Primus - Jerry Was A Racecar Driver
Emerging from the San Francisco scene which spawned the likes of Faith No More, Primus were influenced by pretty much everything and informed their hydra-headed sound and surreal lyrics.
“I wasn't really following metal," Claypool told Rolling Stone. "For me, at the time, metal was like the old Judas Priest and Scorpions records we used to listen to in high school. And Sabbath. I wasn't into metal, I was into a whole other space, like, experimental music.”
It was down to LaLonde to bring a metallic crunch to their sound. A gifted player, whose musical vocabulary is rich in freeform experimental noodling, was, like Hammett, a student of Joe Satriani. He joined Bay Area death metallers Possessed in the mid-80s and appeared on their legendary 1985 debut Seven Churches when he was just 17 years old.
Then there’s drummer Tim Alexander, whose style and power keeps a sense of order during the band’s more challenging moments.
Claypool, whose sneering, nasal vocal delivery is something of an acquired taste, is hero to bassists around the world. Inspired by Rush’s Geddy Lee, jazz master Stanley Clarke and King Crimson’s Tony Levin, his style is a curious cauldron of tapping, slapping, strumming and a judicious use of a tremolo.
A high school friend of Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, he even auditioned for the band following Cliff Burton’s death in 1986. He played along to Master Of Puppets and came unstuck when the band looked to him to begin the fuzzed-up intro to For Whom The Bell Tolls.
“I didn't know that the intro was the bass, so they're waiting for me to start it, and I'm just looking at them,” he continues. "I didn't realise Metallica was as big as they were. I just thought it was my buddy Kirk's band - we went to high school together,” Claypool continued. “So when I went in and there was this kind of 'air of royalty' to these guys from their caretakers, it was a little strange. It wasn't off-putting; it just made me realise, 'Maybe this is a bigger thing than I thought'. But it was loud. I remember being told by Kirk to turn down.”
As a nod to one hell of a missed opportunity, the band later covered The Thing That Should Not Be – from 1986’s Master Of Puppets – on their 1998 EP Rhinoplasty, which also featured covered of tracks by The Police, XTC and Stanley Clarke. Fun side note: James Hetfield played guitar on Electic Electric on their 1999 album Antipop.