Primus, Over the Electric Grapevine: Insight into Primus and the World of Les Claypool [Paperback]

They were real musicians' musicians . . . Primus had their own thing, for sure. Nobody really does that Primus thingthey have their own personality, which is something difficult to do. Primitive, animated, dinosaur, Halloween, trailerfunk. I felt Les was a kindred spirit. Someone I could learn from and collaborate with. Quick, schooled, humble, with an amazing musical lexicon and down home as hell, with a bent sense of humor. There's an unbelievable batting average there in songs . . . There are so many songs that I like and so many different feels and so much different sh*t in there. It's a huge body of work. I was very enthralled by their whole enthusiasm at what they did. That was infectious. I think [Les] is one of the greatest lyricists in America right now. He has a turn of phrase that always just evokes a kind of hidden world. It's like Grapes of Wrath kind of stuff. It's really the mettle of America. Definitely one of the greatest live bands, and I think that is always a sign of music that holds up . . . It's very timeless . . . Primus was very influential in the formation of [Muse] and what our priorities were. It was '89 or '90 that I heard about them . . . I was fascinated by the band, but more so intrigued and mesmerized by Les, because he was such a cartoon character. And his bass playing was obviously phenomenal. At Phish practice, we used to listen to I just remember listening to some of those clips over and over again, just the bass solo, over and over again, sitting there trying to figure it out. Those records were a huge part of me growing up. They have a body of work that I'm always impressed with. Really, that's a band that never failed to deliver the goods on why you enjoy them . . . It actually gave me the feeling that there was some kind of justice in the worldwatching them ascend. It's kind of like one of those moments, like sometimes those things happen, and it makes you think there's a possibility that the universe can have balancl³æ