N°91 PRIMUS - JERRY WAS A RACE CAR DRIVER

Les Claypool, Larry Lalonde and the returned Jay Lane are currently the three musicians in Primus band. They don’t have a particular style but the’yre definately rock. It all started in 1984 and the center of the band has always been singer Les Claypool and his friend Todd Huth. Since they had no drummer they came up with the idea to use a drum machine composing their songs at first. Later it  appears Primus always has a ‘drummer problem’ since the band would use five drummers throughout their existence of which Jay Lane would return after 22 years of absence. Primus was named Primate first but with a possible legal case above their heads concerning the band’s name they hanged it quickly to Primus. Lane left the band after recording the first demo ‘Sausage’ since his former band finally got hold of a record deal. As said he rejoined Claypool 22 years later. It took them 6 years and a few demo’s before signing for their first album Frizzle Fry. ‘John The Fishermand’ the better known ‘Too Many Puppies’ can be found on this album. A tour was the next step and their careers took off right after.

They signed a bigger label and recorded ‘Sailing The Seas Of Cheese’. The posted song is one of the released singles of their first big album. This is when they got picked up by cartoon makers such as the creators of Beavis and Butthead (for which they wrote a song for the tribute album) and, a few years later, South Park for which they wrote the series title track. More tours followed in the trail of bands such as Anthrax, U2 and Public Enemy. A few more albums would followed the successes and Primus even played at Woodstock ’94 festival.

Even though Lane already left the band in1988 he kept close to the project and in 1994 the original Primus band recorded some songs under the band name Sausage, referring to the first demo they made at the start.

In 1995 Primus released their fourth album, ‘Tales from the Punchbowl’ and the best known song on this album must be ‘Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver’. Again Primus changed drummers for the release of ‘The Brown Album’. It is said that the brown album is a referral to Metallica’s 1991 Black Album but that’s enver confirmed by any of the Primus band members. Primus started touring with punk band Blink182. Their next album featured guest appearances from no less than Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit) and Tom Morelle (Rage Against The Machine) and this album got them to do the 1999-2000 Ozzfest tour. For thsi festival they covered tha Black Sabbath song ‘N.I.B.’. Hereafter Primus’ existance took a three year jump to 2003. They felt like they needed a break and had a long one.

When they got back together in 2003 again they found a new drummer and after releasing a small nameless EP they went on short tours performing nothing but complete albums mixed with the five new singles. They’d tour throughout the twennies without recording new material for a complete decade. 

This new material followed only last year on the album ‘Green Naughahyde’ for which the original 1988 setup got back together to create a complete album for the very first time. I think I’ll try and listen to it soon since I have no idea about the sound of that last album.

The song was an easy choise to tie in the link since Poor Joe from Will Tura was also a race car driver just like Jerry. Joe died but does Jerry die also in this song? Dunno? Listen !