Primus guitarist Larry LaLonde describes the sudden departure of drummer Tim Alexander as an unexpected curveball. But because he and bassist Les Claypool are so tight, the addition of new man John Hoffman has been relatively easy.
“We just did a jiu jitsu move, turned it on itself, turned it into a fun time, and an opportunity to do something different,” the guitarist says. “It’s fun. The fact that we’re able to keep doing it is enough – it’s like, ‘Jesus, why would you not do it?’”
He says the best aspect of working in the group is the amount of freedom he’s allowed.
“You can almost play anything you want,” he says. “We were never part of any scene or movement so we’ve been able to cruise along and not worry about what’s going on in the music world.”
As if trying to find a new drummer wasn’t enough, LaLonde lost his home in the California wildfires at the end of 2024. A lot of his gear went up in flames, but his family is safe, his outlook is renewed – and once Primus get off the road, they’ll start working on new music.
Primus have a new drummer, Jeff Hoffman.
“He’s really great, gung-ho, eager, and excited about playing it all and getting it right. He was a fan before, and he knows the vibe of all the drummers that have been in this band. I’m even learning a lot about how different the feels were with the other drummers. He really notices more of the exact feel and stuff.”
Has it been a challenge to lock in?
“Les will point out stuff when we’re learning, how they feel, and what the vibe is. I’ll be like, ‘Oh, I guess that’s why it sounds like that!’ [Laughs] But yeah, it’s been a fair amount of work, but it’s been fun work.”
You lost your home in a wildfire. How much gear did you lose?
“I haven’t gotten a full count yet. I was up to 58 guitars, and my whole studio of recording stuff. And here’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life – I had this 12GB hard drive sitting on the desk. I ran past it 20 times while pulling stuff into the car. But I never thought to grab it. I don’t know where that mental block came from, because that kind of thing is what it was for. So that’s kind of a bummer.”
Has it been difficult replacing the guitars you lost?
“I’d had a lot of them in storage, but a friend of mine who had stuff in the same place got ripped off. I was like, ‘Oh, man, I can’t keep them there.’ So they were in my house.
“Luckily, Paul Reed Smith just sent me two amazing guitars to help out because I lost all but one of my PRSs. That’s been one of the upsides – I have these two amazing Paul Reed Smith guitars. I probably never would have thought about getting another one otherwise.”
What else did you lose?
“There’s one Strat that I had on the first Primus records, like Sailing on the Seas of Cheese. I had it since high school, and I used it up until I started playing PRSs. When I was like, ‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ the first thing I grabbed was the double-neck Alex Lifeson gave me.”
Was all that happening while Primus were trying to find a drummer?
“Yeah. You’ve just got to make the best of it. The only thing you can control is how you respond. It’s hard for the family, but you can’t place your finger on how much stuff you have until it happens. It’s like, ‘Oh, I have one of those – wait a minute, no I don’t.’
“But yeah, it coincided with the drummer submissions. We put it out there into the world – we said, ‘Instead of just finding someone new, let’s see what’s out there.’ Because you never know.”
Was the response overwhelming?
“We received almost 7,000 applications. I was burning through them with our old drum tech, Tim Soya, who knows all the songs. We’d just gone through that process and then the fires came through. So we were simultaneously doing the drum auditions and scrambling to find a place to live – and buy a toothbrush!
“Then we geared up for the tour, so there hasn’t been a lot of downtime to place my finger on how much gear I lost. But yeah, there’s a lot of cool ash in that lot.”
Have you had any interesting gear discoveries this year?
“I started using a Roland JC-120 Jazz Chorus. I don’t know why I haven’t been using one of those forever! They’re amazing. Every time I play through this thing, it’s just like magic.”
Tube amp purists won’t want to hear this, but the Roland Jazz Chorus is probably the GOAT.
“Man, dude, you totally know! It’s so different than a tube amp because it’s so immediate. You can instantly see why all those King Crimson things from the ‘80s sound like they do – it’s those amps. Plus, the guys who played through them are pretty incredible!”
Does the Jazz Chorus have you traversing new avenues with your playing?
“It definitely has. It’s the amp I had when we moved into a new place. It definitely inspires you to play a lot of cleaner stuff. It handles fuzz pretty well, but it’s not chunky, like a Marshall. It makes you articulate your picking and attack.”
Was the Marshall what you’d leaned on most in the past?
“I was using Marshall JCMs until I moved over to some Orange stuff, just for something different. Then I got some Friedmans, and now I’m playing through an ENGL because it has four channels.
I was in high school when I was in Possessed, and taking lessons from Joe Satriani. The goal was just to be a shredder
“I was using a Fractal for a long time; and within Primus there’s so many sounds I’ve got to get that it’s crazy. I can’t just have one amp and a couple of pedals. So, this ENGL has been great because I can use all four channels and it’s like having four different amps.”
Can you track the progression of your playing, dating back to your days with Possessed?
“I was in high school when I was in Possessed, and taking lessons from Joe Satriani. The goal was just to be a shredder. It’s kind of weird to look back because there wasn’t really a lot of death metal then. There was Motörhead, Metallica, and Slayer; it felt like we were kind of inventing some kind of music.
“It was this weird thing to see if you could pull it off – see how you could reach people when you’re 15; see if you could do it.
“In that same spirit, when I ended up in Primus it was like, ‘Okay, I want to keep trying to create new stuff and not try to be the next version of something else.’ When you’re 18 or 19, you’re not thinking, ‘How can I get famous?’ You’re thinking, ‘How can I make cool stuff?’
“But at the time I think my favorite bands were Frank Zappa, Dead Kennedys, and the Grateful Dead. So it was like, ‘If I could be a fraction as big as these guys, this would be a success!’”
Would you say being in Primus, a genre-less band, is pretty demanding?
“Surprisingly, it’s freeing in the sense that nobody is expecting you to fit into a format. If you just come up with something that sounds interesting, luckily, the people who follow this band will be like, ‘Yeah, that’s cool!’
“And for the most part, if it’s something that I like, the other guys are probably going to like it, too – and vice versa. If they play something crazy, I’m gonna be like, ‘Cool. Let’s make this into something weird!’”
Primus were forced to play off-the-rack gear because of a snowstorm. When did you realize you’d be performing without your own rig?
“We were going from Red Rocks to Las Vegas for a festival, on tour with A Perfect Circle. All our gear was in the same truck and it got stuck in the snow. The weirdest thing was, in the back of my mind I’d been thinking, ‘Is this gear gonna make it? These numbers aren’t adding up…’
“So we were like, ‘The truck’s not making it; the gear’s not making it. What are we going to do?’ Les and I both had the same thought – he texted me as I was about to text him, saying, ‘Should we go to a local guitar store and buy some stuff?’ An excuse to go buy some gear? Awesome!
“So we went in with the limited time we had and grabbed some stuff. We were trying to find a matching bass and a guitar, then whatever pedals that seemed like they’d get us through the show. It went from a thing that sucked to turning into an opportunity to be something fun.
“I had to have a Strat – I thought that was going to be the most versatile thing. Les got a P-Bass, which made us go, ‘Hey, do you have two that match?’ We came up with a white Strat and a white P-Bass. We were probably there for 45 minutes, maybe. The guitar was cool – it was single coils, from what I remember.”
Do you still have it?
“No, we auctioned them off for charity, and that was another win from the whole thing. We got the opportunity to do some good with them.”
What sort of reaction did you get after walking into a random Guitar Center unannounced?
“Surprisingly, I don’t think anyone even knew who we were!”
Primus recently played The Brown Album in its entirety on the road.
“We were just throwing songs together and we saw it was a row of Brown songs. We were like, ‘Let’s just roll out like seven in a row and see if anyone notices!’ If they were big enough fans, people were going, ‘Are they just gonna play the whole Brown Album?’”
Will a new drummer, a new Roland Jazz Chorus and some new PRSs help spawn new Primus music?
“That’s the recipe for new music! Despite losing that hard drive full of songs, I was already starting to write a bunch of stuff. Once we end this tour, get home and regroup – maybe after we’re home for a bit – we’ll see what we can put together and keep this thing rolling.”
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