How about that, kiddo?
Marc:How about what the fuck nicks?
Marc:What is happening?
Marc:How is it going out there?
Marc:You know, I'm actually pretty good today.
Marc:You know, I'm recording this the day after my birthday party.
Marc:I had a birthday party.
Marc:I've not had a birthday party in a long time.
Marc:And it was a very special evening.
Marc:And maybe I can try to explain that to you.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:All right, we'll get into that in a second.
Marc:Let's do this.
Marc:Let's do this.
Marc:Two guests on the show today.
Marc:Les Claypool.
Marc:I don't know if you know Les Claypool, but he's best known as the founder of the band Primus.
Marc:But he's also been in many other bands like Sausage, Oysterhead and Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, which is actually going back on tour this month.
Marc:Yeah, and he's done a lot of stuff with Sean Lennon.
Marc:He's done a lot of stuff with a lot of people.
Marc:And actually, Les Claypool and I share a birthday week.
Marc:Les also turned 60 this week.
Marc:During the talk with Les, Mark Rebo came up a few times.
Marc:He's a guitarist that's played with Tom Waits, John Zorn, Elvis Costello, and a lot of other guys and gals.
Marc:And I've been a fan of his because he's kind of a unique guitarist.
Marc:And kind of edgy guitar player in a very authentic to him way.
Marc:He has a new album out with his solo project, Ceramic Dog.
Marc:And we kind of put these together.
Marc:It kind of made sense.
Marc:So there you go.
Marc:Doubleheader.
Marc:Their music is out on the margin in a way.
Marc:You know, you gotta go find it, man.
Marc:You gotta go find it.
Marc:You might know Primus, but do you know the other 90 projects that Les has been involved in?
Marc:You might know Mark, but do you know all the stuff?
Marc:Anyway, that's happening.
Marc:Also...
Marc:I'm in Bellingham, Washington at the Mount Baker Theater for one show on Saturday, October 14th as part of the Bellingham Exit Festival.
Marc:If you're a Seattleite, I'm not going to be up in Seattle and some of the major cities till next year.
Marc:So take a drive.
Marc:Come up to Bellingham.
Marc:It's not that big a deal.
Marc:Portland, Oregon.
Marc:Good news.
Marc:Just added a show.
Marc:The five shows that I had were sold out months ago.
Marc:I added a second show on the Sunday, October 22nd.
Marc:I believe it's a 930 show.
Marc:So that's happening.
Marc:Boston.
Marc:I'm at the TD Garden for Comics Come Home on Saturday, November 4th.
Marc:I'm at the Chemo Theater in Albuquerque, New Mexico for one show on November 11th.
Marc:Hometown show.
Marc:I think there's about 60 tickets left for that.
Marc:Denver, Colorado, I'll be at the Comedy Works South for four shows, November 17th and 18th.
Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for tickets.
Marc:Maybe this week I'll get up, get the, there's going to be a lot of local small theater dates here at the Elysian and at Dynasty.
Marc:So that's all happening.
Marc:I had my buddy Sam Lipsight in town for three nights, which was great.
Marc:You know, I talked to Sam a lot and we, you know, we don't get that kind of time.
Marc:I rarely get that time.
Marc:Even if I go to New York, you know, we get a day and we hammer it out.
Marc:But now we kind of had a nice leisurely few days to hang out because he came out for my party.
Marc:Brendan McDonald came out for my party.
Marc:My buddy David Kleinfeld, who I've known since Hebrew school, came out for the party.
Marc:Flew in.
Marc:There were some people that flew in, which was very nice.
Marc:You know, I don't I guess I just take birthdays for granted generally.
Marc:And I don't know that I prioritize them or think to even celebrate in any real way.
Marc:But for some reason, 60 had some gravity.
Marc:And it's definitely shifting my perception of myself and the world.
Marc:Not in a bad way.
Marc:So the birthday party.
Marc:I was trying to count.
Marc:How many people were there who were actually guests on the show?
Marc:And it was up there.
Marc:It was like from 10 to 15, 10 to 12.
Marc:But I didn't really know how to do the party because...
Marc:I've been to parties before.
Marc:We all have many little pockets of life.
Marc:And I thought, well, either I do a comedian party or I do a party of people that have made an impact on my life, have known me a long time, people I want to know better.
Marc:The idea was...
Marc:Basically, that I would invite a group of people that didn't cause me stress or annoy me.
Marc:Some of them were comics were invited, but many of them were on the road.
Marc:But there were representatives from my childhood who knew me way back.
Marc:There were representatives of people that knew me, you know, since, you know, the 90s.
Marc:There were people that have known me since, you know, over the arc of my life, different friends come in.
Marc:And then there was a bunch of new friends who I've met recently.
Marc:And it was an interesting combination of people.
Marc:There were several movie directors.
Marc:There were several novelists.
Marc:There were a couple of comedic performers, actors, and then there was my old buddy John Daniel from the music business.
Marc:My buddy Dan from Gimme Gimme Records.
Marc:My buddy Alan, who I've known since he was like 10, who recently reentered my life.
Marc:My buddy Dave from Hebrew School and me and Dave both worked at Alan's dad's men's store when we were in high school.
Marc:obviously Kit, and she got the cake.
Marc:What an amazing vegan cake.
Marc:We did the whole thing at Buena de Planta on Sunset in Silver Lake, and it was spectacular.
Marc:I went to a party there.
Marc:I went to Alice and Bree's 40th there, and I just became... It's a vegetarian Mexican place, and it was great, and the staff was great, and they handled everything beautifully.
Marc:But the interesting thing was is that all these people I feel very emotionally connected to.
Marc:I invited a few other people that were out working, and a couple people couldn't come, but it was such a...
Marc:Kind of an amazing night because the interface of all these people, you know, the interactions, you know, writers, directors, you know, comics, you know, actor.
Marc:It was I just wanted everyone to get along and you can get kind of exhausting to do a party, but it was just a highlight.
Marc:It was a it was an amazing night.
Marc:I got some cool presents.
Marc:Kit found an old promotion for me in a newspaper in San Francisco and framed that up.
Marc:It was very moving and it really worked out.
Marc:Lovely party.
Marc:Very touched.
Marc:It's so funny.
Marc:You know, I was panicking the day before.
Marc:I'm like, what if people don't come?
Marc:I was just nervous.
Marc:What am I going to do with all the food?
Marc:What if there's food left over?
Marc:That's all you got.
Marc:Got hung up on the food.
Marc:That was probably too much food.
Marc:It all worked out.
Marc:I entered 60 in a very nice way with people that I respect and have deep feelings for and who feel the same about me.
Marc:And I don't always realize that.
Marc:So I'm thrilled.
Marc:I feel okay.
Marc:And it was a great party.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, look.
Marc:Les Claypool...
Marc:is going back out on tour with his band, the Fearless Flying Frog Brigade.
Marc:They kick off again on October 11th in Oakland, and they'll be going across the country throughout the month.
Marc:You can go to LesClaypool.com for tour dates and tickets.
Marc:You know, I know Les Claypool's the guy, and I wanted to know where that came from.
Marc:So this is me talking to Les Claypool, the bass virtuoso.
Guest:This is a nice knife.
Marc:Yeah, I think it's a, I don't know, the story behind the knife is a woman was subletting an apartment I had in New York and her boyfriend collected knives and, you know, her and I had a falling out and the knife was left.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So I have the knife, the hammer, the broken hammer, the gripper.
Marc:Oh, the gripper was just in a package of some sort.
Marc:This is a – someone made this.
Marc:It's of my dead cat.
Marc:Someone made the glass ball.
Marc:Someone made this thing with the cat for me.
Marc:It used – like the clutter used to match the old garage.
Marc:Now it just seems very specific and demands, you know, like answers.
Marc:But before in the old garage, everything was cluttered, so it just was part of the fabric of the place.
Guest:So when you say the old garage, what do you used to do your –
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Podcast?
Marc:Yeah, in Highland Park, yeah.
Marc:The original garage was a thing.
Marc:It was an old, weird, beat-up place.
Marc:I miss it, but I like it here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I'll give you the journey of the morning because it got pretty exciting revolving around, you know, you.
Marc:It's very hard to sort of cram Claypool.
Guest:What do you mean, cram Claypool?
Marc:I mean, like, you know, like, I got to get up to speed.
Yeah.
Marc:On Claypool.
Guest:I kind of like that Cram Claypool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I should have named my kid Cram.
Marc:That would have been amazing.
Marc:It's my name spelled backwards.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Whoa, look at this.
Marc:Some synchronicity going here.
Marc:More synchronicity.
Marc:So I'm trying to, because I know you.
Marc:I know some of this stuff.
Marc:You can't know all this stuff.
Marc:No one can know all of this stuff.
Guest:I know hardly any.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so I'm like, I'm spinning out because I'm like, you know, how do I put this guy into context?
Marc:He's a guy who's got his own zone.
Marc:So you defy context because you're your guy.
Marc:You're you're less Claypool.
Marc:So you that's your that's the thing.
Marc:It's its own rabbit hole.
Marc:So I'm like, what?
Marc:Where do I go with this?
Marc:It's kind of like Zappa.
Marc:It's kind of seems like where is it rooted?
Marc:And then all of a sudden, I have this fucking mind blast, and I'm like, so fucking Residents, right?
Marc:So I start listening to the Residents, which I haven't done in years, this morning.
Marc:And then I get to Snakefinger, and then I get to Polka, and then I get to Bavaria for some reason, and Bohemia, and then I get to the Illuminati.
Marc:So what's going on, man?
Guest:Man, you took the long way around the barn.
Guest:Holy moly.
Yeah.
Marc:But so that was sort of the journey of the day is that I'm looking at Adam Weishaupt on my phone and I'm thinking like, it all comes full circle, man.
Marc:Conspiranoia.
Marc:It's all in there, dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This sums it up right here.
Marc:I shot Liberty Valance.
Guest:I'm the man that shot Liberty Valance.
Marc:You're the guy?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But wait, where did you come from?
Guest:I'm an East Bay kid, meaning Northeast Bay of San Francisco zone.
Marc:And you grew up the whole life there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Born in Richmond, raised in Pinole, El Sobrante.
Guest:El Sobrante, but if you live there, you say El Sobranny or El Sob.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:I lived in Berkeley during my, you know, wild years.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:There used to be a comedy gig in Richmond.
Marc:I used to live in San Francisco for a year.
Marc:No, there was a Walnut Creek punchline, but there was a one-nighter, I think, in Richmond that was not great.
Marc:I...
You really?
Guest:I used to play a lot of Hell's Angels bars around, you know, around that area.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, Richmond.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:San Pablo.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I want to feel like there.
Marc:Where was the Sunshine Saloon?
Marc:It was like Sunshine Saloon.
Guest:Man, that's there's some bells ringing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's somewhere in the East Bay.
Guest:That sounds like one of my old.
Guest:It must.
Marc:It would have been.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you do have siblings?
Guest:I have a half brother and half sister and a step brother and stepsister.
Guest:And I'm quite a bit older than my brother.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I'm nine years older than my brother, 11 years older than my sister.
Guest:I'm a year older than my step brother and three years older than my stepsister.
Marc:So you're the oldest guy?
Guest:I am the plow.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You set the example?
Guest:I'm the one that they went, holy shit.
Guest:Actually, I was a pretty mellow kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But my dad did call the cops on me once because they found a tiny bit of weed in my bedroom.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so your dad was that guy?
Marc:That's how I'm going to teach the kid a lesson?
Guest:It worked.
Guest:So my parents were married very young.
Guest:Well, they had me.
Guest:My mom was 17 when I was born.
Guest:Really?
Guest:My dad was 19.
Guest:My dad used to like to brag that when he was 19, he was a transmission mechanic.
Guest:He had a mortgage on a house, a payment on a car and a payment on a washer and dryer and a baby son.
Guest:So, but because of that, he was, I mean, he was like, my dad was like a cross between the Fonz and Dennis Weaver, you know?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Cause you're like my age.
Marc:So you're what, born 63?
Guest:You're three days older than me.
Guest:If you want to talk about doing some research, cause I looked you up.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Two days.
Guest:Really?
Guest:27th.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:29th.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So we're both, are you Libra?
Guest:I'm Libra.
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Marc:It's weird, right?
Marc:I don't know what it means.
Marc:It doesn't mean anything, but some people present it to you as if it does.
Marc:And when they say things that make sense, you're like, oh shit.
Guest:Well, it always pissed me off as a kid because it was boring.
Guest:It's like my cousin was like the crab or, you know, it's like, oh, I want to be one of those things.
Guest:I want to be a ram.
Guest:I got to be this scale.
Marc:You're the scales.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, what does it even mean?
Marc:Well, that's exactly the question of Libras.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So.
Marc:But that's 63, and your dad's like 20 in 63, 19?
Marc:He was 19.
Marc:Man.
Marc:So you had this experience of like, you know, for most of your life, your early life, your dad was just a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, like I said, he was a retired auto mechanic, transmission mechanic.
Guest:He was very—we've always been close.
Guest:We're still close.
Guest:I mean—
Guest:As long as we don't talk politics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He lives in Idaho now, but, you know.
Marc:Idaho, so you really can't talk politics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He always, he had the mustache, he had the pompadour, he wore the cowboy boots.
Guest:He was always very, very, he was like the cool guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But to him, weed was, I may as well, it may as well have been heroin, you know.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because that wasn't a thing for his generation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:At that stage.
Guest:Because he had to go from being a 19-year-old to a dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Grow up.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You know.
Marc:So he came from that sort of conservative baby boom thing?
Guest:Yeah, I always joke with Sean, you know, Shiner, Sean Lennon, that, you know, my dad probably wanted to beat up his dad.
Marc:Really, your dad wasn't even impressed by the Beatles, huh?
Guest:Oh, he said, oh, they can't sing for shit.
Guest:But my dad was not musical.
Guest:But he's always been a great guy, very supportive guy.
Marc:But a car guy all along?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Like he had cool cars?
Guest:We had some cars.
Guest:I mean, I have a lot of cars now that are all in various stages of disrepair.
Guest:Can you fix them?
Guest:I can to an extent, but my dad yells at me when I do because he's, you're going to screw up your hands, God damn it.
Guest:What the hell are you doing?
Guest:I'm like, well, if you didn't live in Idaho, you can come help me with these damn things.
Marc:But do you live up in Northern California?
Guest:I do.
Marc:Really?
Marc:So that's beautiful up there.
Marc:It didn't burn down?
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:We're in the coastal wine country, sort of in between Sebastopol and Bodega Bay.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I used to, when I lived in San Francisco briefly, and I never quite understood the city, but I used to drive up north.
Marc:I used to like to go through Bolinas and Point Reyes.
Guest:Yeah, it's beautiful.
Marc:Oh, it's the best.
Guest:Well, I'm a little, you know, I keep my boat out in Bodega Bay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's what I do on my fishing.
Marc:And you got a plane now.
Guest:I do.
Marc:And you fly it.
Guest:I flew it down here today.
Marc:How long does that take?
Guest:Like two and a half hours.
Marc:Now, you must be, you know, some people, like I feel like I'm busy, but I think a lot of times it's just me thinking.
Marc:But you seem to be doing things.
Guest:You know, I get bored easy.
Guest:And when I get bored, if I'm not doing something, I get a little depressed.
Guest:I'm a peaks and valleys guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I remember Neil Young years ago told me, because he has all these cars.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He has his own bus.
Guest:And he says, well, I got to travel in Jones.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's kind of me.
Guest:I love, you know, I got...
Guest:A couple old tour buses, a boat, lots of old cars.
Guest:But they're all, besides the plane, are all in various stages of, you know, I'm lucky that they'll start at this point.
Marc:So you have all these things, and it seems like you just put bands together, bring groups of people together, and go, let's play for a while, and then just go play shows.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That's what you do.
Guest:That's another element of boredom.
Guest:I think they call it, you know, they have a technical term for it now, ADHD or whatever it is.
Yeah.
Guest:I always say I've been with my wife for over 30 years now, and so I say, but I'm musically very promiscuous.
Guest:I'm a musical whore, basically.
Marc:But it's weird, though, because it seems to me that listening to a lot of the stuff you play with outside of doing...
Marc:You know, studio sessions with other guys that are other musicians that when you're playing your stuff or you're part of the core, you can always tell it's you back there.
Marc:So you may be promiscuous.
Guest:It's not a good thing or a bad thing.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:Well, there you go.
Marc:It's like you're a singular thing, which is kind of mind blowing.
Marc:And I imagine you have sort of like these fans that are, you know, totally in the rabbit hole and know everything that you have to sort of deal with occasionally.
Guest:Yeah, it's interesting.
Guest:There's a podcast that, I should know the name of it, that's the Primus something or other that these guys run.
Guest:And we were doing this VIP thing on this last tour, on the Frog Brigade tour, where you get to come and hang out with me and chit-chat.
Guest:And we did this little game show, and he came and did, it was like a trivia show.
Guest:And he knew more about me than me, you know?
Guest:Really?
Guest:It was a couple of things he didn't have right, but for the most part, it's very endearing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, in terms of things you were involved with.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or, you know, played this song.
Guest:You've only played this song three times and you played it in 98 and it was raining and there was, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, there was lettuce wraps on the rider.
Guest:It's crazy, some of the stuff that he knew.
Guest:Holy shit.
Marc:But is it impressive or do you find it uncomfortable?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, I think it's because I was that guy when I was a kid.
Guest:I was always that guy that was looking for the thing that nobody knew about or that not too many people were into.
Marc:From what age do you remember being that guy?
Guest:As early as I can remember.
Guest:Yeah?
Marc:When you started playing music?
Guest:I mean, even before that.
Guest:We're the same age.
Guest:So when everybody was listening to Kiss, I'm listening to Zeppelin.
Guest:When everybody started listening to Zeppelin, I was listening to Rush.
Guest:And then I started finding old Peter Gabriel and The Residence and Snakefinger and Public Image Limited and all that.
Marc:these things yeah but i had the reason i found it was because of a guy who worked at a record store like i had this guy the same guy he was a guitarist in uh new mexico who did like he he had a band that played once a year called jungle red and it was just him and this other guy a guitar and a noise maker and they and i remember their final performance they uh they were wearing surgical scrubs and uh breaking fiesta wear with hammers i like it yeah
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he turned me on to the residents, Fred Frith, Brian Eno, John Hassel, you know, that whole world of music.
Marc:And then there was another guy at the same record store that turned me on to all the old R&B.
Marc:So I had these two worlds going that couldn't really wrap my brain around, but I knew something else was out there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you must have caught the crashing wave of the hippie thing in the Bay Area.
Marc:Do you remember that?
Guest:I mean, I didn't really.
Guest:No?
Guest:You know, I know all the dead guys, and a lot of it's through their crew because they're sound companies.
Guest:And I know the guys that helped build this wall of sound and stuff.
Guest:You know, Don Pearson, who's no longer on the planet.
Guest:Brilliant, brilliant audio guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was never, you know, I've been to a couple of dead shows when Jerry was still around.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I went to the Fairly Well, but they didn't, they didn't Fairly Well.
Guest:They kept on going.
Guest:And my buddy Jayski plays with him.
Guest:Actually, he was the original Frog Brigade, as was Jeff Comente, who plays Keys.
Guest:But I just never went down that rabbit hole.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which ones did you go down?
Guest:Well, I was a lunatic for Rush when I was a teenager.
Guest:Really?
Guest:That was my whole world.
Guest:It was?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:My first concert was Rush Hemispheres at the Cow Palace.
Guest:Drank three warm Lone Brows and threw up in the parking lot.
Guest:Bought a bootleg ticket for twice as much, even though it wasn't sold out.
Guest:I just didn't know any better.
Guest:Bought a bootleg T-shirt, which years later I wore it.
Guest:It would barely fit me.
Guest:I wore it when we opened for Rush.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, hey, Alex, check this out.
Guest:And he's like, it's a bootleg.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's not real merch.
Guest:They were my, you know, there was nobody better than Geddy Lee when I was a kid.
Guest:Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, John Paul Jones.
Guest:But then I discovered Larry Graham, Lewis Johnson, Dexter Redding, you know, guys like Bootsy.
Guest:It's like, that just changed my world.
Marc:Because Rush, it was weird.
Marc:I had this beef with Rush for a long time.
Marc:I worked for a caterer in Albuquerque, New Mexico when I was in high school.
Marc:I was 15 years old.
Marc:And I was not a huge Rush fan, but I knew them because you couldn't avoid Rush.
Marc:But the caterer catered the concert.
Marc:And Alex Leeson was rehearsing on a classical guitar, and he found his dressing room to be warm.
Marc:And my boss, who was the food guy, it wasn't his job.
Marc:Alex Leeson wanted a fan because it was too hot for him to practice.
Marc:And my boss made me drive like a half hour up to his house to pick up a floor fan for Alex Leeson.
Marc:And I told this story, and then Geddy Lee made it right on Instagram.
Guest:Oh, really?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, the funny thing is, first of all, our first gig with Rush was in Albuquerque, but it was in 91 or 92 or whatever.
Marc:Where was it?
Marc:At the pit?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:It was some big old thing that, you know.
Marc:Your first gig with Rush?
Guest:First gig when we toured with Rush because we toured with them a few times back in the day.
Guest:But Alex is literally one of the sweetest, funniest guys you'll ever meet.
Guest:He is hilarious.
Guest:You get a couple of booze drinks in him and he can get a little, they call him...
Guest:i probably shouldn't say this but they have a name for him yeah and uh uh but a nice and he he can get a little surly but it's still in in good fun but he's he is a hilarious incredibly sweet human being but at the beginning so you're you're you're playing bass and when do you have the first band before like what who were you playing with you grew up in the same where did you grow up albuquerque you grew up in albuquerque i did oh look at that um
Guest:Well, back then, nobody wanted to play the bass.
Guest:Everybody wanted to be Eddie Van Halen.
Guest:So I bought a bass.
Guest:I was instantly in a band.
Guest:And the funny thing is, it all connects because I told you about how my dad, my stepmom found this little bit of weed in my bedroom.
Guest:He called the cops on me to scare me, which it did, and it worked.
Guest:But a guy in my algebra class sold me that weed.
Guest:And I used to go into Mr. Kelly's algebra class.
Guest:I'd go in there and there's this guy, you know, big thick pot bottle glasses, long hair and dirty white T-shirts.
Guest:And he'd sit there and he'd roll up dime bags.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd look at these guitar magazines.
Guest:Hey, Claypool, man, this is the guitar I'm getting.
Guest:He'd show me a picture of the Strat.
Guest:I still remember the ad, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he would give me these tapes because he wanted me to sing for his band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I was always singing some Aerosmith or some shit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was too, and he turned around to Hendrix and stuff.
Guest:And that person, and he's the guy that sold me the weed that my dad found.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Kirk Hammett.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was Kirk that got me into the whole notion of, hey, there's a band scene.
Guest:And so I was too scared to sing because I still can barely sing.
Guest:And so I met somebody else who needed a bass player.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I talked my dad into loaning me the money to buy this little crappy bass.
Guest:And he was like, well, if we're going to do this, it's something you really want to do, huh?
Guest:We had no money.
Guest:We had an auto mechanic.
Guest:And I had $15.
Guest:And so he loaned me.
Guest:And he said, well, if we're going to do this, let's do it right.
Guest:Let's go talk to Al.
Guest:He had a buddy who owned this music store.
Guest:We went down and bought this Memphis P bass copy, $150.
Guest:I pulled weeds all summer to pay for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was the beginning.
Marc:That was the beginning.
Marc:So that must have been, like Kirk, must have been almost in Metallica already.
Guest:No, that was Exodus.
Guest:He had just started Exodus.
Guest:In fact, I was in jazz band with Tom Hunolt.
Guest:No, not Hunolt.
Guest:Hunting.
Guest:And he was the original drummer for Exodus, and they were starting Exodus.
Guest:And they were kind of like an ACDC sounding band.
Marc:That's a good sound.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like it.
Guest:And so Exodus was one of the local bands.
Marc:And was Hammett a pretty inspired player when he was a kid?
Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he played a lot.
Guest:He wasn't the best guy in town.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he was a good player and he was the nicest guy in town.
Guest:And he always had a vibe.
Guest:Every time you saw Kirk on stage, he always had this vibe.
Guest:And you're like, man, he's got a vibe.
Marc:Yeah, guitar guy.
Guest:And he's another.
Guest:He's just a super sweet guy.
Marc:I know.
Marc:He's got Peter Green's guitar now.
Marc:He does?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Greeny.
Marc:He's got that Les Paul from that 59 Les Paul that Peter Green used on all those original Fleetwood Mac records as some sort of magic instrument.
Guest:He's got a lot of those types of things from what I hear.
Guest:As he should.
Marc:But were you all still in town?
Marc:So what was the band you were in playing?
Guest:I was in a band called Blind Illusion.
Guest:Nice.
Marc:Business cards?
Guest:Oh, I don't know.
Guest:It was kind of a progressive metal thing, you know.
Guest:And I went in and out of that band for a few years, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Progressive metal.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Like, who was that modeled after...
Guest:Well, in the early days, it was very rush.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then once metal actually started becoming metal... Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, Primus was going in the mid-'80s, and I didn't really... There was a whole different scene in the Bay Area called the world beat scene.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I used to work for a bunch of those bands.
Guest:I was roadieing for... And Jayski, who's playing with the dead now, and he played in Primus at one point.
Guest:You know, I used to work for those bands.
Marc:Like, which bands?
Guest:He was in the Freaky Executives, which was basically... They were like the time.
Guest:They were like the San Francisco version of the time.
Marc:But that's R&B, really, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it was Minneapolis funk.
Guest:So super aggressive.
Guest:They were badass.
Guest:But then there was these other bands like Zulu Spear, The Looters.
Guest:There was a band called The Looters.
Guest:They should have been the next U2.
Guest:They were amazing.
Guest:They had a vibe.
Guest:Very, very political.
Guest:They were the only band...
Guest:From the U.S.
Guest:that was allowed to play Nicaragua.
Guest:That was back when the Sandinistas were doing all their shit and whatnot.
Guest:And they went down and did that.
Guest:It was this whole big deal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the whole scene fell apart.
Guest:They hooked up with, I don't want to say who it was, but this manager guy who just kind of started pushing them down the wrong, you know.
Guest:Pipe.
Guest:It was this cool scene.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then a guy came in who was a big time guy and just started changing things and it ruined the whole thing.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, but that was your, that was the root of it, was always kind of proggy.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Proggy.
Guest:And then for me, then I've discovered the, you know, I went to Isley Brothers and Larry Graham at the Oakland Coliseum.
Marc:And Funkadelic and that stuff?
Guest:All that stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, but Zappa doesn't factor in?
Guest:Zappa factors into Larry Lalonde's world very heavily.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Guitarist for Primus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so his favorite guitarists in the world, he'll tell you, it was Frank Zappa.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Jerry Garcia and Eddie Van Halen.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:And then I turned them on to like Mark Rabot.
Guest:Mark Rabot.
Guest:And he's one of my all-time favorite guitar players.
Guest:In fact, my favorite guitar solo...
Guest:And I'm not big on favorites, but my favorite guitar solo in the world, and I just played it for Billy Strings recently, is the guitar solo on the song Chewing Gum on the Elvis Costello Spike record.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It's Kirk Joseph on sousaphone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No bass.
Guest:And it's Mark Rabot playing guitar.
Guest:And it's a short little solo, and it's one of the greatest bits of guitar solo I've ever heard in my life.
Marc:I've got to listen to it.
Guest:I mean, you know, most people would say I'm nuts, but it's amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because he's another guy that seems to chart his own world somehow.
Marc:And it's uniquely his, and it doesn't really align with a lot of mainstream guitar playing, which is great.
Guest:Well, he's like the Fred Friths and the Snake Fingers and the Baloo's.
Guest:He's like that.
Guest:He just looks at the guitar differently than most other people on the planet.
Marc:Yeah, I talked to Baloo.
Marc:That guy's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Have you talked to him?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You know him?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:What a nice guy.
Guest:He's one of the—he's actually literally one of the—I keep saying this, but he's one of the nicest people I've ever met in the music industry.
Guest:We just toured— With Harrison and him?
Guest:Yeah, Frog Brigade did this last summer, and they were on a good portion of it.
Marc:How was that?
Marc:How were they?
Marc:Great?
Marc:They were amazing.
Marc:He's like, you know, like he'd been there sort of in the back of my head and around my whole life as this guitar player that was like from outer space.
Marc:And then you meet him and he's just this like good natured Southern guy.
Guest:No, he's still from outer space.
Guest:The first time he sat in with us, he was like, I'm going to come sit in.
Guest:I was like, okay.
Guest:And it was a...
Guest:I don't remember if it was, it was one of my solo bands.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he, I said, you know, we usually kind of, you know, wear stuff on stage.
Guest:He shows up with a footy onesie, wearing footy onesies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That had, I think, dinosaurs on them.
Guest:And he had taken this Viking helmet and pulled one of the horns off and turned it forward.
Guest:So it just had one big horn out the front.
Guest:And there he came bounding out on stage.
Guest:And I was like, this guy is, no wonder this guy is one of my heroes.
Marc:Well, what about Buckethead?
Marc:You never even see his head.
Marc:I've seen his head.
I've seen his head.
Marc:Is it okay?
Guest:It's fine.
Marc:But he's another kind of wizard, right?
Guest:He's a wizard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You play with him a lot?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He's an old friend.
Marc:He's a dear old friend.
Marc:Is he a Bay Area guy?
Guest:He's from down here.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It feels like you're hiding something.
Guest:Well, I mean, no, he's just this little short Filipino guy that, you know.
Marc:Has a thing.
Guest:Has a thing.
Guest:But he's one of those guys, I'll see him a bunch, and then I don't see him for seven years.
Guest:Then I see him a bunch.
Marc:I feel like that's everybody with that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's like a jackalope.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But so when Primus kind of happens, that's interesting about the guitar player, Lalonde, because so he took because there is something about some of the orchestration of some of that stuff that's kind of Zappa-y.
Guest:Well, it comes from him.
Marc:Do you all read music?
Guest:Oh, hell no.
Guest:I mean, I used to in high school, but.
Marc:So you couldn't like if someone put music in front of you, you couldn't do it?
Guest:I could do it.
Guest:It would take a long ass time.
Guest:I couldn't sight read it.
Marc:Were you around?
Guest:Unless it was quarter note stuff.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Were you around as a proficient player when Frank was still alive?
Guest:You know, I'm still waiting to become a proficient player.
Marc:No, I'm just saying, were you on his radar?
Guest:I have no idea.
Guest:You know, he was buddies with my friend Mike Borden, who's a drummer for Faith No More.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Mike was good friends with Moon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I've met Dweezil and Amit, and in fact, Dweezil's thing opened for one of my New Year's shows.
Guest:Zappa plays Zappa.
Marc:He's a very intense guy, Dweezil, and very sort of like, you know, on top of his dad shit.
Marc:You know, like he can play that stuff.
Guest:Well, it's funny because we did, I think it was Conan O'Brien years ago, and he was there with Ahmet.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Doing their comedy act.
Guest:Ahmet was on fire.
Guest:I mean, Dweezil always seems pretty just focused.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's pretty straight guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whereas Amit was just like, he was like the Tasmanian devil or something.
Marc:It was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And they did this thing where they totally made fun of Kenny Rogers while Kenny Rogers was on the show.
Guest:It was, it was amazing, but it was, it was like cringe worthy.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like you felt like for Kenny, but you're kind of like, but this is pretty bad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it just seems like he would have been one of the people that he would have asked to play with him.
Marc:He, God knows he played with a thousand people.
Guest:I think by the time anybody knew who the hell I was, it was already kind of, you know.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Sick.
Marc:So with Primus, did you anticipate?
Marc:Obviously, you didn't.
Marc:I mean, because that, what was it, Pork Soda, that record that went gold really quickly?
Guest:First of all, we never thought we'd have any of this.
Guest:I remember when we got on MTV, Kirk Hammett was like, how the hell did you guys get on MTV?
Guest:We haven't even got on yet because we were on 120 minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember years ago having a meeting with our then attorney, and it was before we put out Frizzle Fry.
Guest:And somebody had offered us a publishing deal.
Guest:And he said, you know, for you to lose out on this publishing deal, you'd have to sell more than 100,000 records.
Guest:Do you honestly believe you're going to sell more than 100,000 records?
Guest:And we're like, holy shit, that's a lot of records.
Yeah.
Guest:And we didn't take the deal, thank God, because we've sold millions of records.
Guest:But we're what you call a catalog band, if you get into the old technical terminology.
Guest:Yeah, which means?
Guest:Which means we trickle out.
Guest:Like Pork Soda sold a million records, but it took three years to do so.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So a catalog band, it's like my friend John Daniel said to me.
Marc:I said, like years ago when I was like much younger, I said, he's in the music business.
Marc:He runs Crush Management.
Marc:I said, does Zappa make money?
Marc:He's like, if you have a bin at the record store with your name on it and there's like 50 records in there, you're making a little money.
Marc:Well, you used to.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Now they're like business cards.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But I mean, but that's what a catalog is, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That you're going, you just keep putting out things.
Yeah.
Guest:But it's not like the old days.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I mean, not even close.
Guest:I remember, you know, I always say that, you know, the cupcake was the record sales.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then the frosting was going on tour and the sprinkles were T-shirts.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's completely flipped around.
Guest:Right.
Guest:T-shirts first?
Guest:Stand in front of the mic with a bass in your hand, T-shirts, sell them damn T-shirts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then albums are almost like business cards.
Guest:You just make them to...
Guest:Really?
Guest:Generate buzz.
Guest:I mean, there's some money to it, but it's not like it was.
Guest:Not even close.
Marc:How do you hook up with Billy Strings?
Marc:I'm kind of on a Billy Strings run right now.
Marc:I can't stop watching the guy.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So Billy, a handful of years ago, Delirium, the band I have with Shiner, Sean Lennon.
Marc:Yeah, Sean Lennon, yeah.
Marc:I talked to him.
Guest:He's a good egg.
Guest:Great guy.
Guest:We were playing this festival up in the Sierras.
Guest:And my wife comes to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she says, hey, look at this set list.
Guest:And I'm looking at the set list.
Guest:The first song on the set list started with L. Second song started with E. Third song started with S. Fourth song started with C. It spelled out my name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, that's a little creepy.
Guest:And I was like, who the hell is it?
Guest:Oh, it's Billy Strings Band.
Guest:And so I met the guys that night.
Guest:And I don't even, I don't barely remember meeting him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I kept hearing he was a big fan.
Guest:And my daughter, she's going to hate I tell this story.
Guest:She forced me to get an Instagram account.
Guest:She's like, you're getting old.
Guest:Your fans are getting old.
Guest:They're all going to die off.
Guest:And there'll be no legacy for me.
Guest:And you need to get Instagram so you get some young fans.
Guest:I'm like, okay.
Guest:So I get this Instagram.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because to me...
Guest:you know, social media was going on Craigslist looking for Chrysler parts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, so I get this Instagram account, and I, what the hell do I do with this thing?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:So I start posting fishing pictures.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, of course, Billy's commenting on all my fishing pictures.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So next thing you know, we start chit-chatting, and, well, come on out to the house, and let's jam.
Guest:And we did, and we started working on a record, and we've become really good friends.
Guest:But every time we go to record, we usually end up just going fishing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is it a bluegrass record?
Yeah.
Guest:It's some sort of grass record.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:It's a combination.
Guest:It's whatever you can imagine that the mesh of these two worlds would be.
Guest:But it is twangy.
Guest:I call it a twang record.
Marc:So when did you do the South Park theme?
Marc:Oh, that was... That would have been... Was it after Primus broke up the first time?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was in the mid-90s.
Marc:It was?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So that band was still...
Guest:Yes, we had a different drummer.
Guest:It was when we got our new drummer.
Guest:It was after Tim Alexander left the band and we had this guy Brain.
Guest:And we just got this call one day from these college kids.
Guest:They had just made this little video that was all over the internet, the Spirit of Christmas.
Guest:Yeah, Brian Boy Italiano.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And they wanted a theme song.
Guest:And so...
Guest:We didn't think it was going to get on television, let alone take over the world.
Guest:But you did it.
Guest:That's pretty nice.
Guest:Well, we thought it was cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we did it, and it took over the world.
Marc:Did you get compensated?
Guest:We got a few bucks out of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I imagine that.
Marc:I assume since it's on a million times a month, even if you make a nickel, you do okay.
Guest:But it's really not like that because it's a, you know, I'm not complaining.
Guest:It's a cable.
Guest:So, you know, it's not like, you know, my boy Danny Elfman gets that Simpsons check every time Fox, because that's a network.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So.
Marc:What about Danny Elfman?
Marc:He's a guy, do you like him?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I haven't talked to him in many years, but we were buddies there for a while.
Marc:Because it seemed like he came into, like, the list I went through when I was kind of thinking about you was, for some reason, the Church of the Subgenius, Zappa, Beefheart, Baloo, Pink Floyd, Ween, Waits, and Danny Elfman.
Guest:That's a good list.
Yeah.
Marc:But Elfman does it.
Guest:You got to put Evil Knievel on there.
Guest:Oh, Evil Knievel.
Guest:I had the poster.
Guest:You must have the poster.
Guest:We were the same age.
Marc:Well, I remember the disappointment and the strangeness of the Snake Canyon thing.
Guest:So, let's talk about this.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:What was the big disappointment for you?
Marc:Well, the whole thing I remember – I don't even remember what year that was.
Marc:But I knew, like, there was no way a motorcycle was going to get over that thing.
Marc:And I knew whatever the hell that thing was that he had built to get over it, you know, it didn't look like it was going to make it over.
Marc:And I just – the whole thing seemed like a poorly thought out undertaking and it looked like it was designed to fail.
Marc:And then when you just see that parachute –
Marc:With that rocket ship, right?
Marc:Am I thinking of it right?
Guest:Well, I think you thought of it way different than I did.
Guest:I thought it was the greatest thing that was ever going to happen in the world.
Guest:And it was on Wide Wild World of Sports or something.
Guest:And unless you bought the pay-per-view or whatever it was, closed-circuit TV back then, we had to wait two weeks to see it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in fact, my dad lives near Twin Falls, and I was driving over the bridge one day, you know, a handful of years ago.
Guest:I'm like, what the hell?
Guest:And the mound is still there that they had built that thing on.
Guest:I used to draw those little ramps on my notebooks and shit.
Guest:And my big disappointment in that was...
Guest:From what I remember, and this could be clouded childhood memory thing, but it seems pretty, is when they pulled him out of the water, he had urinated himself.
Guest:And that just bummed me out.
Marc:How could you tell he urinated himself?
Marc:Did they say it?
Guest:Somebody said it.
Guest:It was a thing.
Guest:I mean, maybe I'm wrong all these years, but that's been sticking with me this whole time.
Guest:Like, ah, evil.
Marc:Yeah, but the guy had broken every bone in his body.
Marc:I'm sure he was barely working as a body.
Marc:But, like, I get it.
Marc:Yeah, it was a little embarrassing.
Guest:You don't want your, you know.
Guest:I've never seen Geddy Lee wet himself, you know.
Guest:And I hung out with that guy in some pretty heavy-duty situations.
Marc:Give it time.
Marc:We're all getting older.
Guest:That's very true.
Marc:But did the South Park song give you some freedom to continue the life you wanted to live?
Guest:No, no, it's not even close to that.
Guest:Like I said, because it was cable.
Guest:It's a nice little thing that pops in once in a while.
Guest:But now, I mean, I'm assuming that's why all these guys are on strike right now is because all that residual stuff's gone.
Guest:Now everything's streaming, so you don't see anything from that.
Guest:So what is he- But look, I'm not complaining.
Guest:A, first of all, they've become wonderful, wonderful friends of ours.
Guest:Matt is literally one of my favorite people.
Guest:We just did that thing with him and Trey.
Guest:It's been a wonderful association.
Guest:It's a wonderful thing.
Guest:Two guys that have been able to open that many doors, push that many parameters, and become that huge.
Guest:The world needs guys like that.
Guest:And I'm proud to say they're my buddies.
Marc:Yeah, apparently the show is still pretty good when it nails it.
Guest:How do you maintain relevance for that long?
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:It's one of those things that I think it's a rites of passage for kids.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:Oh, one of the most awkward moments in my life was watching the first one of the... So here's, if you've got time.
Guest:Yeah, I've got time.
So...
Guest:Years ago, when my son was about 14, he's 27 now, we did a gig in Brooklyn.
Guest:And there's Matt and Trey were there and we're hanging out backstage.
Guest:And somehow they're talking about, Cage starts talking about Family Guy.
Guest:And they look at him and go, oh, so what do you think of South Park?
Guest:And he's like, oh, well, I'm not allowed to watch South Park.
Guest:And it was like their heads were on a same servo.
Guest:They just both went and looked right at me like, what the fuck, dude?
Guest:And I'm all, hey.
Guest:Hey, it's getting a little warm in here, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went home and Cage got to watch his first episode of South Park with me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm sitting there with my 14-year-old son.
Guest:And it just happened to be that episode where one of the guy's dads, I can't remember which one, would sneak off to the steam baths.
Marc:Yeah, the gay bar one.
Guest:To get screwed in the ass by another character.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I'm watching this with my 14-year-old son going, you know, I'm going, fuck.
Guest:I'll get you someday.
Marc:You got through it?
Guest:Made it through.
Guest:Did the kid get some laughs?
Guest:He got some laughs.
Guest:That's part of the thing.
Guest:Our kids are supposed to do something that shocks the previous generation.
Marc:You're kind of a goofball.
Marc:You're just not a dirty goofball.
Guest:I can get dirty.
Marc:So how do these different configurations of people that you name as bands, do you feel like they're all fundamentally different music or do you feel like it's just an extension of what you do?
Guest:I think it's like you having guys on the show and gals.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Every conversation is different.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and there's an element, there's a thread that goes through that's consistent because you're who you are.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, you know, music is a conversation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the more varied and the more diverse the background or different from you that the other conversationalist is...
Guest:the more varied that conversation.
Marc:It's so weird to listen to, like, the Claypool-Lennon delirium because, like, you know, Sean sounds like his dad.
Marc:And, you know, and I talked to him about this, and it seems like the way you guys play together, you know, chord structure-wise and in terms of the production, there's definitely, you know, other than his voice, more than just that Beatles element to it.
Marc:Do you feel that?
Guest:I definitely do, but I'm also...
Guest:I'm not so much anymore, but I was very surprised how much of his mom is in this stuff.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Guest:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because she's the one, I mean, she's the one that turned John into what he became.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She's like a sort of boss artist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Real risk taker.
Guest:And you can see that in Shiner as well.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But there have been moments.
Guest:There was one time because he doesn't really like to play the Beatles stuff so much because and this is another thing I learned is, you know, most most people and I was guilty of it as well.
Guest:Look at someone like Sean and now Harry Waters is in my band.
Marc:Who's that?
Guest:Roger's son.
Marc:No kidding.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And.
Guest:You think, oh, all the doors open for these guys.
Guest:It's the polar opposite.
Marc:It's a weight.
Guest:They get more scrutiny than any of us that started with a clean slate.
Guest:And I saw that when we went and saw Paul's son play at a little club one place.
Guest:And it was the people that came to hear Paul McCartney.
Guest:And they got this guy who was cool, but it was more grungy.
Guest:And I could just see him like...
Guest:Oh, the apple didn't fall close to that tree.
Guest:And I'm sure Shiner gets that, too.
Guest:If you're Mozart's son, what the hell are you going to do?
Guest:That's a big shadow.
Guest:And Harry is Beethoven's son.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I talked to – who said it?
Marc:It was Duncan Jones, Bowie's kid, said that it's kind of a small club.
Marc:Because when I was talking to Sean, literally his phone rang, and it was Paul McCartney's kid.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, the wonderful thing about Shiner, and we've become – he's like my brother.
Guest:He literally – him and my kids, you know, him and my daughter bicker with each other like they're siblings.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's very close to my family.
Guest:And –
Guest:So we were having a talk one day and somehow it came up about, you know, because he's met my dad and we're talking about my dad and how close I was and what a good dad he was.
Guest:And I was like, and I said to him, I said, so for you, then who was like your father?
Guest:And he kind of thinks about it for a second and does the big shiner, big eyes.
Guest:And he goes, you know, it would probably be like, you know, either David Bowie or Andy Warhol.
Guest:And I was like, who the fuck says that?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's like his reality growing up is so different than the rest of our reality.
Guest:Yet he is one of the most humble, down to earth, approachable people in any form of celebrity that I've ever met.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And how do you work with him?
Marc:Do you guys co-write at all?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you just jam and figure it out?
Guest:Well, usually, the whole thing started because his band opened for Ghost, Ghost of a Seperture Tiger, opened for Primus.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one day, I was twanging away on this dobro bass that I have, and he had an acoustic guitar, and we kind of went in the back of the bus, and interesting things were happening.
Guest:Like, it wasn't just...
Guest:It wasn't just average shit.
Guest:That's why I think the Yoko thing, because there's this angular stuff was coming out of him.
Guest:I was like, whoa.
Guest:And so I said, let's get together sometime, come out to Rancho.
Guest:I got my place, Rancho Relaxo.
Guest:And let's see what happens.
Guest:And he came up, and we started working on the first Delirium record.
Guest:And he brought in a few songs, and I brought in a few songs, and then we worked on a couple songs together.
Guest:And that's kind of our formula, is...
Guest:He'll show up with three or four things and I'll have three or four things and we just start building on it and then bouncing lyrical ideas off each other.
Marc:So it's totally collaborative.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that the way it is with most of the bands?
Guest:It depends on the band.
Guest:I mean, a lot of the Primus stuff over the years, it either came from me or it came from a jam.
Guest:But later years, Larry LaLanda's been bringing in a lot more stuff, which I think is amazing because it makes me play differently.
Guest:It's like when I'm playing to support someone else's vision, it's much different.
Guest:I'm more like a Tony Levin.
Guest:It's much more... Whereas if it's coming from me, I'm... Up front.
Guest:Yeah, and I'm also feeling all the little bits and pieces and the grace notes in between, whereas if I'm supporting, I don't need to worry about that stuff.
Marc:So, and that's, it's weird because, I mean, you know, the bass is, I think, historically a support instrument.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I mean, that's the way it was sort of.
Guest:Well, until like guys like Larry Graham came along and, you know.
Marc:Stanley Clark.
Guest:Yeah, and turned it on its ear and you're like, holy shit, look at that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or Getty and Chris Guire, you know.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And Flea.
Guest:Flea, for sure.
Guest:And I always forget his name.
Guest:Is that Leroy Gorman from Bow Wow Wow?
Guest:I was always a big fan.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:The guy's amazing.
Marc:Really?
Really.
Marc:I just was listening to I Want Candy, their cover of that.
Guest:Yeah, listen to the bass.
Guest:It's insane.
Guest:It's crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, I mean, just kind of thinking about—because you did, what, three Weights records?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I think maybe more, actually, than that.
Marc:And how does that happen?
Guest:Well, so years ago, we had the song Tommy the Cat.
Guest:And we had released, our first record was a live record.
Guest:We'd put it out ourselves.
Guest:Money my dad loaned us.
Guest:And then with that money, we recorded Frizzle Fry, our first real record.
Guest:And we held off from putting the song Tommy the Cat on it because it was our popular song.
Guest:And we wanted to wait until we had a major label.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:So we saved it for the Interscope release.
Guest:And I remember talking to Tom Wally, who's probably the reason I'm still here.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He's from Interscope?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he, I said, you know, I want to do something special with Tommy the Cat.
Guest:Like maybe get someone like Tom Waits to be the voice of Tommy the Cat.
Guest:And he's like, well, why don't we get Tom Waits?
Guest:I was like, what do you mean?
Guest:You can do that?
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:What are you talking about?
Guest:So we sent him this.
Guest:I wrote this note and sent it to him.
Guest:And we were recording.
Guest:And I came home.
Guest:Laura and I were roommates.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I hit the, it was back when we had phone machines.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Hit the phone machine.
Guest:Hey, Alas, this is Tom, Tom Waits.
Guest:Yeah, I got your note.
Guest:Yeah, this would be a wonderful thing.
Guest:Let's do this thing.
Guest:I'm like, ah!
Guest:I immediately called, learn.
Guest:So he came and was the voice of Tommy the Cat.
Guest:And I ended up moving up, kind of, we live in a similar area.
Guest:And he needed musicians, so we just became friends.
Guest:And I've known his kids since they were little, and they're all, you know.
Guest:And they're neighbors?
Guest:I mean, neighbors where I live is if you're within eight miles of each other.
Marc:Well, yeah, but that's close.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he records at his place, too, right?
Guest:He has a few different—he bounces around.
Guest:He has his little spot now, yes.
Marc:But there's a possibility where he could be like, come over and play a thing.
Guest:Sometimes.
Guest:I mean, it's been a little while since I've gotten that call.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But we get together and do our things, and he's a friend.
Guest:Him and Kathleen are good friends of ours.
Marc:Yeah, and you're both band leaders, so how does it work in the studio with him?
Marc:I just sit there and just go, oh, my God, this is amazing.
Marc:I mean, it's Tom Waits.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Does he generally lay tracks down with all the music live?
Marc:It's different all the time.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He probably doesn't want me talking about it too much.
Marc:About his process?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He likes to do his thing, you know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I'd love to talk to him, but he doesn't do this.
Marc:No, he's Tom Waits.
Guest:He's Tom Waits.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's the Sasquatch of music.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, so the Frog Brigade, it seems like it's lasted in forms as long as Primus in a way, right?
Marc:It's been around a long time.
Guest:It's been around a long time, but, you know, the Frog Brigade is sort of an ambiguous thing.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:It's more of an idea?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's basically my solo stuff, but it implies that we're going to do some of the early stuff, which was some of the Floyd cover, which we did animals in its entirety.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You do Animals in its entirety.
Marc:Correct.
Marc:I knew that.
Marc:And you've done 2112 too, right?
Guest:No, we did Farewell to Kings.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So, like, Animals is, like, my favorite Floyd record.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:Like, there's something about the guitar on, I think, Pigs on the Wing.
Marc:I agree.
Marc:That's, like, unbelievable.
Marc:And I will listen to it all the way through every time I listen to it.
Guest:You have to.
Marc:That's the rules.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I taught my kids that.
Guest:Well, my son would listen.
Guest:My daughter didn't care.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But there's certain records you have to listen to.
Guest:They're like movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't watch Dr. Strangelove in bits and pieces.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You have to watch it all the way through.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I do it fairly regularly with animals, a few times a year anyways.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is it just your relationship with that record that makes you want to play it?
Marc:Did you play it?
Marc:How much did you tweak it?
Guest:Well, how much did we... Did you clay pool it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How much did we intentionally tweak it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, basically what happened is Primus broke up in the end of the 90s.
Guest:We didn't say we broke up.
Guest:We said we went on hiatus, but that was because we were too chicken shit to pull the plug.
Guest:But we came very close to not playing together anymore because we weren't getting along.
Guest:It just was a mess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there I am.
Guest:I was scared.
Guest:I was like, what the hell am I going to do now?
Guest:And I had done this thing where it became Oysterhead.
Guest:I had done this jam thing because my manager worked with Galactic and he was into that world.
Guest:And they asked me to do a jam thing in New Orleans.
Guest:Well, that became Oysterhead with Trey Anastasio and Stuart Copeland.
Guest:And all of a sudden I was getting asked by these different...
Guest:festivals to put together a project for their festival.
Guest:And I did this one.
Marc:That's interesting to have like a deadline.
Marc:To have to, like, you know, they want something.
Marc:You're like, I got to do something new.
Guest:Well, it's a jam thing.
Guest:They basically want you to come and jam.
Guest:Hey, call some of your buddies and get a good jam.
Marc:Oh, it's a jam.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And so I did one for Mountaineer, and it was Tim Alexander, the original Primus drummer, Jack Irons, who everybody knew from the Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam and Eleven.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then my buddy Merv on guitar and then Skerrick on sax.
Guest:And I was going to call it the Thunder Brigade, but Michael Bailey was like, ah, you know, you're the primus guy.
Guest:The hippies are already going to be scared.
Guest:You can't call it Thunder Brigade.
Guest:And I was like, all right, Frog Brigade, because it's Calaveras County, the famous jumping frog in Calaveras County.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, so then when Primus broke up— You don't want to scare the hippies.
Guest:Yeah, I don't want to scare the hippies.
Guest:So when Primus broke up, I was scared.
Guest:I had two little kids.
Guest:I had a big-ass mortgage.
Guest:And all of a sudden, this thing I've been building since 1984 was gone.
Guest:And so I said, fuck this.
Guest:If I sit around, I'm just going to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.
Guest:So I got all my favorite musicians together, stuck them in this old Airstream motorhome that I had, and we drove up and down the coast playing bars.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I got a keyboardist.
Guest:It was Jeff Cometti.
Guest:And I said, if I ever have a keyboardist, I want to play Pigs because it's my favorite Floyd song.
Guest:So we learned Pigs.
Guest:And I thought, well, shit, let's learn the whole record.
Guest:Then we don't have to pay an opening band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we just do two sets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's how it all started.
Guest:And then we recorded it years ago and it won a jammy.
Guest:And now we're doing it.
Marc:It's available on record?
Marc:Your Animals?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's live frogs set one.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:But I think we're going to release another version, because I think it's better now, to be honest with you.
Guest:Your animals?
Guest:The animals with this band.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Well, first of all, this band is really spectacular.
Guest:Who's in this one?
Guest:It's Sean Lennon on guitar.
Guest:This is Frog Brigade.
Guest:This is Frog Brigade, right.
Guest:This is the current touring.
Guest:Harry Waters on keys.
Guest:That's Roger's kid.
Guest:Correct.
Guest:Is he mad at his dad?
Guest:I don't know if I should go there.
Guest:All right.
Marc:Because I know Rodgers is mad at his.
Guest:Mike Dillon, I've been working with him for years.
Guest:He plays crazy vibes in marimba and tabla and amazing junkyard percussion.
Marc:Who's that guy?
Marc:Is he just a guy you met through?
Guest:I've played with him for years.
Guest:I met him through Garage Atoile when they opened for Oysterhead, but he plays with everybody.
Guest:He used to have a band called Billy Goat back in the day that was pretty popular.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then Paulo Baldi on drums, who I've been playing with for years, and he used to play with Cake, and he had a band, Deadweight.
Guest:And we were supposed to have Skarek, my insane sax player buddy, but he screwed up his back and couldn't do the tour.
Guest:So I'm like, holy shit, because he's my super solo monster.
Marc:You need that one.
Guest:And so Sean and Harry had to really step up on this thing, and I was a little nervous because I'd only heard Harry play parts, never really jammed with him.
Guest:And Shiner, he's always going, oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, I'm not as good as Buckethead or whatever he says.
Guest:He's Mr. Humble Mumble.
Guest:And they both really have stepped up on this shit.
Guest:It's a really amazing band.
Guest:Incredible band.
Guest:One of the best bands I've ever had.
Marc:And you're doing the whole album again.
Guest:Correct.
Guest:Well, only through this next tour.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:We're doing an evening.
Guest:We just did a two-month tour with an opening band.
Guest:We had Fishbone on a part of it.
Guest:We had Remain in Light on a lot of it.
Guest:Neil Francis, Witch.
Marc:Neil Francis, he does that New Orleans rock thing.
Marc:I like that guy.
Guest:He has a whammy bar on his clavinet, which is really cool.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But this next time we're going out, we've realized we want to do a much longer set.
Guest:So we're just doing an evening with.
Guest:So you're going to get a shitload of frog music.
Marc:So not just animals.
Guest:Animals and then a bunch of other stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when you did, now, have you heard from Roger about your animals?
Marc:No.
Guest:I don't know if I want to hear from Rogers about my animals.
Marc:Nor Gilmore or anybody?
Guest:No.
Yeah.
Marc:I like Gilmore the way he plays guitar.
Guest:No, look, those guys are heroes of mine, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Are you a metal guy?
Marc:M-E-D-D-L-E?
Marc:Oh, yeah, of course.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Because that sounds like the one, right?
Marc:I mean, in a way.
Marc:It's not animals, but I mean, in terms of I could see that being inspiring somehow.
Marc:That bass is heavy in that.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, that whole album is unbelievable.
Guest:I mean, it's hard to pick a bad Floyd.
Marc:Were you a Barrett Floyd guy, too?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, not as much as my youth.
Marc:What you grew up with.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But yeah, of course.
Guest:I mean, I even liked Momentary Lapse of Reason, which I get shit for.
Marc:There's like two big songs on there, isn't there?
Guest:It's a great record.
Guest:I mean, Tony Levin's on it.
Guest:Yeah, what's your relationship with Crimson?
Guest:Well, obviously Adrian's a buddy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, me and Sean play some early Crimson in Delirium.
Guest:We do Court of the Crimson King.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Because he was always an early Crimson.
Guest:I turned him on to 80s Crimson.
Guest:He turned me on to early Crimson because I didn't really listen to much early Crimson.
Marc:You just listened to blue Crimson?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:That was my shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, do you fly fish, right?
Marc:I do.
Marc:Do you tie flies?
Marc:I used to.
Marc:You don't do it anymore?
No.
Guest:It's easier just to buy them.
Guest:But, you know, I have all my fly tying stuff.
Guest:I just haven't done it in a long time.
Marc:Yeah, make the little woolly worms.
Guest:I made all kinds of shit.
Guest:When we were touring in the early days, we had this motorhome.
Guest:And we'd do shows.
Guest:And me and Lerr were always wide awake after shows.
Guest:So we would drive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And while everybody else slept and we had a beatbox between us with headphones.
Guest:We usually listen to Floyd.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he'd be driving and I would hang a mag light from the visor and clamp my fly clamp to the glove box lid and tie flies all night.
Guest:Usually stoned out of my mind.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I did it at camp.
Marc:You got to be careful because you can snap the fly and it's just a shred of garbage.
Marc:Like if you whip it too hard, it'll pop the fly apart.
Marc:Have you noticed that?
Marc:You're better at that.
Guest:That sounds like some, you know, a little practice there, buddy.
Guest:Yeah, while I was a kid.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, actually, in fact, this last tour, that was one of the saving graces.
Guest:After about six weeks, it was a great band, but it was like, shit, I want to be home.
Guest:But we had three days off in Montana, and I have a couple really good buddies.
Guest:My buddy used to have a TV show.
Guest:He took me.
Guest:It's called Fly Fishing the World.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he has a fish camp there near Butte, I think.
Guest:It's a big hole river.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We spent three days fishing.
Guest:Shiner came too.
Marc:Did he like it?
Guest:It was amazing.
Marc:Oh, yeah, he enjoys it.
Marc:In a river or a lake?
Marc:It was a river.
Marc:Oh, that seems hard.
Marc:Did you catch any?
Guest:Oh, yeah, tons.
Guest:We were drifting, you know.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:In fact, whenever I go through Missoula, that's the Blackfoot, whereas that river runs through it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Norman McClain, all that stuff.
Marc:That's the fly fishing paradise?
Guest:It's pretty sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you're just touring, and that's what's going on, and you're recording with Billy?
Guest:There's a half-finished project with Billy, but like I said, we always end up fishing.
Guest:And then we're almost done with this Delirium record, actually.
Guest:We just need to kind of get together.
Marc:What's this, the fourth one?
Guest:This will be the third real one.
Guest:We did a couple of covers right now.
Guest:Yeah, so we've got to finish that up.
Marc:And what was that thing you did in support of Ukraine with Gogol Bordello guy?
Guest:Well, so when all that was first going down, I would go back and forth with Eugene because a couple of good friends of ours are from Poland.
Guest:And so there was this worry about, oh, Poland's next and what's going on and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And they're good buddies with Eugene as well.
Guest:Eugene Hutz from Google.
Guest:So we're going texting back and forth and I was kind of drunk and he was kind of drunk.
Guest:I'm like, we need to get, you know, because we were all blown away by Zelensky.
Guest:Just, yeah, just the fortitude of this guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't need a ride.
Guest:I need some weapons.
Guest:It's like, give me liberty or give me death.
Guest:That's a pretty good quote.
Guest:So I was joking.
Guest:I was like, we should do a song.
Guest:This guy's got some big balls.
Guest:He's got iron balls.
Guest:And so he's like, yeah, let's do it.
Guest:So we wrote this song, The Man with the Iron Balls, and Shiner's on it.
Guest:Billy's actually on it as well.
Guest:And we just did it.
Marc:And the conspiranoid thing, was that like a reaction to the current political situation?
Guest:I mean, it's a reaction to, I mean, I don't know how it is with your friends or relatives.
Guest:You know, there's, there's just people that I, I, it's gotten better now, but especially after, during and immediately after COVID, it was very, very difficult to talk to some of my friends and relatives and whatnot.
Marc:You had friends who went Q?
Guest:I don't know if they went Q, but they went, you know... Yeah.
Guest:They went P. They went a little pre-Q.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just a lot of just all this conspiracy shit that's not necessarily based in any... You know, I'm a... It always...
Guest:It amazes me because, you know, look, I play the bass.
Guest:I can do a lot of other things.
Guest:My dad said, hey, this bass thing is great, but learn a trade.
Guest:And I know a lot of trades.
Guest:I mixed auto paints.
Guest:I was a carpenter.
Guest:I did all kinds of shit.
Guest:Bench tech.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:I play the bass.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you want to know anything about the bass, Mark, you give me a call and I probably can help you out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When all this COVID shit was going on, first I talked to my doctor.
Guest:Don't always agree with him.
Guest:But then I called my buddy who graduated from Columbia Med and has been a pediatric doc in Oakland for the past year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's who I'm going to rely on.
Guest:Not my buddy, surfer buddy who read some shit on the internet.
Guest:I love him.
Guest:He's a great guy.
Guest:But I'm going to listen to these other people.
Guest:And they may not be right, but they're more apt to be right.
Guest:Or correct, I should say.
Guest:And I told my father this.
Guest:I'm like, Dad...
Guest:You were a transmission mechanic for 40 some odd years.
Guest:You're the guy I'm going to talk to.
Guest:You're a professional.
Guest:You dedicated your life to what you do.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You're going to know more about this than just about anything.
Guest:I'm going to trust your opinion.
Guest:I'm not going to just.
Marc:You're not going to say like, which, how do you feel about the vaccine?
Guest:Well, but that's, you get my point.
Marc:Correct?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I do get your point.
Marc:And that was what conspiranoia was.
Guest:Yes, it was some of the things I was hearing.
Guest:And so I wrote it and it was actually much harsher when I first wrote it.
Guest:And my son, who's become a really great sounding board for me, was like, you know, Dad, people are tired of this shit.
Guest:Nobody wants to hear this shit.
Guest:And so I made it a little more lighthearted.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:About Bill Gates putting microchips in all the chicken pot pies and things like that.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:And was that the first time Primus had been together for a while?
Guest:uh no we've been actually been around yeah we're like this year we took the year off yeah so i can go do you know you got to let it breathe once a while because a i don't want to be tired of it if i'm tired of it the audience is going to know i'm tired of it and they're going to go what what's this and it's just how many of the original guys just it's all three of us oh yeah yeah well original is is subjective right because herb is like our eighth drummer but right he's the one everybody knows from the first record okay now do you fly back
Guest:I do.
Guest:We're going to go get some lunch, and then I'm hopping the bird, and away we go.
Marc:All three of you?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Those guys just picked me up from the airport, or Brad picked me up from the airport.
Guest:And how long of a flight?
Guest:It's about two and a half hours, but we might do some.
Guest:So I flew down with my CFI because I got my pilot's license, but now I'm working on my IFR.
Guest:I don't know if you know what that is.
Guest:Instrument flight reference, which means I can fly into clouds.
Guest:That's what I'm working on.
Guest:I don't have that.
Marc:So you're practicing?
Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So I brought my CFI down so I can do instrument flight, which basically they put these goggles on me.
Guest:I can't see outside the plane and I have to fly at all with just music.
Marc:Oh, your instructor.
Marc:That's a certified flight instructor.
Marc:Is that what that stands for?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So he's hanging out at the airport?
Guest:He's at the airport.
Guest:We're going to get lunch and then we're going to fly back and land at a few airports on the way back so I can practice all this.
Marc:Did you practice on the way down?
Guest:We wanted to get down here.
Guest:It's pretty, right?
Marc:It must be beautiful.
Guest:Not when you got the foggles on.
Guest:All I can see is inside the dam.
Guest:It's literally like this.
Marc:But you do fly along the coast?
Guest:It didn't matter.
Guest:I couldn't see it.
Marc:Oh, I thought you said you didn't do it on the way down.
Guest:No, I didn't do any.
Guest:We didn't do any stops.
Guest:We just did from Santa Rosa to Burbank.
Guest:So I was doing it.
Guest:But on the way back, we're going to hit a few stops to get some more practice.
Marc:I'm glad I offered you this amazing opportunity.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:Killing a couple birds with a stone here.
Marc:Well, have a good tour, the rest of the tour.
Guest:Thank you much.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Les Claypool, right?
Marc:Again, as I mentioned before, you can get tickets for the Fearless Flying Frog Brigade tour at lesclaypool.com.
Marc:And okay, look, Mark Rebo, I've been a fan of for years.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So yeah.
Marc:So like two weeks after I talked with Les, it just worked out.
Marc:He was just off the road.
Marc:He has a new album out called Connection that he released with his solo project,
Marc:ceramic dog.
Marc:And this is me talking to Mark Rebo.
Guest:So you're back with Gibson's?
Guest:Not 100%.
Guest:But for the stuff with Ceramic Dog, I've returned, swum upstream to whence I was spawned.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why on that record?
Marc:What makes a change for me?
Marc:Have the entire spectrum of Mark Rebo sounds.
Guest:Well, you know, I mean, it's not... Actually, I went back after that record, to be honest.
Guest:Because... Just because... But when I tried to tour with it, I realized nothing else would do.
Guest:I've been, you know, like...
Guest:kind of resisting a certain straight-ahead metal sound for years.
Guest:But then I thought, why?
Guest:It's so much fun.
Marc:But it seems like that record, it's kind of interesting because you've done so much stuff over so long a time, so much different stuff.
Marc:But it seems like this record, not knowing a lot of the solo records, it seems like there's a piece on there that represents everything that you do fairly clearly.
Marc:Because I read the book...
Marc:and I can see where you're coming from, but it seems like every song on that record is distinct and honors some part of where you come from.
Guest:Yeah, it kind of wound up that way, I think.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you're a little older than me, but, you know, I get the sort of Jewish, Eastern European, Lower East Side trip.
Marc:You know, my grandparents spoke Yiddish, and it's like, it's a very specific thing, and I think one of the things that's beautiful about the book and also about the world you came from musically is that you...
Marc:you respect the sort of mystical reality of the Lower East Side.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's, it's more than a, it's more than a, an address.
Guest:It's a kind of a, yeah.
Guest:It has a kind of place in the mythology.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, but it's like, it's not just music.
Marc:Like it goes back.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Cause you do in the book, you talk about, you know, the Yiddish theaters and all this stuff and all that.
Marc:I became very aware of that, but I don't know the specific history of it, but I felt like I belong there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I didn't know the specific history of it either until I, you know, when I moved back.
Guest:And the funny thing is, like a lot of people, I said I moved back even though I'd never lived there.
Guest:My grandparents had lived there.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But it felt like, okay, I'm moving back.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:And where'd you come from originally?
Guest:I am from New Jersey.
Guest:I was born in Newark.
Guest:I was born in Jersey City.
Guest:Oh, all right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Homeboy.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But you lived there.
Marc:You grew up there.
Guest:No, I, well, my parents moved out of Newark when I was pretty young.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lived in Orange, wound up in South Orange.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you're Jersey.
Guest:Jersey.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Do you love Jersey?
Guest:Well, love would be a very strong and incorrect word.
Guest:I mean, you know, as we say, I'm from Jersey and I intend to stay that way.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:But you don't live there.
Guest:No, I don't live there.
Guest:And I don't know, like, again, it was a place for my parents, it was a place to...
Guest:You know, they liked some idea of getting out of New York.
Guest:They were from Brooklyn in the Lower East Side.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Either you go to the island or you go to Jersey.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But it wasn't a place in itself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was a place where you could have a bigger house.
Guest:And they imagined clean air.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they imagined getting away from crime and stuff.
Guest:It didn't happen?
Guest:Well, let's just say that the kids in my high school had better drugs than anybody else, anybody that I talked to in New York.
Marc:And there was also, like, you know, good produce in New Jersey.
Marc:That's what I remember.
Marc:Tomatoes.
Marc:Yeah, tomatoes.
Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:That's what they say, the garden steak.
Marc:Right, the beefsteak tomato, the big one.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That must be in a different part of New Jersey, though, than we were from because, I don't know.
Guest:No farms where you were?
Guest:Not too many, and I don't know if I would eat what they grew if there was.
Marc:Oh, I don't have any idea of the orange.
Marc:My grandparents lived in...
Marc:Pompton Lakes.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:That's a little more country.
Marc:Yeah, a little bit.
Marc:A little bit.
Marc:So when do you like... See, the journey of the guitar playing... You know, I talked to Les Claypool recently.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:And he said his favorite guitar solo of all time...
Marc:is one of yours it's on spike it's on chewing gum oh yeah like that like out of all of them that's what locked in with that guy crazy you start playing guitar regular right like normal guitar um yeah i started i mean when i was 10 i yeah i i didn't have much going on stylistic yeah well although who knows yeah
Guest:yeah so when do you start playing with people probably when i was 12 you know i i mean i think you know i learned to play i i talk about it in the book but like my teacher was a classical guitarist sure and a very particular kind of classical guitarist franz casseus was a still known as the father of haitian classical guitar yeah he's the guy like i had to go get turned on to him that happened for me yeah
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, everybody should be turned on to him.
Marc:But it's so interesting how that came about.
Marc:I mean, how'd you hook up with that guy, of all guys?
Guest:Well, he was a friend of my parents and my aunt and uncle.
Guest:In the city?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's like kind of a classic New York story because, well, it's a long story.
Guest:My father...
Guest:was a doctor, and he interned at Harlem Hospital.
Guest:What kind of doc?
Guest:General?
Guest:No, no, kidney doctor.
Guest:Oh, wow, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was like, you know, when I was a kid, like there was always these, he was doing research.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He did research on what later became dialysis machines.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:So when I was a kid, we always had to know that stuff in the refrigerator, it may look like orange juice, but don't drink it.
Guest:Be very careful.
Guest:Anyways, so he had a friend at Harlem Hospital who was a doctor, but who was also a jazz pianist.
Guest:And so anyways, they wound up at a party.
Guest:They met Franz.
Guest:Franz was looking for a place to stay, and my aunt and uncle...
Guest:connected him with an apartment and became lifelong friends, kind of one of these, you know, New York displaced families.
Marc:Yeah, but like his story is very interesting because he was sort of in exile, right?
Guest:Yeah, not officially in exile, but, you know, like—
Guest:Like, I don't know, James Baldwin talks about this, about having had to go to Paris in order to write about America.
Guest:And so with Franz, it was kind of the same thing.
Guest:He knew he wanted to write, to create Haitian classical guitar music, which didn't exist before then.
Guest:But he kind of had to get out of his scene to do it.
Guest:He also...
Guest:He was like the son of a mid-level civil servant, and he was in law school in Port-au-Prince.
Guest:And let's just say his family weren't too happy about the fact that he dropped out of law school in order to play guitar.
Guest:So for, I think, a lot of reasons, he wanted to get out of...
Guest:Also, he wanted to come to the States to meet Fats Waller.
Guest:Did he?
Guest:No.
Guest:It turns out Fats Waller died the year he arrived.
Guest:But, you know, he always wore nice hats anyways.
Marc:But it's so fortuitous in some – like how that all works out because –
Marc:Who gets that opportunity to learn that kind of guitar?
Marc:A kid from New Jersey, 12 years old.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And it's a completely different approach to timing and to rhythm.
Marc:And he's embarking on some creative journey that's ambitious.
Guest:I mean, there was this one guy who was in Haiti in the 30s who taught that whole generation to...
Guest:to play classical music.
Marc:Well, what made it different?
Marc:What made it, what infused it with some sort of Caribbean sensibility?
Guest:Well, he did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because what happened, I mean, it seems super obvious now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this was the time of, you know, the late 20s and 30s were the time of, I may be mispronouncing it,
Guest:but the negritude movement in the arts, which started to, you know, in which both in the Caribbean and Africa, artists, young artists were starting to say, let's stop imitating the European scene and let's start looking to our own folk musics and our own culture for inspiration.
Guest:So Franz did, you know, like for Haiti, you know,
Guest:let's say Villalobos had done with Brazilian music, you know, or Bela Bartok with Hungarian.
Guest:You know, he started to look at Haitian folk sources, you know, to inspire him.
Guest:And when you were a kid, how much of this is related to you?
Guest:Or is this something you had to backload?
Guest:Well...
Guest:I mean, I didn't know any of the, I didn't know the intellectual history of it, okay?
Guest:But like when I was a kid, when I was six years old, like, you know, in retrospect, Franz must have been bored because he always brought the guitar to like family dinners and would be sitting there playing while other people were arguing about politics or something.
Guest:And I would be standing there listening to him.
Guest:like I was just amazed by the whole thing yeah so I just I don't know I guess I just absorbed it somehow so you so you learned how to play on a classical yeah yeah but I didn't I didn't ask to do lessons with Franz because I wanted to learn I wasn't interested in classical at all at the same time I was listening to radio sure I wanted to be Keith Richards I still want to be Keith Richards who doesn't you know I've got three telecasters and then I got a Les Paul Junior over there with five strings there you go
Marc:But so what is the transition?
Marc:So how long do you spend with him?
Guest:Well, I studied with him, went into New York, take lessons every week for about three years.
Guest:But by the first year and a half, I was already, you know, I got some cheap electric guitar and was playing in a garage band.
Guest:In Jersey?
Guest:Yeah, in Jersey.
Guest:That's where they have garages.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:It's fertile territory.
Guest:The beginning of the garage band movement.
Guest:It's one of the necessary ingredients.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So you're doing the classical thing and you're learning, but then you're just doing the hits.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I had my friends, my band Love Gun.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was 1970-something?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was a little before that.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Maybe we changed the name to Love Gun later, but you have to be like a 15-year-old New Jersey kid in a garage to call your band Love Gun.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:What were you playing?
Guest:Oh, well, I remember actually the first tunes that we learned were Booker T and the M.G.
Guest:'s Green Onions.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Did you have an organ player?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, we did.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah, Saul Schwartz.
Guest:Saul Schwartz.
Guest:What's he up to?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think he became a brain surgeon.
Guest:But he's not playing, I don't think he's playing much organ.
Marc:So I guess what's interesting, given where you've gone with the guitar, is that you start off traditionally, other than taking lessons from France, that somehow is in your brain.
Marc:But then you're playing R&B hits.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're getting that experience and just doing the road.
Marc:So at what point does it start to shift for you in terms of expanding how you approach the instrument?
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, I'll answer that question.
Guest:But first, lest I give the impression that I had some kind of taste at the age of 15, the third song we learned was In Agata De Vida.
Guest:Well, that takes up a lot of time.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Yeah.
Marc:But to be honest with you, I still like that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:That fills out the set.
Marc:You can kind of go all the way with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Half hour if you want.
Marc:Oh, even longer.
Marc:Even longer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's not bad.
Guest:So let's see.
Guest:So you're playing with an R&B band, and you talk about playing with horns, which was kind of mind-blowing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was a life-changing experience.
Guest:Why, do you think?
Guest:Well, I don't know, because I'd heard these things on the radio, but in the little bands I was working with, we just couldn't afford to have extra members playing horns.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And also, well, to be honest with you, that particular band, I didn't work with them much.
Guest:I just substituted with that band.
Guest:In Maine?
Guest:Yeah, but it was an R&B band in Maine.
Guest:I'd been working with, you know,
Guest:other white hippies, you know, playing whatever we could play.
Guest:I mean, we tried to play Stevie Wonder tunes or something, but these guys, I think they were from Georgia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't know what they were doing in Maine.
Guest:By touring.
Guest:Yeah, well...
Guest:trying to live.
Guest:So you sat in there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, I was called to substitute, I guess their regular guitarist couldn't make it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, I don't know, it's such a simple thing, really.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just that I'd never worked with a horn section.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was that whole call and response thing, you know, like...
Guest:Like I felt, OK, this is what it's about.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Like the sort of dialogue of music.
Guest:Yeah, I think it's not, you know, I mean, it's communication between the players, but it's also kind of a theater, I think.
Guest:You know, I noticed something.
Guest:that like with blues-based playing, like usually the rhythm section is chugging along, playing something repetitive.
Guest:And usually it sounds a little bit like a train because that was like during the period that blues-based music was developing, that was what symbolized modernity.
Guest:But in music, it's kind of like that's fate.
Guest:That's the inexorable fate.
Guest:that's coming towards you, that train just keeps chugging towards you.
Guest:And then the soloist is kind of arguing with it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Or the soloist is trying to convince it to stop.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, like, you know, so there's using every possible strategy, threatening, you know, like, or pleading or seducing or begging.
Guest:And then...
Guest:Then at a certain point, the soloist realizes that they're screwed, that the train is not going to stop no matter what they do.
Guest:And then at that moment, there's the scream.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The final thing.
Guest:The final.
Guest:Well, then it, you know, then there's a little bit of whimpering and the solo ends.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, sure.
Marc:I mean, that's almost like, you know, Hendrix kind of mastered that in a way.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And that scream could go on for a long time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Go to outer space with it.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Like when you were a kid, though, who were your players?
Guest:Well, I saw... I saw...
Guest:I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I was at Woodstock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Me and Saul, the organist.
Guest:Saul Schwartz?
Guest:Yeah, who I mentioned.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were like, I don't know, we were like 15 or something.
Guest:And you went up there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's a lot of embarrassing aspects to this story because one of them is that we paid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We actually paid, and then we showed up on the bus with these tickets.
Guest:A couple of good Jewish boys with their tickets.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And the section of Love Gun with our tickets, and there was no place to give them.
Guest:And of course, we took the brown acid immediately upon arrival.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was kind of a big disaster.
Guest:So we lost one of our sleeping bags, and it was like really... So no recollection of the music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, no, I remember a lot of the music.
Guest:But by the third morning, like when we woke up and it was wet and like the place smelled terrible because the sanitation wasn't really great.
Guest:And it was like muddy and there was like bikers on amphetamines.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:throwing themselves into chain link fences and pissing all over everything so anyways we left yeah and like as we were walking away you know we said okay we love jimmy hendrix but um but but like if i want to if i want to hear jimmy hendrix at woodstock i'll just you know like get a bucket of mud stick my head in it and put some jimmy hendrix on the record player
Guest:And in the way in the distance, we could hear.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As you're walking out.
Guest:So I'm very sad about it.
Guest:I didn't know.
Guest:We didn't know what would happen.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Do you remember?
Guest:Did you see Canned Heat?
Marc:Yeah, man, they were great.
Marc:It's crazy, dude.
Marc:I mean, I watched I was watching some of the Woodstock recently, just the performances.
Marc:And I like Canty, but they were like a hell of a live band, man.
Marc:Yeah, they were.
Marc:That guy could do it.
Marc:So when do you sort of end up, you know, as a musician, you know, in that world in New York?
Guest:Well, as a biological human being, I wound up in New York in 1978.
Guest:I just got on the bus and came back.
Guest:And at the time, I just knew I wanted to work.
Guest:I wanted to play guitar.
Guest:And that was after you'd just been touring with rock bands and R&B bands?
Guest:Yeah, we had our local bands that, I mean...
Guest:In Jersey?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:This is up in Maine.
Guest:Oh, you stayed up there a long time.
Guest:Yeah, I stayed up there for three years.
Guest:What was great about it was we could work.
Guest:We worked pretty constantly touring around.
Guest:It was not great work.
Guest:It was like holiday inns, whatever we could get.
Guest:I mean, we'd play...
Guest:parties out on some island i remember waking up in a vegetable patch oh yeah sure uh but you weren't you weren't uh you weren't pushing the envelope no no no no i mean if if we'd been smart enough we would have been a top 40 band if we'd been smart enough to know what the top 40 was yeah you know we just played whatever we thought people wanted to hear over their shrimp boats you know
Guest:But it was great.
Guest:On the other hand, we played it for four sets a night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got your flight miles in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So for playing five hours a night, develop.
Guest:Yeah, those muscles.
Marc:That's how you develop.
Marc:So when you get to New York in 78, you've got no real...
Marc:Like, no wave had already been happening, right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, a lot of things were already happening, and I kind of didn't get them, to be honest with you, when I first arrived.
Guest:Like, who was you first here?
Guest:It took me a few years.
Guest:Oh, who did I first hear?
Guest:Yeah, when you got to New York.
Guest:When I first got to New York, what I was interested in, I went to CBGB's, and I was checking things out, and I heard Richard Hell.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I heard Richard Hell and the Voidoys.
Guest:I heard James Chance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I was in Maine, we had the idea that jazz was a music of freedom.
Guest:There was some dyed-in-the-wool, very good jazz players up there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I took lessons with one of them.
Guest:I took about 10 lessons from one.
Guest:A guitar guy?
Guest:Yeah, Tony Baffa.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And.
Guest:What'd he show you?
Guest:Well, he managed to condense about three years of Berklee School of Music into those 10 lessons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I guess I must have been pretty ready to learn.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so he showed me kind of the standard approach to bebop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is something that I never really... Anyways, I got whatever I know of what it's about I got from those 10 lessons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was never particularly good at straight ahead jazz playing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, I tried, I practiced.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In our imaginations, like, for those of us who had to play the top 40 stuff, jazz seemed like totally this other world of freedom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when I hit New York and I started to try to make that scene.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A different picture presented itself because, well, okay, it meant you go to these jam sessions.
Guest:You have to know the standards.
Guest:You have to know, you know.
Marc:So you're with the real jazz bows.
Guest:Yeah, well, the aspiring jazz bows.
Guest:And there would be a couple of real jazz bows.
Guest:And most were bows, you know.
Guest:Was it like at the loft?
Guest:I hadn't yet...
Guest:wasn't immediately aware of the loft.
Guest:This was places like, it was a club called Barber's where they would run jam sessions.
Guest:You know, I wasn't particularly hip in other words.
Guest:I wasn't listening to the contemporary stuff.
Guest:I was like listening to what aspiring jazz musicians hustle.
Guest:But eventually...
Guest:In the middle of that, I started to listen to go and hear these gigs, the Lizards, Arta Lindsay.
Guest:James Chance seems to be up.
Guest:James Chance.
Marc:He barked up that tree, right?
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Blasting away.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I started, you know, and I started to realize, man, I realized a couple of things.
Guest:One is that the world of jazz at the time, mainstream jazz, was very regimented.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Rather than being the, you know, it was like...
Guest:Rather than being the music of freedom, it was super regimented in terms of what you had to learn, what you had to play.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And when do you start integrating yourself into the world of improvisation?
Guest:That started for me, I guess, late 80s.
Guest:Really, yeah.
Guest:The way I would put it is more that it's a lot of both free improvisation.
Guest:When you talk about Derrick Bailey, we're talking about free improvisational music, which is different than free jazz.
Guest:But with both of them, they're music that involves process.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In other words, it's not just this thing on this record is this aesthetically beautiful thing that's there for your admiration that's perfected.
Guest:No, what you get in those improvised music is you get a process.
Guest:You get to hear artists...
Guest:Working towards something, you get to hear, and the reward for listening to that process of labor is that you get to witness the creation of something.
Guest:It's not something that some composer worked out perfectly beforehand or some effect that has been done a thousand times before.
Guest:You get to witness the creation of something new.
Guest:So even if you don't get candy every...
Guest:30 seconds, predictably.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's a special kind of experience.
Marc:At what point did you really submerse yourself into Caribbean music, world music?
Marc:Because it seems that, you know, in the story of you, that something fundamental shifted in your understanding of rhythm.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:I don't know if I could say that there was a particular moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, first of all, somehow Franz's aesthetic got in my brain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even though I wasn't really aware of it.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:In everything that Franz did...
Guest:And if he was playing in 4-4, somewhere there would be a little engine of 3-4 going against it and vice versa.
Guest:There was always some kind of implied counter rhythm going on.
Guest:And that's pretty key for, you know, for Afrological music.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And in another sense, also when I was living in New York, like from the time I was living there, like salsa and son and cumbia are part of the mix.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Either there, you hear them whether you want to or not, at least in the neighborhoods that I was living in.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So it was really, it was around, it was in your neighbor's, you know, your neighbor's radio, you know, on the street.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:At block parties.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was there.
Guest:And it also, it was part of the CBGB's mix too.
Guest:Like I was, okay, I was playing rock, you know, but some of the early CBGB's bands were also influenced by other Lower East Side music bands.
Guest:mink deville okay yeah willie deville yeah and interestingly enough the only cbgb's band original that was actually from the neighborhood yeah lower east side so they were super influenced by joe baton and this boogaloo thing oh yeah which was like a kind of uh you know attempt to like in between r&b and salsa yeah you know yeah
Guest:So there was a lot of that that was at the roots of rock and roll, too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it seems like even though you speak about rocking the house, that there's a good part of your career where you were just an astronaut and going as far out there as you could go with the right bands.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but that rocked the house.
Guest:I'm telling you.
Guest:I mean, I remember with Henry Grimes, with that band Spiritual Unity, with Henry and the late Roy Campbell Jr.
Guest:in it, and Chad Taylor.
Guest:I mean, we had people in...
Guest:Austria in some completely uptight mountain town in Austria shouting hallelujah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you got there.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You got to the place.
Marc:So it feels to me that you have a sound.
Marc:That there is a way that you play that is uniquely yours, which is ultimately part of what you're gunning for, yeah?
Guest:Well, you know, like, really, in a way, that's an after effect.
Guest:You know, like, I don't know, people...
Guest:I'm just trying to make whatever song I'm playing on at the moment sound sound good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and good meaning or I'm trying to make it into something I like.
Guest:So like if I'm working with a singer, like I listen to what the words are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what the words are supposed to mean.
Guest:I try to think of, OK, who are they?
Guest:Like, and where are they and what decade are they in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are they in a bar or are they standing in the middle of, you know, are they standing in the Grand Canyon?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And who would be the band that's playing in that particular bar?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who would be the band, you know, or what sounds am I supposed to be that are happening in the Grand Canyon?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, so I try to make it make sense like that.
Guest:And to whatever extent I play the same thing twice, which admittedly,
Guest:I do a lot but it's kind of a failure to be honest with you I don't like this idea that people go out like little capitalists building their brand like the style is something they own people try to sound good and rock the house and then if that I mean if I have a style it's mostly due to my limitations well yeah but that's great in a way but I mean
Marc:It seems like part of your sensibility is kind of, you know, a legacy of coming from sort of a radical Jewish, you know, post hippie place, a beatnik place.
Marc:And it feels like, you know, when you got to New York, there was still a few of them around.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You might say.
Guest:Because you worked with Ginsburg, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, when I mean, when you just said that, I thought was thinking that Hal Wilner would be one person who tried to who kind of tied together a number of generations of radical New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He seems to be like the like he's some sort of archivist with with a context.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and the context was like the Three Stooges mostly.
Guest:He was way into... Yeah, he was in love with pop culture of the 50s and 60s, but also like... Lenny Bruce?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you worked with him a lot?
Guest:I worked with Hal a fair amount.
Guest:He's much missed, you know?
Marc:Well, yeah, he was such an interesting guy.
Marc:What made him so interesting musically?
Guest:Well, you know, he just had a—what he liked to do was cross-pollinate different generations in slightly different scenes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so—
Guest:So on that record that you mentioned, the work with Allen Ginsberg, he got a bunch of post-punk people, jazz people of different generations and different scenes and put them in the same room and said, do something.
Guest:And we did.
Guest:That record, I think it's...
Guest:It was reissued as something else, but the original title was The Lion for Real is one that I'm very proud of having played on.
Guest:So what about all those years with Zorn?
Guest:Like, strictly speaking as a player, I always feel like I play better on other people's records, you know?
Guest:Just because I'm not so worried about, you know, there's a million things out there.
Guest:other things I have to deal with on my own records.
Guest:So I think without question, uh, so I worked with John for, with Zorn for, uh, for several decades really.
Guest:And you know, we're still friends and work together occasionally.
Guest:Um,
Guest:And I learned a lot from him.
Guest:His music is very challenging.
Guest:It's a real stretch.
Guest:I think I went blind from trying to read his charts that he writes with... I don't know if he... It's like one of those...
Guest:brushes with us with one hair or something oh wow yeah yeah yeah but and yeah very very challenging stuff so i i learned a lot and i i also think without question and he's very protean you know i mean i've said this before but like if i get a i don't do many film scores but if i get one like
Guest:I'll get it and I'll, like, worry about it every day for two months before I record it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Write stuff out and, like, you know, really go crazy.
Guest:When John gets a film score, he wakes up a little earlier that day, the day of the recording session, and writes it while he's watching TV and listening to another record.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He has composer chops.
Guest:Very rare, let's just say.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, he puts out, he's protean.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's a lot of work just to listen to, to keep up with listening to what he puts out.
Marc:But I mean, again, there was a few records there that I would just listen to and I was just kind of, my mind was blown.
Marc:He definitely kind of rocks the house with you guys.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:He always also manages to find great players.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it seems to me that you worked with Weitz and helped sort of define his shift in sound.
Marc:Do you think that's true?
Marc:Well... Was that Rain Dogs?
Marc:Were you on Rain Dogs?
Guest:Yeah, I was on Rain Dogs, Frank's Wild Years.
Marc:Those are the ones, really.
Marc:It seems like the end of the old weights was probably Heart Attack and Vine, and then he shifted into something else.
Guest:Well, Swordfish Trombones, which I wasn't on, was, I think, his first one where he really started to get into experimenting with a lot of different sounds.
Marc:Yeah, it seemed like your guitar fit perfect into that.
Guest:Well, I didn't play on Swordfish.
Guest:No, but on Rain Dogs.
Guest:But on Rain Dogs, yeah.
Guest:I really liked what he was doing at the time, so I was glad to get called.
Guest:How does he work as a band leader?
Guest:um well first of all he's as as a producer as a band leader yeah he's great to work with yeah because he kind of sets a vibe yeah or a mood yeah maybe on guitar maybe he'll play a little percussion but he'll get the mood going the basic rhythm going yeah um
Guest:And then he leaves it to us to come up with our parts.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he's kind of like an editor.
Guest:If it's not working for him, he'll let you know and you try something else.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he was always very respectful of musicians and gave us a lot of space to develop what we were doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also...
Guest:The way he works in the studio, most people, they know somebody like Waits as the artist, the person they see in the theater or they hear on the record.
Guest:But musicians know...
Guest:know Tom and other artists in the studio who take a role in their own production.
Guest:We know him as a producer.
Guest:So he was the one who was deciding on the sound.
Guest:And he's a very fearless producer.
Guest:He's not the kind of producer who knows what every microphone is and knows every compressor setting and all that.
Guest:But he's the kind who says...
Guest:I want it to sound like this, and he just doesn't stop until he gets a sound he likes.
Guest:So, you know, I mean, you were talking about Les Claypool.
Guest:We've all dug ethnomusic recordings and field recordings, right?
Guest:But Waits didn't just dig him.
Guest:He said he took the obvious step, but nobody else did it.
Guest:He says, I want the band to set up on my driveway.
Guest:I wasn't there, but that was, you know...
Guest:He once said one of the greatest things I've ever heard when someone asked him what his favorite music was, and he said an AM radio across the street.
Guest:Well, you know, that's kind of a deep comment because it's something that I think I have in common with Waits is that some people are dealing with the history of music, but I'm more dealing...
Guest:with the memory of it you know um so that's interesting yeah like I remember um playing on a record another record that was that's really cool is uh Buddy Miller made a record called Majestic Silver Strings uh huh and uh
Guest:You know, a bunch of people were on it.
Guest:Like Frizzell played on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A bunch of other great musicians.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we made it down in Nashville where Buddy Miller lives.
Guest:And, of course, Buddy himself is a fantastic guitarist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was listening to Buddy's tracks and Bill Frizzell's tracks, and they sounded exactly like if someone had gone into the master recordings of a late 1950s classic Nashville session and got the guitar sounds.
Guest:And I listened to mine, and it sounded like this crinkly, horrible thing, degraded thing.
Guest:And I realized...
Guest:they're recording the history of this kind of music i'm recording how i heard it on on like the radio of my mother's chevrolet yeah when i was four years old and got left in the car you know yeah that's the sound yeah yeah so what do you you're out on tour now
Guest:Yeah, I have been touring.
Guest:I was in the neighborhood, which is to say I was in Minneapolis last night.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And so I just dropped in to speak with you.
Guest:Well, thank you for doing that.
Guest:My pleasure.
Guest:Who are you touring with?
Guest:What is it, the trio?
Guest:I did a couple of things there.
Guest:I played with the Jazz Bins.
Guest:It's a great town for arts, man.
Guest:Minneapolis, the best.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And former home of the Purple Potentate himself.
Guest:Yes, that's for sure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I also played with John Medesky.
Guest:We did a duo.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:Well, I hope it was worth it, flying over.
Marc:Well, so far.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think we got your daughter sitting out in the heat.
Marc:It was good talking to you, man.
Marc:Yeah, likewise.
Thank you.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Double header.
Marc:Again, as I said before, you can get the Ceramic Dog album connection wherever you get music and big music day.
Marc:Hang out for a minute, folks.
Marc:All right, people, tomorrow for full Marin subscribers, we'll post the latest Ask Mark Anything episode.
Marc:We got hundreds of questions so you can see if yours made the cut.
Marc:And if you didn't hear the announcement at the top of the show, anyone subscribed to WTF Plus by October 15th will be eligible to win one of 30 signed tour posters.
Marc:Just click on the link in the episode description to sign up or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.
Marc:All right, this is my new guitar.
guitar solo
Yeah.
guitar solo
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guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.