The band that represents everything Les Claypool hates: “What we were rebelling against”
If you were to make a band that was intended to be the exact opposite of what mainstream music sounds like, Primus wouldn’t be that far off from what you were thinking of.
From the first time they started jamming together, Les Claypool’s warped version of progressive rock, virtuosic playing, and batshit insanity made the band one of the most unexplainable collectives to come out of the 1990s.
Anyone with that much musical knowledge needs to have a broad musical palette, but Claypool found Bon Jovi repulsive in the song ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’.
Then again, Bon Jovi has always been a bit of a polarising band for the past few decades. As much as people love the idea of their brand of anthemic rock, they tend to exist in the same spheres that U2 has been for the past few years, where they are so ubiquitous in the mainstream that they hardly have any specific appeal anymore.
Meanwhile, with Primus, you’re going to need to be in a very specific mood to enjoy their music for the first time. When you listen to an album like Sailing the Seas of Cheese, you know that you’re not exactly going to be getting a top 40 experience. This was weird for weird’s sake, and some songs like ‘Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver’ and ‘Jerry Was a Race Car Driver’ are the kind of tracks that even Frank Zappa would be confused with.
When the band got popular in the 1990s, Bon Jovi’s brand of rock and roll was the kind of glorified hair metal that represented everything wrong with the world. This was about being authentic, and seeing these guys up there shaking their asses in spandex and talking about being a rock god wasn’t going to go over well with the flannel crowd.
That opposition to glossy arena rock became a huge part of Primus’ identity during the alternative boom of the early 1990s. While many bands from the grunge and alternative scenes stripped rock music back to something raw and emotionally direct, Primus went in the exact opposite direction, embracing absurdity, technical complexity and bizarre storytelling. Claypool’s bass playing alone sounded alien compared to the polished radio rock dominating the previous decade.
Yet, despite Claypool’s disdain for Bon Jovi’s style, there was always an element of self-awareness in Primus’ approach. The band never seriously positioned themselves as saviours of rock music or anti-commercial revolutionaries.
Instead, they leaned into their outsider status with humour, often revelling in the fact that their music confused as many people as it entertained. That willingness to remain defiantly strange is exactly why Primus carved out such a devoted cult following while countless more conventional rock acts faded into the background.
For Claypool, this was everything that bands like Primus stood against, telling AV Club, “Basically, the influence was that we wanted to make music that was the polar opposite of Bon Jovi. Each generation rebels against whatever element they feel compelled to rebel against, and that’s what we were rebelling against—music like that, which happened to be very popular as we were trying to make our bones, so to speak”.
Then again, Claypool certainly understands why Bon Jovi has gotten so popular. They have worked their way to be one of the biggest bands in the world…it’s just that it’s not what he would choose to listen to or play, even if it means that the house might be a lot bigger if he decided to play mainstream music.
The mainstream always caters to sweet and gentle melodies, and Claypool’s idea was to basically shove the music into your ears whether you wanted it or not. Even though they may have had their time in the spotlight, it was never meant to be about the big cars. It was about writing for a niche audience who appreciated being weird, and if they found some success along the way, that was practically a bonus.
Even after all these years, both artists are still satisfying their audiences in the best way they can. Bon Jovi is still selling out stadiums even without Richie Sambora, and Claypool has continued to make weird music outside of Primus, like performing with Sean Lennon with the Claypool/Lennon Delirium.
Claypool certainly has his moments of user-friendly music from time to time, but from a raw execution standpoint, Primus and Bon Jovi may as well be on two completely separate ends of the rock spectrum.
