Seminal alternative rock trio Primus is reuniting for the first time in four years. In October, the original lineup of the group — bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry LeLonde and drummer Tim “Herb” Alexander — will release a DVD retrospective augmented by a CD of five new tracks. A short North American tour will follow.
The upcoming DVD/CD package, “Animals Should Not Try To Act Like People,” is due Oct. 7 via Interscope. The DVD features 12 music videos for such favorites as “My Name Is Mud,” “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” and “Tommy the Cat,” the long out-of-print 1992 documentary “Cheesy Home Video” and the clip for “Lacquerhead,” which MTV refused to air.
Completing the visual picture is a wealth of unreleased live footage, ranging from a 1990 radio show to Primus’ 1999 stint on the Family Values tour. “Making of the video” segments are included for “Mr. Krinkle” and “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver,” as are live clips from the Primus offshoots Sausage and Bob Cock and the Yellow Sock.
The five new songs are “The Carpenter and the Dainty Bride,” “Pilcher’s Squad,” “Mary the Ice Cube,” “The Last Superpower aka Rapscallion” and “My Friend Fats.” Says Claypool in a statement, “Creating with Larry and Herb is incredibly easy. There is never an ebb in the idea flow. We wrote, recorded and mixed five songs, totaling 30 minutes of material, in less than two weeks.”
Primus will kick off its tour Oct. 15 in an as-yet-to-be-announced city. Dates confirmed this far are Oct. 17 in Los Angeles, Oct. 21 in Denver and Oct. 31 in San Francisco. At the shows, Primus will play a different first set each night of tracks from its back catalog, followed by a second set replicating the album “Sailing the Seas of Cheese” in its entirety.
Primus splintered after the 1999 studio album “Antipop.” Claypool threw himself into an array of projects, including as the leader of the Frog Brigade and as a member of the supergroup Oysterhead with the Police’s Stewart Copeland and Phish’s Trey Anastasio. As previously reported, Claypool will perform Jan. 10-13 on Jam Cruise II, which departs from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.
“Getting away from Primus for awhile has been an incredible thing for me as a musician, because I feel like I’ve gotten so much better,” Claypool told Billboard.com last year. “You can wear a comfortable pair of shoes for a long time, but it’s nice to get some new shoes and stomp around every now and again.”
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