LES CLAYPOOL

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

I've just always had a soft spot for character actors.

Band chemistry is a tricky thing. If one guy isn't feeling right with the other guys, everything gets thrown off. When you get the personalities and the chemistry right, that's a grand slam.

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

I think the world is very much embracing this whole concept of musicians going out and playing their instruments and playing music for music as opposed to music that has something to do with some form of image or imagery.

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.

You know, whenever somebody comes in, in any situation - whether it's a poker game or a bobsled team or a band - it's gonna change things. And sometimes significantly.

I don't really listen to bassists - not anymore. When I was younger, I listened to those guys and was trying to figure out everything they did. Nowadays, I draw inspiration from everybody.

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

I've had fish come up on stage, and it's pretty disgusting. I try and discourage that. I discourage anything flying up on stage, actually.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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.

For the past couple of years I've been pretty bored with music in general... just bored with it.

I like to open new doors and blaze new trails through the jungle and all that whatnot. What keeps me goin' all these years is changin' it up.

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.

You can't watch 'Dr. Strangelove' with commercials. That would be sacrilegious.