Primus will be reuniting with drummer Tim “Herb” Alexander for a series of upcoming shows, and potentially, a new studio album as well.
Band frontman/bassist Les Claypool recently chatted with Rollingstone.com about his and the bands various future plans.
In regards to Alexander‘s return, he offered:
“…A series of events has made the ever-elusive Viking known as Tim “Herb” Alexander come out of the forest, and he’s going to start beating drums again for us – starting next week. It should be an interesting experience.”
He later offered:
“…We’re excited. It will be interesting to see what happens next week, when we get in a room together and start making racket. But you can feel the excitement from him and the enthusiasm, which is great, ’cause you just didn’t feel that before. And for me as well, reading through the [yet-to-be titled] book as I have been, you become a little nostalgic for what we were in the “heyday,” so to speak. And then I had dinner with Geddy [Lee] and Alex [Lifeson] a couple of months ago, and they’re big Primus fans, but they’re bigger fans of the Primus with Tim Alexander. I assume they’ll be excited about this. [Laughs]”
In regards to a new album and full tour with Alexander, Claypool stated:
“We’re talking about going into the studio in November. But it’s all a little premature – we’ll see what happens next week. If we get together and things are just flowing like crazy, then I’m sure we’re going to hop right in the studio. If not, then … we’ll be calling Alex Van Halen. [Laughs]”
Alexander will be back on board with the band for their annual New Year’s Eve set at the Fox Theatre in Oakland, CA and will also be present at the bands 2014 “Soundwave Festival” shows in Australia. His return of course means the departure of drummer Jay Lane from the outfit, to which Claypool commented:
“It’s kind of odd – we love Jayski, he’s my buddy, and we very much enjoyed playing with him. But he has a relationship with Bob Weir that is very tight, and of course, they started RatDog together many years ago, and RatDog‘s getting back together this next year. It was conflicting with some stuff that we were doing, and so he opted to go with Bob and RatDog over the Primus stuff.
Just coincidentally, Herb had been peeking out of the woods and wanting to play again, so we thought, “Well, let’s talk to Tim about it.” So we’ve been talking, and it seems like he’s in a much better space now than he had been in the past. He’s got a little girl now and it just seems like he’s excited about playing drums again, which I hadn’t seen that from him in many years.”
Also on deck from Claypool is an album from his Duo de Twang project with finds him teamed with Marc “Mirv” Haggard. That effort is nearly complete and is tentatively set to be titled “Four Foot Shack“. It finds the pair stripping down tracks from Primus and more with an acoustic flair.
According to Claypool, there will be covers of Primus‘ “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver“, “Jerry Was A Race Car Driver“, “D’s Diner” and “Rumble Of The Diesel” featured. Covers of Johnny Horton and Stompin’ Tom Connors (see their cover live here.) The Duo de Twang album should arrive in early 2014 while their currently planned live dates have been posted here.
The chat also mentions word of Claypool‘s coming history of Primus book, the possibility of an Oysterhead reunion and Claypool‘s planned fishing series, Musishermen. The full interview can be read at Rollingstone.com.
