Primus is one the most original and aggressive band of the indie scene. Les Claypools band has come back with its eccentric rock and an anthem against the sugar-pop.
In the Nineties, the most important changes in rock n roll scene came from its contamination with other genres, especially electronics and jazz. Not so many bands succeeded in inventing a new sound from the basic rock instruments: guitar, bass guitar, drumming and voice. Primus are at the top of this élite thanks to their aggressive and speedy rock, completely dizzy. The main feature of their music it is not the voice or the guitar, but the incredible bass guitar played by Les Claypool, one of the most charismatic character of todays rock panorama in the USA.
Learning the lesson of early progressive-rock and hard rock bands of the Seventies, Claypool created a brilliant rock n roll marked by his great talent of bass guitar player. A bass guitar that astonishes the audience each and every time.
Nowadays Primus are considered as untouchable, celebrated by the critics and loved by the mass, but also by their colleagues. Some of them like Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) and Tom Waits collaborated to their latest album Antipop. Its an heavier album, a reaction to the FM radio music of these years: a honeyed, boring music, Claypool explains.
Les Claypool had a previous experience with a band called Sausage, when he decided to found Primus in San Francisco at the end of the Eighties. The band included the guitarist Larry Lalonde and the drummer Tim Herb Alexander. Their debut was a live record called Suck on this, with an eccentric sound, full of energy and humour. John the fisherman and the hit Tommy the cat were probably the best tracks. After the cut of the following Frizzle Fry, the trio began a tour as the supporter band of the Janes Addiction and the Faith No More. In that way they conquered a new fame. But its the following Sailing the sea of cheese (1991) that gave the greatest success to the Californian band. More than 500,000 copies of the album were sold, thanks to its hypnotic sound, marked by a strong rhythm, a thin psychedelic atmosphere and the particular riffs of the slap bass guitar of Les Claypool. Songs like Here come the bastards and Jerry was a race car driver became soon great hits.
Surprisingly, the following year the band cut a cover album, Miscellaneous Debris, with songs of Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Xtc, Residents and more.
In 1993, they got a new success with the release of Pork Soda, dragged by the track My name is mud, and, two years later, the confirmation with Tales from the punchbowl.
The Primus albums titles are always ironic and biting, and their music is a sequence of variations on a theme, that gives birth both to songs format and experimentation. A sort of a schizoid hybrid between Rush and Frank Zappa.
The band became one of the main live attraction of the American rock scene, with its spectacular performances, full of genius but never pedantic.
Brown Album, released two years ago, hadnt the same success, the first falling in Primus glory. For that work, the band lived a little revolution: Alexander left the group and a new drummer Brian Brain Mantia joined the band. In the meantime, Les Claypool was mostly engaged in parallel operations linked to his own label, the Prawn Song (from the name of the historical Led Zeppelins Swan Song).
Now, Antipop, a sort of anthem against the commercial pop idols of the USA charts, is the return of a band that plays with energy its fascinating sound. A real model for everyone who wants to break the rules of rock n roll.
Bio written by: TheCosmicExplorer |
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