Les Claypool

The economy is tanking, we're in debt up to our eyeballs and there's apparently no stopping the abject horror and anguish that is American Idol. Fear not, music fans, because despite all the maladies that are infecting civilization as we know it, Les Claypool has gotten exponentially weirder.

"When you say I'm getting weirder, I get it," says Claypool. "But to me, it feels like I'm becoming more and more honest. That might be a total bullshit thing to say, but I feel like this new record is a sub-conscious record. I went in, did it and didn't try to push anybody's buttons but my own."

Released on his long-running label Prawn Song, Of Fungi And Foe is the latest aesthetic adventure from Claypool, the singer/bassist who, for the past two decades, has infiltrated the consciousness of music fans in his alternating roles as alt-rock personality (fronting future-funk icons Primus), inspired bandleader (as CEO of such units as Colonel Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, the Holy Mackerel and Bucket Of Bernie Brains), capable sideman and A-team player. Given Claypool's forward-in-all-directions mindset and storied career--which also includes non-musical pursuits as directing feature films (2008's Electric Apricot) and writing books (2006's South Of The Pumphouse)--you might think he'd be encumbered by an ennui-ridden malaise of epic been-there-done-that-sold-the-shirt-on-eBay proportions. Of course, you'd be dead wrong, Rumsfeld. Explain it to' em, Lester...

"I feel as a writer, I'm cutting through a lot of the bullshit," he says. "That might just be me getting older. I'm the grumpy guy who's yelling at kids to get off his lawn, but I'm also the super-crazy wacky guy tossing water balloons at the same kids. It's all part of the peaks and valleys of my personality; it's to be expected. No matter how wonderful it is that you have a great job at the candy factory, after a while, you get a little tired of candy all the time. It's like being behind the scenes at Disneyland--it doesn't have quite the shine that it used to. That's why you have to find the things that make it sparkly again."

Clearly, Of Fungi And Foe marks a new chapter in Claypool's musical reinvention. Although the disc's 12 tracks go miles in conjuring various assorted atmospheres, mise en scenes and character studies (savory or otherwise), the execution is more compact and intimate, like a chamber group playing real-time to silent movies. "Some of these songs were based on soundtracks that I was commissioned to do," he explains. "The first was for the Mushroom Man videogame, which is this really dark, creepy game with this incredible art that's almost Frazetta-ish. The other project was a film called Pig Hunt, which is about a 3000-pound wild boar that terrorizes the pot fields of Northern California. Needless to say, there was some great imagery to draw from. [The directors] would ask for 30-second cues, and I was giving them five minutes here and there, because I knew I wanted to use this material for a record at some point. Basically, I did these two projects and had extra material; I had some other things lying around, and I was still writing. I looked at the body of work, really enjoyed it and thought, 'this all needs to be in one record.'"

Longtime 'Pool pushers will immediately notice the lack of any high-powered bass gymnastics or jam-band histrionics on Fungi. It was a deliberate move on Claypool's behalf, citing a need to expand his vision by scaling things down. Claypool's new music is informed by such talismans as Frank Zappa's mallet-percussion-flavored work from the mid- to late '70s, Tom Waits' junkyard steampunk and the funhouse-mirror sounds of the long-running multimedia art troupe the Residents, than any of the spark-throwing outfits he's helmed in the past. "Stylistically, it's very much the direction I've been wanting to go into for a very long time," Claypool says about his mushrooming modus operandi. "There are little slices of this very minimal, heavy percussion approach on previous records, in songs like 'Vernon The Company Man' [from 2006's Of Whales And Woe] and 'Long In The Tooth' [from 2002's Purple Onion]. I told my manager Of Fungi And Foe was Captain Beefheart meets the Residents trying to rip off Ennio Morricone."

Whatever name-combos Les wants to drop are fine, but they still don't fully prepare you for the cranial-flexing charm that is Fungi. The percolating rhythm magic of "Mushroom Men" wouldn't sound out of place in a techno club, sandwiched between French electro-wunderkind Mr. Oizo and old-school industrial pounders Test Department. The near two-minute tribal thumping of the title track would be the perfect theme music for the reality TV show Survivor: Purgatory. "Kazoo" sonically belongs somewhere between the soundtrack to the '50s detective show Peter Gunn and Tom Waits' Blood Money, but the topic of the song is far less sinister--it's an ode to the Claypool family dog. The jaunty "What Would Sir George Martin Do" was inspired by Claypool sitting behind the legendary Beatles producer at a movie theater and being too petrified to approach him. ("What was I going to say to him? He's like Santa Claus: You don't want him to be any less than what he is in your mind.") "You Can't Tell Errol Anything" is peppered with alluring Indian phrasings while Claypool tells the story about the exploits of a fussy, belligerent pot dealer--imagine Dead Can Dance doing the soundtrack for Dazed And Confused.

The boisterous "Bite Out Of Life" was borne out of a late-night jam session at Claypool's Rancho Relaxo studio featuring drummer Paulo Baldi and Eugene Hutz, the firebrand leader of Eastern Bloc rockers Gogol Bordello, a man who is a master at bringing equal amounts enthusiasm and vodka consumption. ("That song is autobiographical to an extent, but I was thinking about Eugene when I wrote it. He has a zeal for life that I've never seen before. He just brings it.") The otherworldly "Primed At 29," is a story about people who settle for the mediocre at that stage in their lives. Fortunately for listeners, the track is anything but mundane. (Think director Alejandro Jodorowsky tripping on psilocybin while making a biopic of Appalachian mountain dancer Jesco White.) The closing cautionary tale of "Ol' Rosco" is simultaneously engaging and disturbing, addressing a topic Les has strong feelings about. "I find drunk-driving to be one of the most wretched things a human being can do," he says. "I know a lot of people like Rosco; I know guys who won't hang out with me anymore because I've given them shit or taken their keys from them."

Not surprisingly, the proceedings behind the making of the new disc continued to make the synapses in Claypool's meat-computer brain twitch long after he left the studio. When he heads out on tour this spring, he'll be accompanied by a band featuring cellist Sam Bass and longtime percussive associates Paulo Baldi and Mike Dillon. Claypool is planning to stuff the bus with as much junk percussion and arcane instruments (especially his pride and joy, the whamola, which he describes as "a good instrument to have if I were stuck on a desert island, but the other people on the island would be pissed") he can lay his nimble fingers upon. It's all part of the bigger picture, which he's christened The Oddity Faire. Described by its curator as "a mutated mini-fest," this multi-bill tour will feature other sonic comrades (including Yard Dogs Road Show, O'Death, Saul Williams, Secret Chiefs 3, Mutaytor and Devotchka) who are deep in the trenches fighting the war on conveyor-belt mediocrity in music. "I've been the guy who's been wanting to do this for awhile, considering I've played every festival save for Lilith Fair," Claypool says enthusiastically. "I've always wanted to do a grouping of artists that were in the same bubble I'm in. I would've loved to have seen the Residents with Captain Beefheart, Public Image Ltd and Tom Waits on the same bill back in the day. It would've been unbelievable. So I gathered as many eclectic folks as I could talk into coming with me!"

Les Claypool is doing his best to clean out the cobwebs in the headspaces of critics and listeners alike. Neither illegal, immoral or fattening, Of Fungi And Foe is the most fun one can have without being visited by law enforcement (although dissolving a couple teaspoons of nutmeg in a glass of orange juice comes in a distant second). At any given time, Claypool can be the fantastic sonic equivalent of Baron von Munchhasen, Willy Wonka or Dr. Terwilliker; on his new disc, he's a little of all three. Which begs the question: Given his two decades of service in the margins of modern music, what do people expect when they sidle up to the Claypool buffet, these days?

"To be honest, I question that quite a lot," he says with equal parts humility and personal confusion. "For a guy that doesn't have that much of a profile, there are more and more people coming to the shows and getting into my music. I wonder if they're coming to see the bass-player guy play as fast as he possibly can, or if they wanna see some weirdo. I'm like the guy who won't go away. I'm like herpes or something. 'Oh, look, here it comes again!'"