Though comedian Marc Maron has hosted his podcast for nearly 15 years with almost 1,500 episodes under his belt, last week’s episode with Les Claypool was truly historic. Per Maron’s website, the Primus bassist was the first guest in WTF with Marc Maron history to fly himself to the studio at the OG podcaster’s house in Los Angeles. It turns out that Les is a trained pilot with his own plane, just one of many fun facts audiences learned from the hourlong interview with the prog-rock Prince of Weirdness.
Claypool was ostensibly at Maron’s studio to plug his ongoing tour with his Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, the band’s first in 20 years. Claypool digs into a bit of the background of the Frog Brigade, which was born out of Primus’ breakup in the early 2000s, or what the band called a hiatus “because we were too chickenshit to actually pull the plug,” per Les.
It was around that time Claypool was asked to take part in a superjam with Trey Anastasio and Stewart Copeland that became known as Oysterhead. That’s when the floodgates opened and festivals began asking Les to form superjams for various events. The Frog Brigade first debuted at the Mountain Aire festival in 2000, though the group was originally supposed to have a different name.
“I was gonna call it the Thunder Brigade but [festival booker] Michael Bailey was like, ‘Ah, you know, you’re the Primus guy, the hippies are already gonna be scared, you can’t call it Thunder Brigade,’ so I was like ‘Alright, Frog Brigade,’” a reference to the festival’s home in California’s Calaveras County with its famous jumping frogs immortalized in Mark Twain’s short story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.
Claypool also dished on other contemporary projects, including an album he’s working on with bluegrass phenom Billy Strings. The budding friendship between the two seemingly opposed musical forces is an odd couple that has taken over the live music world like a jam-friendly Brangelina. Les and Billy have shared stages at Ryman Auditorium, Marin County’s Sweetwater Music Hall, and, most recently, at Billy’s wedding last month in Michigan.
The bromance began with Billy simply shooting his shot back in 2018 at Sugar Pine Music Festival when he used his setlist to spell out “LESCLAYPOOL.” Though he found it a bit odd, Les—who was on the bill with Sean Lennon as The Lennon Claypool Delirium—still took the time out to meet the bluegrass youngsters at the festival.
Fast forward some months later and—at his daughter’s behest—Claypool started a social media presence. Now up until that point, social media for Les “was going on Craigslist for Chrysler parts.” So rather than posting memes or viral TikToks, Claypool instead just posted fishing pictures. And in post after post, sliding into the comment section was Billy Strings, who eventually earned an invitation to go fishing, and thus a friendship was born.
Word has trickled out of a Les Claypool/Billy Strings collaborative album, which the bassist did once again confirm, though don’t expect one anytime soon because as he admits, “Every time we go to record we just end up fishing.” Maron, on behalf of curious parties everywhere, asked Claypool if what they’re working on is a bluegrass record.
“It’s some sort of grass record,” Claypool coyly responded, only furthering the intrigue. “It’s whatever you can imagine the mesh of these two worlds would be. But it is twangy, I call it a twang record.”
Also in the can is another Claypool Lennon Delirium album, which he says is “almost done.” Les also revealed he is planning to record another version of Pink Floyd‘s Animals with the Frog Brigade, following the band’s nightly performances of the 1977 concept album on this past Summer of Green reunion tour. A recording of the original Frog Brigade performing Animals can be heard on the 2020 archival release Live Frogs: Sets 1 & 2.
Related: Skerik Sets Sights On Fall Frog Brigade Tour As He Slowly Returns To The Stage [Interview]
Additionally, Claypool offered a teaser of an upcoming box set collecting releases from across his varied projects. Announced on Monday, Adverse Yaw: The Prawn Song Years box set will feature five albums from the Frog Brigade, Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains, and The Fancy Band. Included in the set are Frog Brigade’s aforementioned Live Frogs as well as the band’s only studio album Purple Onion, Bernie Brains’ The Big Eyeball in the Sky, and Claypool’s solo companion albums Of Whales & Woe and Of Fungi & Foe. Pre-orders are open here with the package expected to ship on or around February 9th.
The nearly hour-long chat contains plenty of other interesting anecdotes and tidbits including Claypool’s favorite guitar solo (played by Marc Ribot on Elvis Costello‘s “Chewing Gum”), the story of his first concert (Rush Hemispheres Tour at the Cow Palace 1978), and how he used to buy pot from a pre-Metallica Kirk Hammett when they both went to high school together (pot Claypool’s dad later found and called the cops on him for).
Check out the full Les Claypool interview on WTF with Marc Maron below. The Billy Strings album segment begins just before the 40-minute mark, with Les Claypool going into detail on the Frog Brigade at 56 minutes.
WTF with Marc Maron – Les Claypool/Marc Ribot
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