{"id":835,"date":"2025-05-12T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/primus-gonna-have-themselves-a-new-drummer\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T14:00:00","slug":"primus-gonna-have-themselves-a-new-drummer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/primus-gonna-have-themselves-a-new-drummer\/","title":{"rendered":"Primus Gonna Have Themselves a New Drummer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/Still-2025-04-03-124654_1.15.1.png\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" alt=\"The future Primus, from John Hoffman's audition process. L-R: Let Lalonde, John Hoffman, Les Claypool. (Credit: Cage Claypool)\"><\/figure>\n<p>In late October of 2024, Primus and their fans were shocked when longtime drummer Tim \u201cHerb\u201d Alexander abruptly announced that he was leaving the trio. Primus\u2014which also features ubiquitous bassist\/singer Les Claypool and guitarist Larry \u201cLer\u201d LaLonde\u2014had been here before. This was the third time Alexander quit the band. He was the drummer on their early records\u2014their 1989 debut EP <em>Suck On This<\/em>, 1990\u2019s <em>Frizzle Fry<\/em>, 1991\u2019s <em>Sailing The Seas Of Cheese<\/em>, 1993\u2019s <em>Pork Soda<\/em>,<em> <\/em>and 1995\u2019s <em>Tales From The Punchbowl. <\/em>He left in 1996 and was replaced by Bryan \u201cBrain\u201d Mantia, who had played in an early incarnation of Primus. Alexander rejoined in 2003, leaving again in 2010. Jay Lane, another early Primus member, took his place. Lane left, and Alexander rejoined in 2013, staying for eleven years.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1290\" height=\"1257\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/2025-Primus-Press-Photo-Credit-Danny-Miller-1290x1257.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-463968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/2025-Primus-Press-Photo-Credit-Danny-Miller-1290x1257.jpg 1290w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/2025-Primus-Press-Photo-Credit-Danny-Miller-340x331.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/2025-Primus-Press-Photo-Credit-Danny-Miller-768x748.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/2025-Primus-Press-Photo-Credit-Danny-Miller-498x485.jpg 498w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/2025-Primus-Press-Photo-Credit-Danny-Miller.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Lalonde, Claypool, and Hoffman. (Credit: Danny Miller)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This time, the band went outside their circle to replace Alexander. As Claypool recalls, laughing, \u201cWell, [Alexander quitting] kind of came from out of the blue, so we weren\u2019t prepared for any of this!\u201d Still sounding a bit surprised, he says, \u201cThe first thing I did was call [Tool drummer] Danny Carey, because he\u2019s a good friend and he can play those drums! He recommended a few people, but then Ler and I thought, \u2018We don\u2019t have anybody in the wings like we had before, let\u2019s see who\u2019s out there,\u2019 and we started going down the wormhole of YouTube. That led to the \u2018Interstellar Drum Derby.\u2019\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2024\/10\/tool-hosting-destination-festival-in-dominican-republic\/\">Tool Hosting Destination Festival In Dominican Republic<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2024\/04\/tool-surprise-with-a-perfect-circle\/\">Tool Surprise At Primus\/Puscifer\/A Perfect Circle L.A. Show<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2022\/08\/surviving-rush-members-reunite-at-south-park-bash-outside-denver\/\">Surviving Rush Members Reunite at <i>South Park<\/i> Bash Outside Denver<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The multi-part \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/primusville.com\/#videos\" target=\"_blank\">Interstellar Drum Derby<\/a>\u201d clocks in at over three hours and features cameos from Fred Armisen, Danny Carey, and Maynard James Keenan, and Stewart Copeland of the Police.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Spoiler alert: the winner was a relative unknown named John Hoffman from Shreveport, Louisiana. Actually, it\u2019s not much of a spoiler: he\u2019s on the cover of <em>Modern Drummer <\/em>magazine, having made his very high-profile debut with the band at Tool\u2019s Live in the Sand festival, which took place in the Dominican Republic on March 8. Hoffman is currently on his first tour with the band, as part of the Sessanta 2.0 trek, which sees Primus and two of Maynard James Keenan\u2019s bands (A Perfect Circle and Puscifer) sharing the stage and switching off songs all night long.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In Tim Alexander\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/music\/music-features\/tim-herb-alexander-why-he-quit-primus-letter-1235150726\/\" target=\"_blank\">statement<\/a> explaining why he quit, he mentioned that he\u2019d lost his passion for playing and that touring had left him \u201cfeeling empty.\u201d He said that he told the band, \u201cThey deserve someone who wants to be there.\u201d John Hoffman is someone who very much wants to be there.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is something my friends and I talked about when we were kids: \u2018What if I could be the drummer of Primus?\u2019\u201d Hoffman says excitedly from a stop on the tour. \u201cIt never seemed like an actual possibility! I remember going to Tower Records to buy [1999\u2019s] <em>Antipop<\/em> the day it came out. A lot of that stuff doesn\u2019t get played as much,\u201d he notes, referring to that album and 1997\u2019s <em>The Brown Album<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019m hoping to get them to bring back some of that stuff to the live shows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His choice to play a rather deep cut from <em>The Brown Album<\/em>, \u201cDuchess and the Proverbial Mind Spread,\u201d impressed Claypool and LaLonde during his audition. And that song made the setlist at the Live In The Sand Festival. The band shared the performance of that song on YouTube.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"XhKioes8HxA\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The video is titled \u201cHoffer\u2019s First Gig.\u201d It\u2019s sort of an unofficial rite of passage in Les Claypool\u2019s world that everyone around him has nicknames: \u201cLer,\u201d \u201cHerb,\u201d former Primus drummer Jay Lane is \u201cJayski,\u201d and his frequent collaborator Sean Ono Lennon is \u201cShiner.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll my friends tend to have nicknames,\u201d he explains. \u201cWhen I get comfortable with somebody, they end up with a nickname. I feel odd calling someone by their proper name if I really know them well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hoffman wasn\u2019t the obvious choice for the gig, according to Claypool speaking by phone from the tour. \u201cWe had over 6,100 submissions. Our friend Tim Soya, who has known us forever, watched every single video. Ler watched almost every single video. They went through and picked the best of them, and I watched those. We had four folders: the one-star folder meant you were really good, two stars meant you were exceptional, three stars meant \u2018Oh my god, this person\u2019s amazing,\u2019 and four stars meant that this person had to get an audition. I think Hoffer was in the two-star folder.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He continues. \u201cBut then I posted, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re getting a lot of people playing Primus songs, it\u2019s hard to see what personality folks have. Please resubmit with some of your own stuff.\u2019 (this is the post where he made the announcement: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DDaRkGlTgVZ\/\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DDaRkGlTgVZ\/<\/a> ) Hoffer resubmitted, and it killed us, so he got an audition.\u201d That video not only featured Hoffman playing along with Primus songs, but also famous TV themes, including <em>Seinfeld<\/em>, <em>Barney Miller,<\/em> and <em>The Jetsons. <\/em>\u201cIt was very clever,\u201d Claypool says. <em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"aFtaNtSYNYA\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t think that he\u2019d make it to the finals because the day he played, Ler was dealing with all of this fire shit, because his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DEpySHUPw5M\/\" target=\"_blank\">house had just burned down<\/a> [in the Los Angeles fires]. He just wasn\u2019t in a great mood. He didn\u2019t feel that audition like I did. Even up to the end, we thought that Gergo [Borlai, another auditioning drummer] was going to get it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Claypool, who is also a drummer, had some issues with Hoffman\u2019s playing at the first audition. As Hoffman recalls, \u201cLes said, \u2018You had a good audition and we were all very impressed, but you need to go home and work on your double bass [drumming] and get that tight.\u2019 I said, \u2018Yes, sir, I\u2019m on it!\u2019 So the next time I got with Les, and we jammed, he said, \u2018Man, you\u2019ve been working on your double bass.\u2019 I said, \u2018Yep, I sure have: I came to win!\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe did his homework!\u201d Claypool agrees. \u201cAnd part of the final audition was that we spent the day in the recording studio working on this brand new song that I had written, \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/atorecords-ffm.com\/littlelord\" target=\"_blank\">Little Lord Fentanyl<\/a>.\u2019 We just released it [on May 2]: that\u2019s directly from the audition.\u201d Maynard James Keenan is featured on the song, and they\u2019re performing it together at the Sessanta shows. (Claypool notes that the Primus\/Tool bond dates back to 1993 when both bands were on the Lollapalooza tour. Tool was a new band at the time, or as Claypool puts it, \u201cThey were the low scrotum on the totem!\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLittle Lord Fentanyl\u201d is a pretty heavy song, musically and lyrically. Claypool notes, \u201cI really pushed the notion that this person is a victim of the abuse of pharmaceuticals, not street drugs. But that\u2019s been happening with a lot of people, and I\u2019ve had friends who had this happen. Not just with fentanyl, but opiates. They have an injury, they have a surgery, and the next thing you know, they\u2019re addicted to this shit and it takes them forever to get off of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"c4NGvSR2waU\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Hoffman\u2019s ascent is a much happier topic to discuss than the drug epidemic. As the rookie says, \u201cI went from sending in an audition video to becoming the drummer for one of the greatest bands of all time.\u201d Claypool enjoys watching Hoffman experience rock stardom, and says it\u2019s given the band a new blast of energy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s meeting famous people, he\u2019s on the tour bus, he\u2019s staying in these nice hotel rooms, we\u2019re drinking fancy wine, he has a real drum tech\u2026 It\u2019s very endearing, and it\u2019s rejuvenating for us as a band. We\u2019re jaded old bastards; all of the sudden, there\u2019s this fresh perspective! And it\u2019s really a wonderful thing. It\u2019s been a shot in the arm for this band, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI draw the parallel to the first time I took my kids to Disneyland,\u201d Claypool explains. \u201cI went to Disneyland one time when I was like 8 or 9 years old, and it was the greatest experience of my life. When I was older, Ler and I would go all the time. Sometimes in various altered states! But when I got to take my kids for the first time, it was like reliving that excitement through their eyes. It was a wonderful thing. That\u2019s the way it is with Hoffer.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/Still-2025-04-03-124654_1.2.2-1-1290x726.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-463969\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/Still-2025-04-03-124654_1.2.2-1-1290x726.png 1290w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/Still-2025-04-03-124654_1.2.2-1-340x191.png 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/Still-2025-04-03-124654_1.2.2-1-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/Still-2025-04-03-124654_1.2.2-1-1536x864.png 1536w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/Still-2025-04-03-124654_1.2.2-1-498x280.png 498w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/05\/Still-2025-04-03-124654_1.2.2-1-1668x938.png 1668w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">John Hoffman. (Credit: Cage Claypool)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The band\u2019s new dynamic changed Claypool\u2019s summer plans: he notes that Alexander had initially committed to the Sessanta tour, which stretches through early June.\u00a0 \u201cI was going to do a Frog Brigade [his solo band] summer tour or a Claypool Lennon Delirium [his band with Sean Lennon] tour. We\u2019ve got a Delirium album that we\u2019ve been working on for three years that we\u2019re trying to finish up. Then all of this happened, and now the focus is back in Primus-land. Especially now that we have this guy who is all fired up. Plus, I couldn\u2019t leave Ler high and dry like that, either. It\u2019s just a different dynamic now than it was eight months ago.\u201d A month after Sessanta ends, Primus is headlining their own tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A new Primus album is \u201cprobably very likely,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s an enthusiasm now that\u2019s infectious, and when you have that, you have to take advantage of it. But I also have the Delirium album: it\u2019s a big concept record, and it\u2019s a pretty \u2018out-there\u2019 concept. I\u2019m kind of hoping to do a new Primus record in the next year and get the Delirium record out and maybe do a tour next summer with both bands.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/primusville.com\/#tour\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Sessanta Tour<\/em><\/a><em>, with A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, ends June 7. Primus kicks off their headlining tour on July 5; that tour ends August 8.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In late October of 2024, Primus and their fans were shocked when longtime drummer Tim \u201cHerb\u201d Alexander abruptly announced that he was leaving the trio. Primus\u2014which also features ubiquitous bassist\/singer&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,365],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-primus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}