Interview w/Les Claypool, incl. Oysterhead
Posted: 31 Dec 2007 07:20http://www.jambands.com/Features/conten ... 0.05.phtml
[quote]RR: What about the origins of Oysterhead?
LC: Rick Farman from Superfly was a good friend of my manager at the time and he said, “Hey—can Les do one of these Superjams down at Jazzfest.” I said, “What the hell’s that? I don’t even know what that is.” It was kind of towards the end of Primus. We were in a very turbulent time. My manager said, “They book a club, you get some friends together and you do an impromptu jam. It’s kind of a free form thing.” I said alright but I didn’t know that much about this stuff but I thought, “Well, my old buddy Trey from Phish, he knows about this whole jam scene, let me call him.” To be honest with you, I still had no clue how big Phish was. I called Trey and said, “Hey, you know, I’m doing this thing down in…and you want to get involved with it?” He said, “Sure. You know I’ve always wanted to do a project with you and Stewart Copeland.” I said, “Well, I know Stewart,” because Stewart had produced a track for the last Primus record so I said, “I’ll call him up.” I called him up and Stewart said, “YES!” just like that over the phone—BOOM, he was in, he was going to do it, “let’s do this thing” and he had no idea who Trey was.
It’s funny because when we started hanging out, Stewart really had no clue how much of an influence he was on the music community as far as a musician. He just thought he was the drummer for this pop band [the Police]. He had no clue. After the Police, he delved into the composing world and pretty much stopped playing his drums. He would play every now and again and he was pretty clueless that he had this impact on
people. Oysterhead really pulled him out of his shell and got him back into the scene. He started doing these things and seeing these lines of people around the building to get his autograph and he said, “What the hell?”
So we all came together down in New Orleans and the tickets sold out in something like ten minutes or whatever. I don’t even remember. It was amazingly fast. We all said, “What the hell?” (laughs) We still had no idea how big Phish was. We got together a couple days before the show, wrote a bunch of tunes and went out and played this thing. Then there was the notion that “Hey, this thing’s pretty cool. Let’s do a record.” We just made the time to make the record then, the tour and then, Bonnaroo.
RR: Are Oysterhead on a suspended hiatus where it may happen again?
LC: It’s one of those things where we all really enjoyed it. We had a great time and we always talk about doing it, again but it is the matter of finding the time to do it. Stewart’s very busy, right now. (laughter) We’re all busy. We were talking about doing it in ’04. We were talking about doing it in ’06. We’ve been talking about doing it for a while but we just haven’t found the time.[/quote]
[quote]RR: What about the origins of Oysterhead?
LC: Rick Farman from Superfly was a good friend of my manager at the time and he said, “Hey—can Les do one of these Superjams down at Jazzfest.” I said, “What the hell’s that? I don’t even know what that is.” It was kind of towards the end of Primus. We were in a very turbulent time. My manager said, “They book a club, you get some friends together and you do an impromptu jam. It’s kind of a free form thing.” I said alright but I didn’t know that much about this stuff but I thought, “Well, my old buddy Trey from Phish, he knows about this whole jam scene, let me call him.” To be honest with you, I still had no clue how big Phish was. I called Trey and said, “Hey, you know, I’m doing this thing down in…and you want to get involved with it?” He said, “Sure. You know I’ve always wanted to do a project with you and Stewart Copeland.” I said, “Well, I know Stewart,” because Stewart had produced a track for the last Primus record so I said, “I’ll call him up.” I called him up and Stewart said, “YES!” just like that over the phone—BOOM, he was in, he was going to do it, “let’s do this thing” and he had no idea who Trey was.
It’s funny because when we started hanging out, Stewart really had no clue how much of an influence he was on the music community as far as a musician. He just thought he was the drummer for this pop band [the Police]. He had no clue. After the Police, he delved into the composing world and pretty much stopped playing his drums. He would play every now and again and he was pretty clueless that he had this impact on
people. Oysterhead really pulled him out of his shell and got him back into the scene. He started doing these things and seeing these lines of people around the building to get his autograph and he said, “What the hell?”
So we all came together down in New Orleans and the tickets sold out in something like ten minutes or whatever. I don’t even remember. It was amazingly fast. We all said, “What the hell?” (laughs) We still had no idea how big Phish was. We got together a couple days before the show, wrote a bunch of tunes and went out and played this thing. Then there was the notion that “Hey, this thing’s pretty cool. Let’s do a record.” We just made the time to make the record then, the tour and then, Bonnaroo.
RR: Are Oysterhead on a suspended hiatus where it may happen again?
LC: It’s one of those things where we all really enjoyed it. We had a great time and we always talk about doing it, again but it is the matter of finding the time to do it. Stewart’s very busy, right now. (laughter) We’re all busy. We were talking about doing it in ’04. We were talking about doing it in ’06. We’ve been talking about doing it for a while but we just haven’t found the time.[/quote]