Quotes from Les Claypool

You know, there are times when you play a song over and over and over and you get a little tired of it and you let it sit for a while. It's like, you may love eating sushi, but if you eat it every single day, you're going to get a little tired of it.

My favorite venues are the 2,000 seat theaters, like the Warfield. If there was a Warfield in every city, I would play it. That's all I would do. I love venues like that.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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'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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 had one guy pretend to be me, go to a hotel room, and tell the people at the front desk that it was me, and then he went in and stole all of our luggage. There's always that eager beaver that wants to be a part of the team and comes off as a sticky fly.

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

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.

You know, people would always ask me, 'How long is Primus going to go on?' And I would say, 'Until it isn't fun anymore.' At the end of the '90s, it just wasn't fun anymore on many levels.