Les Claypool Quotes

Comedians get jokes offered to them, rock stars get women and underwear thrown onstage, and I get guys that want to take me fishing.

I've always said the bass just happens to be the crayon I picked out of the box. I'd still be drawing the same pictures ... should I have picked trumpet or accordion or guitar, whatever it may be. The sounds in my head are still the same.

If I'm home and I come up with something, I'll try to record it, but a lot of the time I'll forget to. A lot of things go off into space and never come back 'cause I just don't remember them.

Play as much as you can as often as you can with as many people as you can. That's how you learn and grow.

I love character actors. If I'm switching channels, and something with Slim Pickens is on, or Walter Brennan, I'm stuck. I have to watch it.

I have a very difficult time describing my music.

As I've moved through life, I've found that I like things to be as casual and as spontaneous as possible when writing.

The end of the Nineties was an unhappy Primus camp. I hit a creative stagnation that wasn't helping us forward, and the personal elements, it just was time to stop.

To me, if you're going to talk about funk, you have to go back to George Clinton and Bernie Worrell. Those guys are the giants. I've played with Bernie, and it was unreal. He's the master.

I'll run against the grain till the day I drop?

San Francisco is an interesting place. It's always been such a nice culturally diverse environment, which it still is, but there's a lot of money there now and a lot of dot com's so it's a little different than it used to be.

You might have a favorite book or film, but you can only watch or read it so many times before you have to let it sit and then go back and realize it's your favorite still. At some point everything gets a little stale and you have to step away from it.

We've all had our thing. I listened to the Monkees when I was little kid.

Oh, welcome to this world of fools, of pink champagne and swimming pools, where all you have to lose is your virginity. Perhaps you'll have some fun tonight, just stick around and take a bite, of life. We don't need feebleness in this proximity.

I didn't realize Metallica was as big as they were. I just thought it was my buddy Kirk's band - we went to high school together. I wasn't really following metal.

I enjoy my John Deere tractor quite a lot. It's a tool that I must use to keep Mother Nature at bay. I have all kinds of things encroaching on my property.

In the early days all I hoped was to make a living out of what I did best. But, since there's no real market for masturbation I had to fall back on my bass playing abilities.

I liked the name Frog Brigade because it lent itself to a lot of cool imagery with the whole frog thing.

I've never been on the cover of 'Tiger Beat' magazine, let's put it that way. But that's not why you go see Primus. You don't go see Primus to see what kind of new clothing I'm wearing or what my new hairdo is.

The bass is just the crayon that I picked out of the box. I'd probably be writing similar stuff if I played guitar or trumpet. The pictures I want to draw I do with this crayon I chose, which is the bass.

For me to do a project - I have a pretty successful solo career, so - for me to even want to do Primus, it had to be a creative step forward.

My heroes are guys like Frank Capra and Elia Kazan and Coen brothers and Terry Gilliam, more so than a lot of bass players at this point in my life. So I've always been an old-film nut and have very much enjoyed doing videos over the years.

To defy the laws of tradition is a crusade only of the brave.

Theaters are great. They're designed to sound good, not for basketball.

You don't go see Primus to see what kind of new clothing I'm wearing or what my new hairdo is. You come to see Primus for the musical experience and the visual experience. I think, anyways. Maybe I'm wrong!

The first film I made was when I was 13 and it was called 'The Dogs That Ate Detroit.' It starred my Saint Bernard Barney, and it was a killer thriller with oodles of special effects that were cutting edge for the time.

Because nobody wanted to play bass, I was instantly in a band.

I pretty much built a band out of the most incredible guys I could possibly find. I didn't really want a six-piece band, but it just ended up being a six-piece band because these guys are all awesome.

New Year's was insane! It was the best show I've ever played for New Year's.

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.