Les Claypool

I don't know if it was the whole audience getting stoned out of their minds getting ready for the Floyd thing or what it was, but it was like playing to a painting.

Daniel Day-Lewis is my favorite actor walking the planet right now. He never ceases to amaze me.

I love character actors. If I'm switching channels, and something with Slim Pickens is on, or Walter Brennan, I'm stuck. I have to watch it.

I enjoy my John Deere tractor quite a lot. It's a tool that I must use to keep Mother Nature at bay. I have all kinds of things encroaching on my property.

It's always hard to put your finger on what it is that makes Primus Primus.

I'm a big believer in spontaneity.

I think the world is very much embracing this whole concept of musicians going out and playing their instruments and playing music for music as opposed to music that has something to do with some form of image or imagery.

I didn't realize Metallica was as big as they were. I just thought it was my buddy Kirk's band - we went to high school together. I wasn't really following metal.

Theaters are great. They're designed to sound good, not for basketball.

We've all had our thing. I listened to the Monkees when I was little kid.

Comedians get jokes offered to them, rock stars get women and underwear thrown onstage, and I get guys that want to take me fishing.

I never think about rhythm versus melody; I've always just played to what's in my head.

More than anything, I think the best thing you can do as an artist is just stay as true to yourself as possible and hope that your fan base will appreciate that.

I pretty much built a band out of the most incredible guys I could possibly find. I didn't really want a six-piece band, but it just ended up being a six-piece band because these guys are all awesome.

You might have a favorite book or film, but you can only watch or read it so many times before you have to let it sit and then go back and realize it's your favorite still. At some point everything gets a little stale and you have to step away from it.

To me, if you're going to talk about funk, you have to go back to George Clinton and Bernie Worrell. Those guys are the giants. I've played with Bernie, and it was unreal. He's the master.

You know, whenever somebody comes in, in any situation - whether it's a poker game or a bobsled team or a band - it's gonna change things. And sometimes significantly.

Music in general is looking for something new overall.

San Francisco is an interesting place. It's always been such a nice culturally diverse environment, which it still is, but there's a lot of money there now and a lot of dot com's so it's a little different than it used to be.

As I've moved through life, I've found that I like things to be as casual and as spontaneous as possible when writing.

My favorite venues are the 2,000 seat theaters, like the Warfield. If there was a Warfield in every city, I would play it. That's all I would do. I love venues like that.

I liked the name Frog Brigade because it lent itself to a lot of cool imagery with the whole frog thing.

I've had fish come up on stage, and it's pretty disgusting. I try and discourage that. I discourage anything flying up on stage, actually.

New Year's was insane! It was the best show I've ever played for New Year's.

Because nobody wanted to play bass, I was instantly in a band.

I like to open new doors and blaze new trails through the jungle and all that whatnot. What keeps me goin' all these years is changin' it up.

You can't watch 'Dr. Strangelove' with commercials. That would be sacrilegious.

For the past couple of years I've been pretty bored with music in general... just bored with it.

Play as much as you can as often as you can with as many people as you can. That's how you learn and grow.

For me to do a project - I have a pretty successful solo career, so - for me to even want to do Primus, it had to be a creative step forward.

I think Phish will come back. I just think it's time for a breather.

I've always said the bass just happens to be the crayon I picked out of the box. I'd still be drawing the same pictures... should I have picked trumpet or accordion or guitar, whatever it may be. The sounds in my head are still the same.