Inter-album Interview: Robi Bean

This week on the podcast we welcome Robi Bean, who drummed with Primus for about half of 1986. Although he doesn't appear on any demo tapes, and live footage of his playing with Primus is scarce, Robi played an important part in the formation of many early Primus songs that would become fan favorites, including Tommy The Cat. Robi details how he first worked with Les Claypool in a band called Manx, and how a visit to psychic presaged his later involvement in Primus, and recalls some choice moments with Les and Todd. 

If you're in the Bay Area, you can catch Robi drumming for numerous blues bands around town, including regular gigs at The Saloon on Grant Avenue: https://thesaloonsf.com/the-bands


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Josh Freaky with a couple of dump shits.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hello Primates, you found Primus tracks? Congratulations. This week on
the podcast, we speak with Robbie Bean, who drummed with
Primus for about half of nineteen eighty six. Although he
doesn't appear on any demo tapes and live footage of
his playing with Primus is scarce, Robbie played an important
part in the formation of many early Primus songs that

(00:40):
would become fan favorites. If you're in the Bay Area,
you can catch Robbie drumming for numerous blues bands around town,
including regular gigs at the Saloon on Grant Avenue. Please
enjoy our conversation with Robbie Bean.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Snap more face, More space for Humanity, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
because humanity thrives on wanting to reach that mystery. As
soon as you grasp it, it loses its essence and
its power. So it's kind of nice when things are

(01:19):
just out of your reach. I things fall again into
a romantic past, yeah, where myths emerge.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
So I like that idea a lot because it it
certainly remains those those mid eighties years do remain murky,
and so there's myth making that can happen from that
and so and then the imagination runs wild. Of course,
having an element of mystery to it to this day
is fascinating to me, and so that's part of our
impetus for chasing you down to ask you about it today.

(01:55):
You have tackle to me, Well, Frankie's got his feather duster.
He's going to start tickling you and get you a
confess here. Actually, I do want to start there because
I know Frankie is about to explode because his favorite
topic is the old tapes. So I'll turn it over
to Frankie to quiz you on that.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
Hello Rubbie, Well, first of all, thank you so much
for taking the time to join us, and I'm glad
my voice message got through because I had to use
the wayback machine to access your website. I don't know
if it's off line at the moment, but I just
couldn't access. But I was fortunate to use the wayback
machine and that's how I retrieved the number that you

(02:36):
shared on your page. Thank you for taking the time
to speak with us, and right off the gate, I've
been meaning to ask you which demo tapes are you
in possession of.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Well, so, here's a fascinating question. I moved a few
years ago and was able to find some tapes, and
thanks to mister kurkball right doing the interview a few
months ago, he talked about tapes. So I unearthed a

(03:09):
tape of the and he referred to a band, but
he didn't name it. He also didn't name the location
of this rehearsal space. And I can do that for you, okay,
And I'm going to answer your question, but I'm trying
to create a little mystery, right.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I don't know if you can tell, but Frankie is
vibrating at such a rate that it's imperceptible.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Oh yeah, well he's pushing that feather into some of
my crevises. So this was the Emeryville Warehouse and it
still exists. Ah, yes, and it's hidden behind the IKEA.
I hope. I'm tell me if I'm not supposed to
mention any businesses or products. Okay, this was a very

(03:54):
appropriate warehouse that all these artists and craftsmen were stuffed in,
probably starting in the seventies, and there were so many
bands that were on their way up or had already
made it, so to speak, in that place, going in
there was like going into a It was like going

(04:16):
into a university. You could just walk through the halls
and you would hear people working out all these ideas,
and of course you know it was labyrinth. It was
just booming like a cathedral. As an individual, you were
pretty lit up before you even got to your own room.
So that was the Emoryville Warehouse. Okay, if I can

(04:36):
just pramble this really quick. The way I got in
there was I was I also listened to Joe Gore's
interview from five and a half years ago when we
were at the beginning of the plague, right and yeah,
the shutdown. He auditioned for a band. I was in

(04:59):
a project that was in and it may have been
like an eighty one Wow. And so as these guys
were doing they were naming venues and rehearsal studios, and
they helped me. Remember Ruthie's, which I never played in.
I did go in there and I saw a band,
but I never went in there. I mean I never
played in there. But Ruthie's, I believe, was on Sam

(05:20):
Pablo Avenue, which just about a mile south of there
was a small venue which was the first place that
live music was performed in Berkeley, according to Berkeley history,
and it was folk music, of course, but actually before
that it may have been there were blues bands and

(05:41):
R and B bands, and that God was that Ruthie's
Now I'm I'm probably gonna throw too much disinformation out there,
so I'm gonna stop there. But I heard Joe's interview
and he's again just so articulate, fast, fast, comprehensive brain
and what a library probably that. And so we were

(06:06):
rehearsing at asking as and auditioning potential people for this
project I had with my brother John. Joe came in
and we were supposed to be teaching him these song
ideas we had, and he was just so lit up,
but he wound up showing us these ideas that he

(06:26):
was working on because we were listening to like the
latest King Crimson with Adrian Blow and Robert Fripp and
Bill Bruford again thank god, and the great unbelievable Tony
Levin still maybe still added yes, But so they were

(06:46):
doing that that hammered on and muted guitar playing, and
so that the musicians were dumbfounded and wound up taking
a lesson from Joe gore right there instead of us
teaching him our songs. But I thought, man, this guy
is just so energized, and I believe he might go somewhere.

(07:10):
And then he was, of course talking about some of
the other projects he was in, like Big City, which
we had gone to see, and at the Bear's Lair
on campus where there's no more live music, thank you,
so that that used to be a lot of music
on the UC Berkeley campus, And one of our good buddies,

(07:34):
Stuart Copland, used to go there and play in the
drumming circles when he was a student there. Oh wow,
back in the early seventies. And talk about a guy
with energy.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Powers still has it.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Oh man, I hope I get to shake his hand
some day. But so anyway, in the early eighties, I
was trying to find my way into some projects. I
had moved up here from lah Okay.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
So you're originally from la Is that right.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
I'd grew grown up on the East Coast and gone
to college in the Midwest and Denver and wound up
getting into the music department as pretty much kind of
a beginner, even though I had had some experience trying
to play as a kid but I mean, I wasn't
even holding my drumsticks right. They made a laughing stock

(08:29):
out of me. When I finally broke broke in to
the percussion department. They just couldn't believe that I was
allowed in there because I couldn't read. And again, I
wasn't even holding my sticks right. My foot technique was
not even right. But I was just working twelve hour
days to catch up with these amazingly accomplished students, and

(08:54):
the and the professors we had there were just so on.
But that's that's you probably didn't want to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
That's okay.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
And then then I wound up in LA for a
few years, and I was in the midst of again greatness.
So you could you could walk into any venue and
see people just smoking, and I would say, wow, you know,
who's that person singer? Who's that who's that drummer? And
they said, oh, that's one of the drummers from the

(09:22):
Doobie Brothers. He's playing fusion, he's playing seven eight backwards.
And so I thought, I guess I better keep doing
my homework. So there was constant, constant inspiration, and I
was constantly working on stuff and try to find teachers,
and I've had some good teachers. And then I moved
up here to be in some music projects which seemed

(09:45):
to be had potential. But and then, like I said,
I met some people like Joe, but I didn't follow
that up. But I would go to these jam sessions
where people would hang in network, and I went to
this house where the freaking executives were piled in. Yeah
cool and Joe. Joe brought them up. And that was,

(10:08):
I believe, on Oregon Street and South Berkeley, just off MLK.
I met a few people in there, but again it
was just like one of those situations where all these
young people and I was much older than everybody and
pretty experienced already, having done tours with people down in
LA and even in Denver. In college, I was doing

(10:28):
some short tours and every occasional session work. I mean, really,
you have to be pretty good to get in front
of a microphone, so that was going to be a while.
But so I was playing like very simply like Charlie Watts.
Everybody else was sort of doing the shred thing, and

(10:48):
this guy almost stopped me and said, man, you're just
what this band needs. I'm going to be right back,
I'm going to get I'm a manager of this band.
I thought, well, you know I've heard this before. Yeah,
And so we just kept playing and I was basically
doing what all you drummers know and all you other

(11:09):
musicians love drummers to do. I was basically doing like
a Charlie wats four on the floor. Uh so it's
a you're you're playing four, you're playing straight ahead, but
you're swinging, so everybody knows what that is. Now a
few minutes later, this kid launches into the room. I
mean he was propelled and you already know what I'm

(11:31):
talking about. He was dressed like he's dressed now. He's
got that kind of sportsman cap on, and he just
pleaded with the bass player, who was quite good. Oh man,
let me have your bass. Uh he was spewing. He
just launched into what was going to be primate. Right.

(11:56):
I thought, oh, you know, I can handle this. Now.
These songs were going on for like ten minutes. So again,
as all you musicians know, typical pop songs are three
minutes four minutes. Good pop songs are two minutes and
three seconds. Those are the ones that are earworms. Some
jazz songs go on for seven minutes, and then of

(12:20):
course there's rule breakers and like like an album side
of Tales of Topographical Oceans, you know, which is like
thirty minutes. So you better have your stamina ready anyway,
So after about seven minutes, the bass playing stopped and
he just looked at his hands, like, oh my god.
So that that ended that song, but it began a

(12:42):
conversation and he said, you got to you got an
audition for this band. It's called Manx and that had
Tom Dryden. Nicky Strands was the singer and I think
really the main writer. There was a keyboard player by
the name of Diane. They were changing drummers and I
had met earlier that summer. I used to go to

(13:05):
Laney College and hang out do the reading group with
the big band, work on my reading chops, and then
they had practice rooms and I met this young talented
drummer Peter Libby, and he was playing with a number
of projects. And this guy had so much chops and
a young guy. I was again much older, and I

(13:27):
was like, man, you've got so much control. And he
was like he was saying, oh, but you you understand
the you know, rudiments, ruments, that helps you enunciate for
all you non musicians and for all you drummers, I
know you love them and I work on them all

(13:47):
the time, every day. So it turns out that either
Peter was leaving or they were just changing musicians. So
I went into this audition and this was at the
Emeryville Warehouse on second floor. I can't remember the room number.
And it walked in and they were young, and they
were kind of over the top and everybody playing a

(14:09):
lot of stuff, and I, oh, actually, before I got there,
they came to see me playing at a jazz job.
But it was really not like like I was playing
with like Wynton Marcellus. This was like me playing downtown Oakland,
you know, like in a corporate hotel. You're very posh.
I mean jacket and tie, so at least I looked professional,

(14:33):
and we were playing like easybop and standards, so I
looked like a pro. And this whole kind of funny
like post new wave band comes in and they looked
at a place and I looked at them, and they
looked at me, and I thought, Wow, they're not going
to ask me to audition, but they did anyway, So
I finally went to their warehouse and their practice room

(14:57):
and they ran me through some songs and for me
it was pretty easy. It was loud and it was rock.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
And I think I think I had do you do
you recall what they had you play?

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Rob? Do I remember the songs? Yes? One was, and
these songs don't exist anymore, but I might have a tape.
Oh uh oh man. One of them may have been
you don't have to go down, Down, Down, Down down.
I mean, there were just like a lot of borrowed ideas,

(15:31):
but again this was like new wave stuff. Also, they've
been using one of these devices that keep emerging in
on the Highway to progress, and it was called a
drum machine.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
So they had been using the Lin drum machine, but
they were considering going without it, and they wanted a
drummer that could keep time right, yeah, right, you know,
the old job. So I said, well, yeah, you know,
I've been fired enough times and scolded enough times. I

(16:05):
know what you're asking for. But I also kind of
put them off because I kind of gave them a
real rundown of what they were doing and what they
could be doing, and it put them off. And so
I didn't hear from them for about a month or
maybe it could have been more, and they tried out
some drummers that weren't going to criticize them. And because

(16:28):
because besides being a drummer, I wanted to be an a
ranger and a producer. I couldn't be a songwriter. I've tried.
That's that's for the super gifted. But I know how
to lay bricks and I understand architecture. So so anyway
they called me back, I couldn't believe it, and then
you know, I was in there, and then we did

(16:50):
some shows, but we played places like the Hay the
on Board Way. There was these two different clubs in
one building on Broadway there in San Francisco, and then
the Moubouje was across the street. The band was just
only getting so far because of what people could do

(17:10):
or what they were trying to do. And I was
trying to keep trying to be helpful, but I was
trying to be a little bit of a I could
fix things if people could cooperate, and again you kind
of have to leave leave that up to the composer
or you know, the musical director. And I was just
trying to be helpful.

Speaker 4 (17:31):
But.

Speaker 3 (17:32):
One one day, Les pulled me aside and said, hey,
let's go for a while while I talk to you.
So we went out on out in the very at
this point, quiet always, and he said, I've got to
move on. I'm going to start my own project. Something

(17:54):
I've been thinking about, something I've been working on my own,
you know. So I'm going to leave the project, and
you know, I'm going to announce that. I thought, I
let you know, I thought, wow, that's interesting. I said, well,
you know you're very gifted and I know you're hard working,
so you should get somewhere. And that was it. He

(18:16):
left Manx And in fact, I brought my brother into that.
So I might have a rehearsal tape with Less in there.
Oh wow, I might, I might.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
And you know these tapes this is I know there's
not a protocol for me to not mention dates, but
I mean I heard people swearing on your podcast, so
you can sell your ocasion of me to mentioned dates.
So what are we twenty five right now? Okay, so
this is this is eighty three eighty three?

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Wow? Yeah. Less was a teenager.

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Yeah, he's really young at that point, for sure.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
He was young. He was young, but he was pretty
wid and very self sufficient, and there was something that
caught my attention, even though I felt like, you know,
there's only so much experience. You can have experiences, experience,
and with a lot of experience of wisdom, some people have,

(19:19):
through instinct, a god given wisdom. And I'd say, here
was a person that was like an old soul or
a young body. Ah, but he was still growing. Literally
he was taller than me already, so he was fully grown.
I thought of all the people in there, he had

(19:40):
the energy and the daring, the fearlessness to break through
self imposed barriers, other people's barriers, barriers of misfortune. This
guy was going to bust through glass ceilings like there's
no tomorrow and he and not have a scratch on him. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Right, And you're getting this feeling for him just watching
him play, having conversations with him. You just know he's
gonna do this.

Speaker 3 (20:10):
This is not a credit to me being observant except
as a survival skill. I was very observant as a kid,
and to this day, I can't tune things out, I
can't turn things off. I'm also, you know, like a
super sensitive and that's not necessarily works in my favorite

(20:33):
because it can be crushing. I should have been a
librarian or monk, like one of my favorite musicians, A
couple of my favorite musicians, Jamie Muir, who is one
of my biggest influences. You never hear that name. I
don't know the name, and a lot of your drummers

(20:53):
won't know that name. That guy was in King Crimson.
Oh dose, second iteration. If I'm correct, I'm sure Less
will correct me. So he was like the second drummer
and percussionist in King Crimson when it was Peter Cross

(21:14):
and John Wetton with Bill Brufford.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Oh gotcha.

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Okay, that's some of the most unbelievable work Starless and
Bible Black. Oh gosh, give me a break. And actually
he was in Mark's tongues and aspect.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
And then he left, but he left to be a monk.
And the other guy was Peter Green, fascinating. A lot
of your guitar players should know who that is. Yeah,
Peter Green. He was a god and he left to
be a monk. So anyway, but that's what I observed
with that situation. And then you know that that situation
just kept morphing and it kept losing energy. And that

(21:52):
I'm talking about Manx. Manx was very fortunate to have
financial financial help from Osborne.

Speaker 4 (22:01):
Wow huh.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
So this is when the other people were not such
a big thing. And I never had a I mean
I didn't have a computer at the time. I just
knew it was they were, they were coming. But that's
that's how they financed the recordings they had done. They
recorded before I joined them. So there should be a

(22:23):
Manx with less Claypool and Peter Libby.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Should what's the just the spelling on Manx. Sorry to
interrupt you.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
Of course, please interrupt me as much as you can.
As a musician. I love to listen, so I'm already
tired of myself. Sorry. I believe it was M A
n X.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Okay, that would have been my guess.

Speaker 3 (22:50):
Excellent, Yeah and capital M. And I have spelling disability,
so don't even ask me about my name. They still
laugh at me at school. So so you know, I
went through again that that project iterated became something else,

(23:10):
and then I even got fired from that. Some years
went by, and I know all musicians go through these
ups and downs. Get used to it. It's a roller coaster.
And uh, there's there's no room for crying. You just
just bang your head against it and go.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
The peaks in the valleys are the constant, it seems.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
That's that's just love it, you know, be a warrior,
be your own, be your own medic. So I caved
into some family members had gone to a psychic, and
I thought, oh, yeah, all right, I'll just go in
there and I'll ask for some career advice. You know,

(23:52):
you know what am I doing? Should I Should I
go into being a farmer? Should I give this up?
I mean so again, when I was in La, when
I was in Denver, I couldn't believe how many great
people there were.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
All around.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
And then of course La, you know, I'd be in
this little this venue and there's these old men playing
big band charts, all these old men with white hair
and balding, and there's this kid playing drums, reading his
butt off, not a lot of dynamics, but his time
was perfect. And he didn't let those horn players drag

(24:31):
because they'll try to pull you down into their miasma.
And then a year later I see him with Frank Zappa.
It was Chad Wackerman, you know, I mean, I said
to one of the horn players, you know, who's this kid? Oh?
How old is he? You know? Can he even be
in here illegally? Maybe I should be playing drums? Yeah,

(24:52):
so so so anyway, I was going through this dip
and then so when did the sea I say, oh,
start crying. I don't know. And they kept saying, oh, dude,
you know, keep your chin up. Lots of opportunities. Do
you knew a less?

Speaker 5 (25:11):
Well, the psychic says this, and now this person doesn't
know me from and again this is before the internet,
so it's not like you can look me up and
tell that how many bands I've been fired from?

Speaker 3 (25:24):
This person didn't know me from nothing. When I recovered
from that question, I said, well, I said, I do.
They said, well, because that person's coming in your life,
and you're going to say, either you know this is
this person's going to change your life. You're gonna say,
You're gonna say to them, well, where have you been

(25:46):
all my life? You know that's gonna be your reaction.
And I said, well, you know, maybe, I mean they're
they're learning. I don't know if this is not like
Miles Davis calling me or mister Springsteen. But you guys
can call me anytime you want. And I know people
that play with these people by the way, yeah, get

(26:08):
in line. So a few months later, phone rings, and
I didn't want to be a drug and go, oh,
you know, I've been waiting for you to call because
I knew.

Speaker 2 (26:20):
Yeah, yeah, I had advanced warning.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Come on, man, yeah, yeah, come on, let's get going.
So he goes, uh hey, Rabie, yeah, you know, you know, I, uh,
you've got on my mind. And you know I've been
going through drummers and I remember you being really professional
and I said, uh, well, well that's uh. I appreciate you.

(26:44):
You know, always thought you had a great memory, because
you're you do. I mean, it's not like he was
writing stuff out. He was just remembering what he had
to do. And uh so he said, he's got this project.
He said, I want to make kind of an agreement
up front. He said, I remember that you had lots

(27:04):
of great ideas. I'd like you to keep it to
yourself because what I want to do is flesh things out.
I want the room I wanted the band to be,
you know, so to speak like a blackboard, and here's
the physics problem, and I'm going to write it out.
You guys can write things out. We're all get up there.

(27:25):
I said, you know, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. He goes,
but if I run into trouble, please allow me to
ask you. And I said, yeah, of course. You know,
I'll be a gentleman. Yeah, I'll be you know, your helper.
I'll serve you because you're the composer. So he said, oh,
and I got to change the name. I just got

(27:46):
a call from I got a call from a lawyer.
They're going to sue me. Yeah. I go, oh my god,
that's terrible. I hate that. He goes, yeah, I'm going
to change the name of Primus. I said, well, that's beer.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Yeah it is.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah, I said, you gotta probably you might run into
some problems. He goes, No, it's it's a different product,
so it should be okay. I said, okay, Well I
like Primates. But I thought, wow, I wonder if I'll
go down in history as the guy that where they
changed the license plate on the front of his drum set. Well,

(28:27):
we'll never know. Yeah, but that has to be verified
by your panel of researchers and also your lawyers. The
CEO himself, mister Cleland.

Speaker 4 (28:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:38):
So so around the time he calls you. First of all,
that that story about the lawyer. I don't know if
you know the end of that story, which is a
number of years later, somebody approaches Less and says, hey,
remember so and so and so and so remember from
this band. He goes, oh, yeah, the Primates. He's like yeah,

(28:59):
and let's like, yeah, that's uh, your lawyer called me
and said that you're gonna sue because of the name Primate.
And he goes and the guy says, oh, that wasn't
my lawyer, that was me. It was just bullshitting you.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
Well, yeah, that's how good an actor that guy was.
Can you you know you know how hard he is
to try to sound like a lawyer.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Yeah, my goodness.

Speaker 3 (29:19):
Those are two parts of the brain that don't even
belong in the same skull. But actually I'm working with
a brilliant patent lawyer right now. There's a great singer
piano player. Oh wow, that's that's in a country swing band.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
That's extreme right brain, left brain.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, I don't know how he does. This guy's too good.
But anyway, so I went in there and same room
that we had been in with manx oh in the warehouse,
in the wear same room. It was kind of like
three years later, like whoa need? All kinds of bands were,
you know, taking turns practicing there at night and and

(30:00):
again this was a place that I had used to
go and practice during the day as much as I could.
But we were again and he would just like we
had like a corner and we'd set up and and
there's Todd Hooth and they would have these ideas. And
I said, okay, we've been we're gonna we've been using
the drum machine and we're going to try to go

(30:23):
without it. I go, okay, the old job back. And
uh though I don't mind playing with the drum machine,
and I don't mind playing the click. There's there's all
kinds of things to help something makes sound good, but
it's really daring. And the tradition to work without a net. Uh,

(30:47):
that's that's really where your your economic value I think
comes in. I mean that that you can deal with
the rule the ruler. So it's just like drawing the
ruler gives you helps helps, it's help. But they they
didn't they didn't use it. I mean he may have

(31:08):
demoed it, like you know, here's this beat we had,
but you don't have to play this beat. And I've
heard that lots of times. Going to the studio, someone said,
I just worked up this beat, but please don't play it.
It sounds like crap. So we just started working on songs,
and but I had to keep biting my tongue because
we'd run into you know, we'd kind of run aground,

(31:31):
so to speak, and we'd get stuck. And I felt like,
oh man, I can fix this right now, I can
really fix this, or or you know, you know, here's
a beautiful idea and it really is wonderful if there's
not so much stuff attacking it and it emerges as
a theme, and here's you know, it's like a gold nugget,
and we can make it shine if we don't just

(31:54):
reach all three of us into the cookie jar at
one time. You know, it just you know, tricks the
producers use and arrangers use. And again I was quite
a bit older than these guys, so I really took
it as a privilege and a wonderful opportunity and honor
to be doing it. So I really really behaved myself.

(32:15):
But there was like one point where I think I
finally said something like something about Tommy and the Cat.
They had already been playing it for a while, and
I said, you know, you've kind of got this thing
going on at the beginning, and I think you can
grab people's attention if the drums just play the bass

(32:36):
drum part, maybe the bass drum part, maybe that I hat,
and leave the backbeat out. That's going to create a
little bit of suspense and like a puzzle, not complete mystery.
You'll be singing and playing the you know, singing telling

(32:56):
the story. And I said, you the word cat on
the backbeat where the snare drum hits. How about I
make that, you know where I start playing the full idea,
that's let's give it a try. And we did it.
He goes, okay, great, it's not like we had to

(33:16):
work it out. He said, that's it. To my amazement,
anytime I've ever seen that song performed, he's kept that idea.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
I mean, the cat is a real back clar A
format of Minister Stained was my different but are you
fellow around menster my as well? Starting point blanked on
the chemist.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
Wow, And I thought, I mean it wasn't like clever,
it was more like you know, let's let's reveal this idea.
Let's make cat like stand up and you know, no
big deal. This was his song, this was his idea.
It's a brilliant it's a brilliant story. Yeah. But like

(34:01):
I said, I tried to stay out of the way
and let him have the creative girth necessary, you know,
because I kind of suspected he was gonna really be
you know, these guys were going to go somewhere, and
I really wasn't sure how long I could hang with it. Okay,

(34:24):
because again, as Kurbball was saying, who and by the way,
this is nineteen eighty.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Six, Okay, so this is early eighty six, right when
you're a warehouse with them.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Okay, yeah, this is so mister Ball was he was
eighty seven or or late late eighty six, because he
was right after me, gotcha, and I think I left,
you know, I made myself available and I was just
getting busy with stuff and there was just like a

(34:57):
lot I was trying to do and I wasn't doing
it well. But so so Kurveball came in probably near
the very end of eighty six.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Now, were you aware that Peter Libby had had the
throne before you and you knew him prior anyway.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
I knew Peter before. Yeah, I mean he and I
would kind of hang out at Laney College in the
band room and he would do something. I say, well,
what did you just do? Show me how you did that?
And then you know, he would do something and then
he would say, you know, he would say, look, I've
been working on this thing that Terry Bozio does, and

(35:39):
I said, oh, gosh, you know, I got to get
my feet together, you know. And then I say, oh,
I've been working on this Simon Phillips thing that he
did with Spacebook with you know Jeff Oh, the guitar
player that just died a couple of years ago. The
other contemporary with Eric Klaint.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Oh, I'm sorry, Jeff Beck, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
Jeff Beck. Oh my god. So they did the Space
movie in seven to four. That's so unbelievably fast. And again,
for all you drummers out there, work on your left hand.
That's that's really where that thing is at. You ground
yourself with your right foot. Again. Simon Phillips is left
handed playing on a right handed drum set. Oh crazy

(36:23):
like Ringo and n Stuart Copeland right and and that's
my affliction too. By the way, I'm left handed, and
I never really straightened out, so I'm I played drums
right handed, but I'm lefty. So okay, all this stuff
is really difficult for me.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Peter had been drumming for Primus. You step in and
it sounded like you had the latitude to perform those
tunes the way you saw fit Puppies or Prelude to
Fear or Welcome to this World or whatever you guys
were were jamming on and figuring stuff out. Were you
then actively reworking drum parts or just feeling it out

(37:04):
altogether with those existing tunes and new compositions?

Speaker 3 (37:08):
What was that like? Part of the concept that was
going on when I got in there was they were
trying to simplify to an extent, what the drums are doing.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
I was doing a lot.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Well, all these guys were so courageous, and Less told
me that he wasn't so interested in He wanted the
field to be right, which is not necessarily tempo, but
he wanted stuff to be He didn't wants to things
to be boring, which I could dig. But I also

(37:46):
felt that if I started doing a lot so called
busy drumming, chop chops, drumming. I felt that there was
a diminishing return from the drum set and todd and less,
we're already doing pretty eccentric rhythms and melodies. Yeah, and

(38:09):
so you know, I, again, being older and having spent time,
I was not a blues drummer yet. I am now
and I'm pretty good, But back then I was like
a fledgling everything, like fledgling reggae, world beat rock, you know,

(38:31):
all the things that drummers have to do. Even though
I was older, I was still kind of like the beginner.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
I was not.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
I was not as good as a lot of these
guys that before me or after. I was really probably
the weakest drummer in there. I mean, Peter just had
all these chops and again courage and concentration to answer
your question. I just felt that I could be consistent
if I really underplayed. So when they would give me

(38:59):
stuff to do, I would sort of just go into this,
like more into the grooves, which is how I got
attention in the first place, to get the chair and
so and and then they were constantly saying, oh, no, no,
you know, it sounds fine, you know, play more stuff,
play more stuff, and if I did it, I didn't

(39:21):
see where it fits. So you know, I would do
it begrudgingly. But it was a super challenge. And even
to this day, if if I'm playing in a format
like that where there's if I'm playing in a format
where people are really really playing their good grooves, then
then I'm fine. But I think I have a bad

(39:44):
habit of if stuff's tangled, I start becoming conservative. Okay,
but so we one of the shows we did, we
drove all the way down the San Luis Obispo and
we opened for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Okay, yeah, yeah, And.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
We had to get there early and do the soundcheck,
and of course they did their soundcheck, and then we
set up and we did ours. Then we took a
break and came back. And this was at the student Union.
And again from some of my experience of where I
had been coming from in La or you know, all

(40:24):
these cities I played in the different kind of music
shows or formats. A lot of the time I was playing,
it was not necessarily a packed house, and there weren't
that many concerts I had done, so here this was
like a very big room and we couldn't get in.
It was jam packed. There were so many people between

(40:47):
the door and my drum set. I wasn't sure I
was gonna make it. And I thought, well, I guess
this is this is kind of like the beginning of
the big time. So we did our set and I
was I was very happy about it. I was pretty happy.

Speaker 4 (41:05):
And do you recall songs.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
Songs were performed, Oh Boy, Tommy, the cat riddles, two different.

Speaker 4 (41:17):
Welcome to this World that I don't remember, prelude to
Fear prelude, and I still.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Have my musical notes, which I kept in my dead
planner for the longest time. Partly I don't know why
I kept it in there. I mean, I tend to
keep notes from different bands because every now and then,
like you don't see someone for a while and then
they call you and you want to show up like
you're prepared. Anyway, one of the one funny thing was

(41:49):
so so we did our show, and I thought Lesson
was happy and I was happy, but he was a
little put off because I was dressed up in a
jacket and tie. Oh really, So if you look at
the old jazz albums, you know the blue note everyone's
wearing a jacket and tie, and I thought, this is

(42:12):
a sign of respect. Those guys came out half naked, yes, right,
there was no like makeup and there was no wardrobe,
and they looked at me and they were kind of
like disappointed. They were there was like, dude, and I
was like, well, this is a show, right, I mean,
you know, and they were like, oh, whatever. You know.

(42:35):
There may have been Less may have been he may
have been amused. I'm not sure it may have been,
he may have been upset. But these guys were Less
and Todd were half naked, and I thought, you know,
this is before people had cameras.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
So sure, yeah, yeah, low risk, high reward.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Right nowadays, I mean, you gotta comb your hair and
you got to brush your teeth before you step out
of the house because you're on camera all the time.
But it's funny. We were done with our show and
then the Chili Peppers came out. Those guys were half naked.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
And probably all naked at some point. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
Absolutely, they had the sock puppet thing, and you know,
I was kind of thinking about my wardrobe choices and yeah,
I mean I wasn't an old guy, but I thought,
you know, I'm not nineteen. I don't have that like
long distance from under body or at this point, but

(43:31):
everyone else did so. But there was one point where
they so the Chili Peppers had Cliff Martinez as the drummer.
Pretty sure he was solid Uh huh, yeah, I mean
this is way before. He was playing so straight ahead
that it made me look like I was overly busy compared. Yeah,

(43:56):
And I said to Less, I said, see, that's that's
really the way I think I should approach the drumming
in this so that you stand out and I'm not
ever ever clashing with what you did. You do? Yeah, anyway,
that that was, and then he had a little surprise
for me at the end of the show. He didn't

(44:17):
fire me. I still had some time left. Actually he didn't,
he never fired me, but but I was, I was.
I just had so much going on. When we were
packing up, I was like, Okay, we're down here, now
where we're staying. Where's the hotel? And they looked at

(44:37):
me kind of incredulously. Hotel, dude, We're going to the dorms.
I was like, oh gosh, it's kind of noisy. Yeah,
So we get to the Girl's dorm and the Yeah
it was the girl's dorm.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Oh boy, well hopefully you had somewhere to sleep at
any rate.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
I was in this room with this girl and she
was like, she saw my wedding ring. She goes, oh,
you're married. Gosh. I was like, I thought, is this
a test?

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah? But what am I doing here? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Oh boy?

Speaker 3 (45:16):
So anyway, that that was. That was that show. But yeah,
we we did a few shows that I found to
be very memorable. They were very very high impact on me.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Yeah, I'm hoping they had better accommodations these other shows.

Speaker 4 (45:32):
I was meaning, I was meaning to ask you how
Liz used to refer to you, because you know, he
nicknames everyone, So I was wondering if you had a
nickname yourself.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
I think he just may have called me bean okay
and or beaner when when people feel really confident, you know,
the argets stuck on there. Yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
That's a that's a good question, yeah, because usually everybody
gets saddled with a nickname. And yeah, some some people
don't like him, like Flapjacks was telling us about is
the origin of his and he wasn't a big fan
among other people, right, I wanted to ask you too
about just the the playing with Todd and playing with
less because you know, as the drummer, you're you're driving it,

(46:25):
but you're also listening and so you know, for example,
with Todd, he's he's so unique, uh and idiosyncratic to
borrow one of Frankie's favorite words in his playing, because
he's all over the place. He's so seemingly out of
time yet of it in his playing. It's hard to describe,
but you know, what were you hearing in Todd's playing

(46:48):
that attracted you?

Speaker 3 (46:49):
Well, what attracted me to this situation was that they
were happy to break new ground. They were very dedicated,
they were very focused down to the details. It doesn't
sound like it when you are at the beginning of it.
It sounds like there's a lot of sound, and there's

(47:10):
a difference between music, sound and noise. Yeah, sound and
noise can make music. But again, the right chemistry right
and also the right chemistry makes the right ensemble. Kind
of felt that because I was much older than these guys,
I was going to be a stop gap. In other words,

(47:32):
I was going to help fill in while they were
really looking for a better fit. I see, because I
had already been like a professional, and in fact, they
were very dedicated. They weren't doing the you know, nutty
stuff I was doing. And again I was, you know,
quite a bit older, ten years older. Maybe when they

(47:54):
first started playing with me, they had a drum machine, right,
and they want me to play along with the drum machine.
And that wasn't a problem for me because I was
always working on my tempo and I was always practicing
with a metronome. Again, today's musicians are so influenced by
technology that you really have to be able to swing hard,

(48:18):
and a lot of people don't know what that means.
And swing hard means being able to play with such
depth and conviction, is with such a solid and the
word solid, with such a focus. And the people that
really pull that off are classical musicians and jazz musicians.

(48:41):
Classical musicians and jazz musicians. But jazz musicians have to
play with such a dedication to a tempo otherwise it
loses meaning. Of course, classical music can have is very human,
and it can move, and it can breathe and expand
and contract accelerondo, decelerondo. But the pop music we play

(49:06):
comes out of ceremonial music, and that has to be hypnotic.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Hmm, that's a great point. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
So the discussions I was having with Less and Todd were,
you know, you're you guys are asking me to do
a lot of busy things. If I if I do
this and I lose track of the center, we lose

(49:36):
our centricity and we lose our gravity.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (49:40):
And so it wasn't like an argument. It was just
it was more like, uh, what I begged to do?
And they had demo tapes of previous drummers where stuff was.
In my opinion, it was just unsettled. I said, one
of the one of the magic aspects of music, especially

(50:03):
spiritual music, is it's settled et centric, it's hypnotic. It's
hypnotic because there's a pulse, like all life has a pulse.
So I said that, you know, I really want to
be careful that stuff isn't rushing and dragging and all
that stuff that people fire drummers for. Yeah, and believe me,

(50:27):
I've been fired so many times and continue to be
fired because it's such a hard job. It's exceedingly hard.
And Primus was a very very very difficult challenge because
I had to play loud. I had to listen to
what they asked me to do, and then they asked
me to interpret. I'm sorry if I got off track there,

(50:47):
because as a drummer, you're not supposed to go off.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
But you're finding you're just you're just getting it grounded
for them, because Peter was doing a lot. Really, it's
really interesting that ecotomy, actually, because I don't think i've
heard any footage with you playing with Primus, but curing
the tape that Peter's on and then the tape that
curveballs on, Curve really just kept it grooving, and he

(51:11):
kept it pretty simple from the tapes I've heard, and
he said he wanted he did that purposefully, and boy,
speaking of Hypnotic, it's danceable. It's very different than, of course,
anything from Frizzle Fry onwards. It's fascinating.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
Robert. I was curious if over the years you've kept
up with the band in any capacity by listening to
the records or going to shows.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
I went to see them when Curve was playing at
the Independent, Okay, and that was maybe a year after
I left, so I was in there for about half
of eighty six nineteen eighty six and so quite a
while ago and I went backstage and got to hang
out a bit. You know, I just asked him, like,

(51:58):
you know, how are you approaching this because you know
this is you know, this is what I had to do,
and this was difficult this at the time, this was
difficult for me to do, and blah blah blah. All
musicians have their strengths and their weaknesses and also their
different dedications. You know, Curve was really pretty, really groovy. Yeah,

(52:20):
and I thought, and Peter Libby was before me, and
I thought he was really groovy the grooves, and you know,
I don't think there's any recordings that exist. I haven't
found any cassettes of practice tapes. And I used to
record the rehearsals and then go home and practice stuff. Okay, yeah, wow,

(52:43):
But I don't think I answered your question.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
It's really this conversation of like the center and and
your and what you believe to be the role of
the drummer in the in this tree is fascinating because
we've seen now so many iterations of Primus and heard,
you know, from these formative years and then with Curve
and Jay Lane and then Tim Alexander for a long

(53:12):
time onwards, even with Brain, Jay Lane again and John Hoffman.
Now there's so many different drummers who have put some
kind of indelible mark on what they've recorded or performed,
performed excuse me with lesson Larry or lesson Todd. But
all these iterations, and of course this is my bias,
are incredible. It's it's really funny that to me that

(53:36):
there's just so many different ways that this music that
really is essentially starts with less is being interpreted in
so many intriguing and palatable ways.

Speaker 3 (53:50):
Indeed, and again, I can't tell you how fortunate I
was to be in these situations and these people people
are still so alive. You know, Todd, Houth and less
Claypool were really larger than life and very gifted and

(54:13):
very deep. Uh again, I was much older than them,
but they really had just a beautiful souls and a
lot of wonderful energy and you know, wonderful ideas. It
was really a privilege to be around them.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
I wanted to ask too, You're in the band for
about six months, you you're having these musical conversations with them,
and then you said you had a lot going on
and and you guys went your separate ways. What were
some of your takeaways from that experience with Lesson Todd
that you you know, took with you to to gigs

(54:53):
after that.

Speaker 3 (54:54):
Yeah, great question, you know, for for all all you
composers out there and musicians, and some of you are
composer musicians. The way I looked at it again was
to serve the band, serve less because he was the composer,

(55:15):
and then he would throw ideas at us or tasks,
and he was also just very cool about everything. He
was not a despot. That's good, and he was you know,
he'd be curious. Like I said, when I was playing
with him in Max, he was a sideman. I was
a sideman. And then when he invited me into Primus

(55:38):
and he was changing the name supposedly when I joined.
So I don't know if I'll get to put that
on my tombstone. But again, like I said, he was
wanting to put ideas out there and get help from everybody. Again,
the way I looked at that situation was differently, but

(56:01):
typically the way I look at a lot of situations
even today, because I'm still working, I'm still working with
people in a not so much progressive aspect. I'm really
doing more traditional music like jazz and blues. Huh, rhythm
and blues. In fact, I forgot what today was because

(56:24):
I'm so immersed in this other dimension, the dimension of primacy. Yeah,
and then having my own recording studio and producing people.
I've just got so many, so much things going on.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
But would you say you've taken that with you then,
like even to current gigs now, you know, roughly forty
years later, do you feel like you have to consciously
underplay in the in the current bands and projects you're in.
Is that still something you have to consider or do
you feel like it's ingrained in you now that it's automatic.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
That's a great question because I assume the majority of
people listening to the podcast are working musicians. Rhythm section.
I had already had so much schooling from producers and
band leaders and professors at college drum teachers. I'm sorry,

(57:16):
I'm going to go off track a bit. You know,
I knew that the project, you know, Lesson and Todd
were going to be immense and legendary, but I felt
that the things that I needed to work on were
going to be so time consuming that I just wouldn't
be able to put in too much more time. But again,

(57:39):
this was nineteen eighty six, so a good portion of it.
But I've got to say, I've got to admit really
had a lasting impact on me. The experience with those guys.
I mean, I really loved them. They were really cool guys,
and it was an immense privilege to be able to

(58:02):
be just practicing at the Emeryville warehouse. You know, the
room's still there.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
I think Frankie's been to that warehouse. Okay, so he's
he's done some pilgrimages and that's one of them. That's
it's really cool that you've held onto these experiences and
got something from them. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
I still, by the way, I still have somewhere my notes. Wow.
Oh man, I was learning those songs.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
That would be so cool, that would be so cool
to see.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
I shouldn't have said that, because now you're gonna ask
me to bring it out.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
I don't know. Yeah, oh, Frankie. Frankie's already jumping in
the car to go to your place and help you
find him.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
I was thinking I could put them on eBay and
sell them for five somebody.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
Somebody would definitely buy those.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Here's here's here's the secret ingredients to this, you know,
to defy which I couldn't even spell correctly.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Well, I'll tell you what if you do come upon
those as you're looking through boxes or drawers or what
have you. Uh, definitely, you know, send us a photo
or somebody, be really cool to see. No, no expectation,
of course. So and of course if you come upon
any tapes, Frankie will gladly relieve you of them so
you can make some precious storage space in your home.
I wanted to thank you so much, Robbie for for

(59:21):
taking the time to talk to us. You're you're helping
us fill gaps in the Primus history. Uh, it's it's
great to know because some of these names, as we
were talking about the mystery earlier and so in some
of these names from the mid eighties, I couldn't put
faces to them for so long or voices to them,
and so you were a bit of a mythical figure.

(59:42):
So Robbie Bean and Perm Parker were just these names
without faces. So it's really it's really cool to get
to know you a bit, to speak with you today,
h and for you to tell us about your your
primus experience and then some.

Speaker 3 (59:58):
And it was a great experience. So I'll tell you
it was really great. Man. I really had a lot
of respect for Less and Todd. They were cool.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
Yeah, and they certainly did go places. Your your psychic
was dead on and and your your own prognostication came
true that Less. Uh, I mean, he got bigger than
I think anybody would have expected, so, which is pretty incredible.
So if anybody is tooling around to the Bay Area,

(01:00:28):
where can they see you gigging.

Speaker 3 (01:00:31):
All around? I played with a lot of blues bands
and that keeps me pretty busy. And it's a real
to any of you drummers and rhythm section people out there,
I'm talking about traditional blues. It's a real great teacher.

(01:00:53):
It's a super great teacher. It's a great discipline in groove, presence, commitment,
you know, being right here in the now. Sometimes you
have to underplay and sometimes you have to play a lot,
sometimes you have to play busy, depending on what the
material requires. Yeah. In fact, I had a dream about

(01:01:16):
this interview last night. Oh my goodness, and that went
h boy, that went viral in my brain. That went
to every fricking corner of my soul. That was insane. Boy,
if I could ever bring that dream out.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Front but Helpe. It went well in the dream too, Yeah,
it went well. Oh good,