| Les Claypool is one busy guy. From performing calisthenics on his beloved bass guitar with infamous funk-metal trio Primus, to a plethora of side projects and various other media, he’s become somewhat of an icon in his own world of weirdness and geeky musician types.
Hence, it’s no surprise that he would inadvertently become the symbol for Primus and eventually outgrow those confines, searching for more musical opportunities realized in no less than the six various bands he performs with on an on-off basis.
Not one to remain stagnant, Claypool has constantly kept his overactive brain engaged and occupied, working on more and more musical missions over his 15-plus years in the spotlight.
But now he’s looking back thanks to his first DVD compilation, 5 Gallons Of Diesel, released this winter on his own Prawn Song label. Amassing years of live material, videos and guest spots on weird stuff like fishing programs, 5 Gallons Of Diesel is a spring cleaning of sorts.
Or so he says.
"I just had hours and hours of this stuff piled up in my garage," Claypool says by phone. "(The garage) is like, the place where you’ll find all of the tools and half-empty bottles of oil and piles of sawdust and nuts and bolts. Five gallons of diesel is something else you’d find laying around in the dirt and grime, so it makes sense to me that this is what we have here – something else lying around."
Clocking in at a whopping three-and-a-half hours, 5 Gallons Of Diesel is pretty much everything the most diehard Claypool fan could stomach. And while the source material ranges from stellar to suspect, and is less than balanced (some bands barely have a song on the disc while others are excessively documented), it strives to give the best possible understanding of this mustachioed minstrel’s life.
"It was actually quite difficult for me to find material from Sausage and Holy Mackerel (the listing is completed by Oysterhead, Frog Brigade, Colonel Claypool’s Bucket Of Bernie Brains and solo material) that wasn’t just usable, but I actually liked," he says. "I mean, I didn’t want to just put anything on there for the sake of (it). And some of this stuff is pushing it. It’s a step above bootleg quality to me."
Looking at "years and years of my life here boiled down to three-and-a-half hours," Claypool notes that it was particularly daunting to sit through his own mug time and again as well.
"Well, when you’re sitting there going over these performances, sometimes you get a bit nostalgic. You remember the fun and the feeling, so you enjoy watching things you may not quite recall."
Fair enough, given that Claypool’s bandmate roster reads like the melodic wet dream of fret-hounds the world over – Stewart Copeland (The Police), Trey Anastasio (Phish), Primus drummer Brain, Buckethead (Guns ‘N’ Roses), Warren Haynes (The Allman Brothers/Gov’t Mule, Henry Rollins) and members of Parliament Funkadelic and Fishbone are but a few of the consorts Claypool has fired off a note or two with. But he does caution that nostalgia is offset by the bitter pill of critique.
"There are some times when I was sitting there and I just couldn’t look anymore," he admits. "You really start to evaluate every bit of your performances and your playing. It’s almost embarrassing. But that stuff will never see the light of day anyway so I’m not gonna worry about it."
Maybe that’s why his hand wasn’t forced in the creation of 5 Gallons Of Diesel? While the DVD is a representation of Claypool, he wisely incorporated the help of talented friends for the editing and artwork.
"I had final say on this and I was a part of the majority of it, but I wasn’t entirely hands-on like I am with some other projects. I was just so busy with pans in the fire – I’m working on a movie, a book and obviously music that I want to put out… so I couldn’t give this my undivided attention. But it’s not like someone else did it and I gave it the stamp. I just had to give up a bit of the control and rely on others."
Claypool becomes most animated when discussing his current endeavours. In typical fashion, he isn’t one to look back. Or forward for that matter.
"I don’t generally think about things too much before I do them or afterwards, hence the backlog of material on the disc," he concludes. "If someone comes along and wants to play music together, I figure, ‘Why not?’ It’ll be an experience. Everything is and you can learn from it. I still have plenty to stuff into this noggin when I have the time." |
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