Is this band good: Primus
A regular feature where we—using scientific, circumstantial, and anecdotal evidence—determine once and for all whether a band is good
Welcome to “Is This Band Good?”, a semi-regular feature where I, with the help of a knowledgeable and accomplished musician, try to determine—quantitatively—if certain bands are actually good.
Check out past entries on Cake, Soul Coughing, B-52s, Ben Folds Five, They Might Be Giants, late ‘00s indie darlings, Social Distortion, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn, Oingo Boingo, and Hole.
THE DEFENDANTS: PRIMUS
Primus sucks.
Ask most people with discerning music taste. Ask most women. Hell, even ask Les Claypool, Primus’ frontman. They all agree: Primus sucks.
But this is the identity that Claypool and Co. have fostered since their formation in the mid ‘80s and through their prominence in ‘90s. For a long time, Claypool would introduce the band by announcing “Primus sucks” into the microphone. He said it in interviews. It became so prevalent that fans at shows began chanting “Primus sucks!” before encores. Primussucks.com was the band’s official website url for a long time (and one of the first websites I ever visited).
Self-depreciation and humor generally don’t gel with rock ‘n’ roll, a genre built on ego and self-seriousness. This makes an assessment of Primus a little tricky. If we conclude that Primus does, indeed, suck, is that just playing into their hands? Is band’s gives-no-fucks attitude a foil to petulant music critics who just don’t get it?
Objectively, Primus does not suck. The members—Claypool, guitarist Larry LaLonde (Ler) and drummer Tim Alexander (Herb)—were perhaps the most talented musicians of ‘90s rock radio, each of them somewhat a god in their respective vocations. Anyone even peripherally aware of Primus knows about Claypool’s innovative and awe-inspiring bass playing, but among drummers, Herb is often mentioned in the same breath as Stewart Copeland and Neil Peart. And Ler—a skilled shredder—shares the ability of other great understated musicians like George Harrison or John Paul Jones: knowing how to make those around him sound great.
This mix of talent and novelty quickly earned them a fervent fanbase around the Bay Area. They proved so popular that their first record, Suck On This, was a self-funded recording of one of their live shows. Imagine any band now with enough cult cred to put out a live record as their first album. Impossible.
The popularity of Suck On This paved the way to their first studio recording, Frizzle Fry, the first of what I’d consider Primus’ holy trinity, which includes Sailing the Seas of Cheese and Pork Soda. These albums show a band single-handedly forging a new style of rock music—a hybrid of funk, punk and metal. While Red Hot Chili Peppers (whose sound is, I think, the only thing remotely comparable to Primus) leaned right into the excess and swagger of hair metal, Primus went left, pulling inspiration from prog and classic rock. Primus’ eccentricity is not only obvious on the music, but in Claypool’s lyrics: most songs are stories that eschew typical verse/chorus/verse format, especially on hits “Tommy the Cat” and “Jerry Was a Racecar Driver”. Apart from The Hold Steady, I’ve often considered that Primus is our most literary band.
In 1995, the band had their biggest hit with “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” off Tales from the Punchbowl, an album that started showing the band’s psychedelic roots, and which also ended the band’s creative peak. After Punchbowl, Herb left and the band went through an identity crisis from which the band never fully recovered. 1997’s Brown Album was so sonically different from anything they’ve ever done that it left fans confused (although, Brown Album is low-key my favorite Primus album, which I’ll talk about later). And 1999’s Antipop was a mess that sounded as if it was trying to fit into the burgeoning nü-metal scene.
Post-2000, the band has made more albums, Herb has returned (and left) a few more times. For all intents and purposes, Primus has left an indelible mark on music, regardless of their current rate of diminished returns.
But who, exactly, is their fanbase? Who is still listening to Primus in the year of our lord 2025? Are they deserving of their legacy, or have they always been a novelty? Namely, does Primus suck (i.e. are they good)?
PROSECUTORS
Aaron Pores: Ever since I can remember, I’ve always loved listening to music and wanted to play it. I first heard rock ‘n’ roll just before I was born in 1981, when my mom and dad saw my uncle Tom’s band blast out their version of Voodoo Child. I don’t actually remember that. Laying in bed as a 5-year-old with my cassette player, I had a Chuck Berry tape, The Beach Boys Live, and Bernstein conducting the classic performances of “Night on Bald Mountain: and “Pictures at an Exhibition”—which I knew every note of.
In my adolescence, as the ‘90s turned from bad to worse, I also slipped deeper into alternate ways of fightin’ the man such as camping, camping-adjacent extreme sports, not getting nice haircuts or falling for other trappings of the modern capitalist state. I ditched most of my GAP clothes right around then. I also delved into any non-standard music that a young suburbanite in San Diego could find. My tastes were wide and nerdy, and I would try anything once. I gravitated to punk, and by that I mean the Cramps, Minor Threat, and down the proverbial hole I went.
I started a band around 1994 in my friend’s shed and we tried to sound like the Butthole Surfers. I believe we covered something from Psychic, Powerless… Another Man’s Sac. As it’s generally hard to be 12 or 13, I clung to whatever nerds I could cling to, and discovered more underground music that spoke to me.
This eventually led me into the San Diego punk scene and I found I had to bury my shameful ‘90s alternative punk-funk past in order to keep up appearances amongst the snobby elitists I called my friends. I have been in a handful of bands that played mainly in San Diego, including singing in Mannekin Piss (2000-2004), as well as singing and playing guitar for The Widows (2004-2021), appearing on three LPs and various other recordings. Years later, I enjoy occasionally revisiting old albums to pollute my mind with nostalgic ear worms or to cringe, quickly shut off the music player, and avoid making eye contact with anyone for the rest of the day.
Ryan Bradford: I’ve liked music for a long time. I sometimes play it. I’ve been in a few bands (one of which put out an album that I’m still very proud of). I also write this newsletter, AwkwardSD. If you haven’t yet, I recommend you subscribe.
BACKGROUND
Aaron Pores: I was first exposed to Primus by a summer camp counselor. That’s not a euphemism. Shout out to Scottie! He once met Les Claypool backstage at a show because they were both sponsored by Red Bull (he was a professional skier), and they bonded briefly over their shared love of energy drinks. I thought this was a cool story. Still do. Scottie was the coolest, therefore Primus was the coolest. Later friends made in the rock climbing community confirmed that smart, adventurous people liked Primus. Them and those hoards of backwards-hat-drunk-and-sweaty festival bros that were ubiquitous and horrible in the same era.
As I alluded to before, my Primus fandom went underground around 1997. I rarely listen to them anymore, but random parts of songs will play in my mind occasionally. I also saw them at SDSU a few years ago and I fell asleep for a large part of the show—a 20-minute jam session that included a very loud, bowed stand-up bass. I will own that was largely my fault though, but It kind of brown-noted me into a nice slumber. It wasn’t the first time I passed out a show, and it won’t be my last.
Ryan Bradford: Just like Oingo Boingo—another band I’ve been forced to assess for this series—I unequivocally love Primus. With the exception of Radiohead, I don’t think there’s been a band that I’ve listened to longer and more consistently throughout my life.
In 1997, I finished my first year of middle school and I was trying to forge my own music identity. Until then, I was simply happy to listen to whatever my older brother passed down. But middle school: time to grow up. Time to listen to your own music. Time to become your own man.
On one fateful weekend, my dad took us to Warehouse Music, which, if you remember, had a listening station where you could listen to any album in the store. This was huge, big time. Before streaming, we—society—wasted a lot of money on terrible albums that had one good radio hit. It kind of makes me sad that younger generations will never know the Russian roulette aspect of media consumption during that time.
As I was scanning Warehouse’s new release section, I saw Brown Album by Primus. Hm, maybe I should get into Primus, I thought (shout-out to being 12 and making identity-shifting decisions at the drop of a hat). I had enjoyed “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver”, and my brother wasn’t particularly interested in the band, and those two elements seemed to be good enough reasons to herald my independent music identity.
I listened to the full Brown Album front to back—a feat that I had never done at a Warehouse Music listening station. I was instantly hooked on the lurid stories and murky sound. The songs were equal parts whimsical and sinister. The low-end shook both my ears and my heart. I bought the album that day and listened to it nonstop the entire summer before seventh grade.
For Christmas, my parents got me this Primus shirt. My first piece of band merch. I only got to wear it a few times before I realized I had made sweat stains in the armpits. Not only a sign of my changing physiology, but an early indication of my pal anxiety, which has ridden with me since puberty. In a small way, Primus ushered me into manhood.
And during the pandemic, my wife and I listened to a lot of Primus and Tool (another potential Is This Band Good? candidate). Don’t ask me why, but, you know, unprecedented times and all. We were all doing weird shit.
CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
Ryan Bradord: I can see why people hate Primus. As Aaron discusses in the next section, the band’s technical prowess doesn’t always equal a good time. In fact, it can be quite grating.
But the question I keep asking, the question that prevents me from being a Primus ride-or-die, is: Why aren’t women fans of Primus?
This, of course, is a generality. I know plenty of women who like Primus, including my wife. But she and her friends grew up in the Bay Area, and that regionality worked itself into the musical DNA of her social circle. And in anticipation of the number of women Primus fans already writing to refute this stereotype, god bless you. All respect.
But the stereotype is strong enough to justify a Hard Times story (“Sure, I’ll Check Out Primus” Says Person on Worst Date of Their Life). And have you ever been to a Primus show? Very dude-centric. Overripe with the scent of weed and cum socks. I know it’s not the band’s fault who decides to listen to them, but when aggro and repulsive bands like Limp Bizkit have more women fans than you, maybe it’s time to reassess.
After years of unscientific research, I’ve developed a few theories as to why Primus aren’t popular with women—the main reason being the sheer nerdiness of the music. That’s not to say that women can’t be nerds or be into nerdy shit, but there’s something exclusionary to progressive and eccentric music that simply feels like it was made for and by dudes. You see this with Rush, The Residents, and Ween—all bands that have a similar “men working on their little projects” vibe. There’s nothing sexy about any of these bands, nothing really joyful. They don’t write songs with universal themes. Any connection with these bands—especially Primus—stems from admiration of technical skill and a warped sense of humor. Some bands are panty-droppers; Primus is a panty-lifter.
It also doesn’t help the band’s case when their most popular song is called “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver”—a track that my open-minded mom called “disgusting” once on a family road trip (sorry, mom, for making you listen to so much Primus on road trips). Claypool has always been twisted and mischievous, but with “Beaver” he turned women’s anatomy into a misogynist punchline, and that’s now the band’s legacy.
And that tendency to continually undermine themselves has kept Primus from ever achieving their full potential. There’s a telling story in the oral history Over the Electric Grapevine (which is not a great book unless you’re into the technical aspects of recording each respective album) where Claypool talks about performing “Beaver” on David Letterman. During soundcheck, they had worn regular clothes, but decided to bust out penguin suits for the broadcast. Before it was their time to go on, the woman who booked them saw the costumes and was “visibly distressed”.
“They had to take Ler upstairs and show Dave his costume before we were cleared to perform. It was so lame and humiliating. No one but the sound engineer even talked to us after the performance. It was as if we were kids that got caught stealing cupcakes from the cafeteria in school or something. Our friends and family all went to dinner afterward, but Ler and I were so bummed and shocked by the whole thing we just went out and drank. Dave was a hero to us. It was like going to meet Santa Claus, and getting assaulted by one of the elves. It sucked.”
THEORETICAL EVIDENCE
Ryan Bradford: I usually leave theoretical evidence to the actual musicians, but I have strong opinions about Primus’ drumming.
Tim “Herb” Alexander is, without a doubt, an excellent drummer, but there’s something so isolated and technical about his style that just seems slightly out of step with the rest of the band (throughout Over the Electric Grapevine, both he and the other members more or less admit that Primus was mainly a job for Alexander). Plus, have you seen Herb’s set? Fucking ridiculous.
On the other hand, Brain, Herb’s replacement on Brown Album and Antipop, just feels natural. He gels with the band. He (sorry) grooves. He also can do just as well as Herb with a sensible drum set.
Aaron Pores: Full disclosure: I love the bass, and I have played bass in a few bands. Any bass-playing frontman or just good bass player always catches my attention. That said, I’m not really into Rush—who I know the Primus guys love—but I am a big fan of Motorhead as well as the Minutemen, and also other awesome bands that just have great bass players like Red Kross, Meat Puppets, Black Sabbath, and Earthless.
I also do love me some country music, and Claypool and LaLonde’s incorporation of banjos, along with twangy vocal delivery give some songs a distinctly American feel in that boy-howdy kind of way. So, I gravitate towards at least giving bands like this a shot. However, I do have a two-second rule, which comes into play when something is so shitty that after two seconds I have to turn it off, and there have been lots of bands I’ve listened to for two seconds, and shut ’em down just as fast.
As a guitar player and songwriter, my tastes skew towards the simple is best motto, and real rock n’ roll and good psych are still what get me out of bed in the morning. Stooges, MC5, the Saints, Spacemen 3, Jesus and Mary Chain, Pretty Things, Neü, Kraftwerk, Can, Soundtrack of Our Lives, the Ramones to name more than a few. I guess I’m trying to establish some credibility here, but the fact of even participating in this process—to objectively review Primus—has probably lost me a few friends already. So since this article isn’t about my name-dropping abilities, let’s get to the defendants and see what kind of evidence is on hand.
Frizzle Fry, their first album is, as the kids say, an unequivocal banger. However, if you don’t like the metal or funk genres, and you take yourself at all seriously, you’ll get weeded out fast. It’s a niche audience, and the weirdly edited first 10 seconds of the album let you know some shit is going down. By the time you get to the jam/solo/freak out on the title track, you’re likely playing air slap bass, and your car is veering off the freeway into an embankment.
If you survived your car wreck, Sailing the Seas of Cheese is a ditto. There was at least one hit song, ”Jerry Was a Racecar Driver” but lots of the songs are pretty catchy, maintaining a heavy, low, bong-rattling slap bass and high speed, mathematical shredding. “Sgt Baker” is real stompy, and features a shout out to the film Full Metal Jacket in an obvious “yes he’s going there” way but also a “wow, he’s pulling this off” way. It will make you think, “Yeah man, the military is so lame, all those people following orders all the time.”
“Fish On” is a good headphones-worthy/spacey/psychedelic favorite of mine. Sometimes the production of different instruments is panned into separate channels and mixed so that the sounds float directionally, creating a trippy, disoriented feel. All the reverb gives it dreamy vibes. Les’ vocals are a turn-off for people, but I’ll insist he’s not trying to be annoying. He’s just kind of a loud nerd, as am I. His voice sounds like what you think your voice sounds like when you have to listen back to the outgoing voicemail recording you just made, except he’s proud of it.
The surreal lyrics border on comedy and in terms of packing a punch, for its time and place Primus landed a left uppercut to the jawbone on this one. But is it so dated or would a new listener pick up on all of this? Additionally, this isn’t exactly “chill” music so it’s best listened to loud, as well as when you’re in the mood to get a little goofy. Some men can’t even say the word. Goofy.
There are some impressively technical rhythms throughout these albums, but they all serve the songs, and what the songs on these first two albums call for is to rock. It’s pretty much unrelenting. Les Claypool wears a top hat and it’s ok. The drumming of Tim “Herb” Alexander and guitar player Larry “Ler” Lalonde are spectacular and stand out on their own. I’d say to a modern listener these albums might sound dated or derivative, but they were innovations at the time they came out. The ‘90s were like some kind of attempt at recapturing counterculture, so weird stuff abounded and this was fresh in its day.
Pork Soda is where the band starts wading into the realm of sound effects and meandering, slow riffs. A bit close to Mr. Bungle on some tracks in terms of harder to listen to v. this makes me want to put my head through a school desk, but “My Name is Mud” is still a solid listen. Heavy reverb on some of the tracks makes it sound like it was recorded in a public restroom, but again I believe that was intentional. Listening to it now, it’s feeding some ideas to me about production techniques, and I suppose experimental music is meant as much to influence us as to be enjoyed, one way or another. We can’t all be activists.
Next up, there was the—how could we ever forget this?—Tales from the Punchbowl album which pulled in at a higher production value than Pork Soda. With it came the shark-jumping song “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver.” That’s a catchy song, ok, and has some cool slide guitar, but you’re not going to catch me blasting that as I pull into the parking lot at work while shouting the lyrics out the window.
However, the song on this album that comes right after it is what I’d argue is one of their best songs, “Southbound Pachyderm.” In the world of song titles that seemingly are chosen like throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it sticks, this one stuck. The song itself builds slowly into little peaks and valleys, but never totally cashes it in with too obvious of a rock-out. It’s a dream that threatens to turn into a nightmare but doesn't go there. The vocals are sung more on this one, too, maybe serious isn’t the right word, but it’s got a certain je ne sais quoi. There’s also some excellent delay pedal use on the bass that creates a double-time undercurrent of the notes, but the song itself maintains a mid-tempo throb. It’s a good comedown after “Wynona” so the track ordering is good here (a highly overlooked aspect of the artistic process of album making IMHO). I’ll also give high marks to the mastering for the good low and high ends that scale up to full volume and sound as good out of my little iphone speaker as they do on my home stereo.
Then came the Brown Album. The opening track takes you on an excursion into the world of Southington Willoughby, which is somewhere between the Salton Sea and Gil Scott Heron’s beard. I’d say by now they figured they had their fan base, and pulling the stops out on taking the lows to extreme lows, the fast parts extremely fast and technical, scales up and down the neck, delay on the bass, and some otherwise very busy stuff. The engineering trickery again creates a certain mood, not totally all over the map, but definitely falling into “I’m going to step outside for some fresh air” territory. Very circus-y. They had reached their maximum fan base, in other words, and probably felt comfortable just taking them along for the ride if they had hung around this long. Me, not so much. I had moved on by the time this album came out originally and I don’t think it aged well enough for me to suddenly hear it in 2025 and think OMG how did I miss out on this? It passed the two second rule, I’ll give it that.
After Brown, their albums make ever more farther out statements about who knows what—perhaps the lyrics were based off of humming along with a riff that was written, then syllabically humming along through free association without any intentional message in mind. That’s actually a great way to write, so I guess I’m admonishing myself to not pay too much attention to what is being said, as much as how it is being sung.
Now, I do like the original Willy Wonka film starring Gene Wilder, but I’m having a hard time following Les and the guys down the path they trod for 2014’s Primus and the Chocolate Factory. I’m easily overwhelmed and it’s like, I can’t have Primus and Mr. Wonka simultaneously occupying my mind. It’s a bridge too far, sirs and madams. I concede defeat, I lay down my sword.
I’m sure there’s some value to playing the film with the sound turned off and listening to this album at concert volume while hanging out with your bros, but the song “Golden Ticket” made me invoke the two-second rule. Gotta draw the line somewhere. On others, they stretch the range of sounds available with their given instruments to the point that you can’t tell what’s what (is it a bass? is it a guitar? is that a keyboard in there or a sousaphone?). There is a guest musician on this album who plays some marimba and vibes, so maybe I’m literally hearing those.
On 2017’s “The Desaturating Seven,” the band is locked in, although the jams don’t build to something truly headbang-worthy. They sound again like their first few albums, but moreso. This album reunited the old lineup to do a re-imagining of a children’s book called “The Rainbow Goblins.” I don’t think my 6-yr old son would enjoy listening to this, but good on them for just doing what they want. Some of the songs sound like old Primus, and some sound like a guy playing with the pedal board at Guitar Center while the sales guy politely stands there nodding and saying things like “sick” and “I told you this is trippy!”
That all said, they’re still on their game, they never left it fact. I’m glad to know these guys are doing well even if my own reasons for liking them have been overshadowed by the many years in between then and now. Hopefully this sheds some light on the Primus legacy for this edition’s judge.
VERDICT
At least for dudes who like bass: Primus sucks (i.e. they’re good).
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