7 Reasons Les Claypool is Strangely Awesome (+Lesson Tips) 

Love you man, you're a huge inspiration!

@@thiccbasscovers the amount of people, young or old, that BazzBuzz has inspired is mesmerising

In 42 been playing bass since I was 8. He's extremely fast thats my big thing on les.

Lee Van Cleef

Not a riff, a reason... Distortion! "My Name is Mud" is a good example...and, of course, Laquerhead.

That is a helluva cool story.

Awesome guy. Did you perchance learn a lesson about tampering with your brain chemistry, especially via unknown chemicals from strangers?

@@aleisterbroley900 I once smoked the forbidden strange joint at a Roots concert and immediately learned my lesson.

@@aleisterbroley900 I learned everything deserves a second chance 😉

That's fucking beautiful

Nice to see you here Rob as I delve into bass after playing guitar in my room for however many years its been :)

Nah, it sucked

Lol now people like me are trying to figure out your flamenco strumming, Rob😂

Thanks Rob! Love your videos. WTF at that squiggly whammy bar, I need to hear one of those on bass.

@@BassBuzz Les actually used a whammy on his bass, it always sounded like he was trying to break it.. Though I'm sure you knew that.

Talk about humbling. They actually is super real of them.. One more reason I have come to love Primus & Les

Not to mention how they embraced (or started?) the "Primus sucks!" chant. Les never took himself too seriously while still being a mad genius.

Somewhat small gesture but I can imagine how nice it must have felt to not have as much to lift after a good show especially if you're not as used to it like primus, touring the world and all.

I saw Les in the grocery store and he paid for my Milky Ways.

Cool!

He looks like one, for sure

Never seen him play a five string bass

Never has Les been seen playing a 5 string bass

Les is as innovative as they come. Not to mention you have to be phenomenal at what you do to provide the innovation he has.

Les is a Bass Wizard spinning complex lyrical tales over rhythmic bass slappery!

Thanks Invin! :)

Yeah, sucks you can't click that thing more than once, so I'll add one.

They are also very funny!

I am just hear for Dee Bass Faces, Dey ees funky!

Almost feel like sending the idea to "there I ruined it for you" Mashup channel

Agreed, that was *drop-dead* funny and the reason I stopped to leave a comment! O...M...G!!!

So well said, my man.

I think he’s underrated.

Me too! Him and Paul Barker

i saw Primus last year and not only did they play a killer setlist of their own, but they also covered the entire "A Farewell to Kings" album as an homage to Rush. AMAZING. The whole band is underrated IMO. btw, opening band was awesome too, THE SWORD

@@woody5831 what makes you say he’s overrated? Genuinely curious

@@woody5831 just cause you can play it doesn’t mean he’s overrated. it’s more his phrasing and technique that make him a unique player than anything else

"It's called music theory, not music fact... there are no rules." - E. Van Halen

@@SaberToothGary FFS. That's like saying It's called 'school', that's why they serve fish at lunch sometimes. It's just ignorant at worst, a terrible dad joke at best. 'Theory' has more than one meaning.

@@Bubu567 “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” - Pablo Picasso

@@omgvague I wasn't saying that his intentions were wrong, I was just upset that he didn't know he was implying the wrong definition of theory. 2+2=4 is mathematical theory. That doesn't mean it's up for debate. It's a rigorous model that describes how a thing is. Not a guess.

@@Bubu567 I understand what you're both saying. I think Picasso's quote is more in line with the point he was trying to get across.

Totally, no idea how he does it.

he can even play a little drums. and lets not forget the WHAMOLA

Kinda? It's like if Bootsie Collins and Frank Zappa had a baby that played folk metal. Les even openly admitted that he rips off Zappa constantly.

Primus is actually the only band with it's own ID3 genre tag: 'Primus'

That sucks!

Why? If you believe, it's possible! Try just doing T-F first (2:14), then T-F-P, it's already great fun and not that difficult really.

Don't give up dude! I've found that the best track for myself to practice that goes over most of the required techniques and isn't either too difficult too fast is "American Life". Hope that it helps you out dude and all the best for the future.

I’m also 70. I’m spending about 45 minutes a day practicing my slapping. I believe it can be done! (I’m not a bass novice, but I’ve never expended any effort learning to slap. My bad.)

Thanks Eliakim!

I literally lol'd at the Les/Hanson mash-up. Frikkin' Brilliant!

That was hilarious

Pick? For bass? Sacrilege!

@@stefandinus7701 I like the stronger attack I get with a pick, plus the vast majority of my bass heroes play with a pick.

@@holidayonion I can't hold a pick, nor use a pick, to save my life. There are a few I'd like to play that use it, but I'm incapable lol

So, you were… “Fish on” then.

That's the problem with most bands now,this is how drums,this is how guitar sound etc and the use the same set ups

Thanks Mark!

Thanks Wesley!

How could you not?

Primus sucks!

@@BruceLeeKingoftheSewers Wednesday night is gonna suck!

Thanks Jimmy!

Les is the league.

You're very welcome!

I believe he said the trick to his sound was stringing his bass AAGG with it still tuned to EADG, making chords sound better. Since then I believe he’s moved on to 40-100 gauges

@@QaysSyed I know about the AA, but first time hearing GG! That's cool.

@@andrepereira744 I’ve tried it myself and it makes Primus songs so much easier to play. The problem is that it’s terribly unbalanced and not good for literally any other band

@@QaysSyed Yea, I sure can imagine that! Thanks bro

youtube reccomended sucks

We all picked up bass during covid. Primus was inevitable

It's a good thing if more people listen to them, I'll seem less weird to my mates lol primus sucks 🤘

The internet bro

I’m just soooo glad they’re still touring and making music. A lot of Primus fan’s kids are now fans and old enough to attend shows.

Great suggestions Patrick! Love all those dudes, big inspirations for me too.

Good catch on the Suck on This version James! I just think of the Seas of Cheese recording as "the" reference point.

When I saw them in 97, he played Tommy The Cat with a mid 60's 4 string Fender Jazz. Plus played an alternate solo in the middle of the song.

@@jeredalmeida1880 Yep, I have seen videos of him in the late 90s using a fender jazz on stage. I didn't realize he used a jazz bass at all, I just thought he thought it looked better in the Wynonna video but I had it in my head that he didn't really play it. Anyways, great video!

@@BassBuzz True, you can hear the difference from both versions....but does he actually need to use the 6 string, the whole song is still played on E A D G right?

You're welcome!

Nice, welcome to the bass family Derek!

Practice 5 mins a day. Don't skip. You WILL get better. Scales.

Thanks Christian! And yes I see every comment. :)

In Australia we had a late night video show called Rage. Mr. Krinkle was the first video I had ever seen or heard from Primus, but the weirdness got me hooked.

The bullboard misses you!!

Have fun Mason! Such a weird bass line, I had no idea what was happening when I first heard it.

Yeah, I would think playing on the same stage as Limp Biskit would really make you question the industry.

Ummm, you do know that les and durst were cool with each other right? Fred durst helped produce on primus antipop album, laquerhead in particular, and les claypool was on limp bizkits 2nd album lending some vocals to the hidden track

@@BigSmiley0TV I do seem to remember that, you are right.

I think it weirded Primus out to be an opening act for bands that once looked up to them, too. That would be like Rush opening for Primus

@@herbertwildey2349 oh yeah, I'll grant you, that it's an odd pairing, even coming from somebody that will openly admit to having been a fan of both, but yeah, it's all right there in the credits on the albums and in Wikipedia. While there's plenty of reasons to trash durst, at the end of the day he was just a guy trying to have a job making art, as is claypool. I don't know if they stayed in touch or would consider working together again, especially finding out how little primus enjoyed making antipop, but at the time primus was big for a bizarre underground band, while limp bizkit was just blowing up fo having been an underground sensation that went mainstream, and was propelled very quickly into pop stardom playing to huge arenas, full of fans that would later talk about what a tool durst is. Getting hated, not just for their music but being a symbol of all the bands that got caught up in that sound and were pushed by radio mtv and the media, just as they had pushed the seattle scene a few years earlier. The same type of meteoric rise kurt cobain had that caused him great woes, durst seemed to revel in. I still maintain that claypool is one of the greatest bass players in rock, and that antipop was there last great huge pop release, though i love the albums that followed, his "solo" work now outshines what primus does, and as for the bizkit, they were also extremely diverse and experimental in their sound being amongst the first big groups that did fusion of many styles with a major influence from the rap world, and if one can listen with an open mind to their first album, you can hear a multilayered onslaught of ideas, and styles, with durst mainly talking about issues that one deals with at that age, of loss of love and fake friends, loneliness and resentment, that give a righteous reason to feelings of anger. They even end the album with a very long, 16 minute ambient track, that lets the anger subside before releasing you back to reality. The unfortunate thing is that he was a great frontman with ideas to sell the band, and make a living fir the group, but the whole thing was predicated upon that adolescent hurt and anger that sound very formulaic really quick, especially when they all become rich quick and shouldn't still have the same problems, but he wasn't the greatest writer, singer or rapper, but they did change up the sound while progressing the formula of what worked, or got them paid, and that led more and more towards the goofy party based hip hop shock rock pop imagery working for Eminem, and manson. When he would've been better off, in theory, artistically, looking to predecessors like rage against the machine or even beastie boys, and realizing that if you're going to be screaming about pain and anger, because you're not funky enough to be snoop and could rap about nothing and be a respected hit maker for decades, than you need to scream about things that should make a grown man angry, like either being as honest an open as john lennon crying about his mother, or literally raging against the machine of society. Run the jewels are currently doing a great job of that, though the stage might've gotten smaller for limp, had they done that on their second or third album, we'll never know, though we certainly know that by their third album, even fans like me stopped caring about why he wants to break things, because it wasn't always all for the nookie, he made that clear on album one that he had wanted true love from his lover and his friends, and bands, and even on that song it sounded like he was trying to still kill his heart and convince himself, or the lover who wronged him, that he was gonna be ok and got what he wanted, but still just needed to break some stuff, but the party would keep rolling rolling rolling, but without anymore insight coming forth, and no other clear interests, (like cypress hill making yet another weed song) it seemed like the nookie, and a big loud frat type party, was what he was looking to keep going towards, which plenty of bands do better.

Just make sure Lars isn’t around. He’ll turn your bass volume all the way down.

@@NoMoreMrNice That’d be shitpost of the century. Just a video of how to play like Jason but with zero bass tones.

Matt Freeman would be even better.

@@dannybos7024 or just randomly throughout the video, have the bass sound cut out and replace it with the sound of off-time typewriter noises

Haha legend. Cheers dude!

Les has always had his entire schpeal under wraps.. he might come off as or sound goofy but that dude knew where he wanted to bring his music and did it.. definitely a worthy star musician

Lol, as much as I like Flea's playing, when he opens his mouth he's generally intolerable. With the exception of Chad Smith this is somehow true of all the current Chili Peppers. If they arent the worlds most anoying band, they are sure close.