Les Claypool has looked back at being rejected after auditioning for Metallica.
The Primus icon recently spoke to The Guardian about ‘The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy’ – his forthcoming album with Sean Ono Lennon as the Claypool Lennon Delirium.
During the interview, he looked back at his roots with Metallica, having gone to school with the band’s future guitarist Kirk Hammett, and later auditioned to be a part of the thrash metal band after the sudden death of bassist Cliff Burton.
As he shared, he auditioned for the band in 1986, and was unaware of the rapid momentum the band were getting at the time.
“I didn’t know how popular they were,” he said, explaining that he botched the audition with his lighthearted approach. “We played a song or two and I said, ‘Hey, you guys want to jam on some Isley Brothers?’ Nobody laughed.”
Claypool spoke about the audition back in 2005, too, and said to BP that he “couldn’t remember what songs” he played with the band, but could tell relatively soon into the audition that he “didn’t fit in”.
“[It] was really obvious,” he said (via Guitar World). “I believe Lars [Ulrich, drummer] said. ‘You’re not really used to this kind of music, are you?’ My first response was, goddamn, this is loud! And then I asked them if they wanted to jam on an Isley Brothers tune, just as a joke. Which they didn’t think was very funny.”
When he was asked if he was wanting to be a part of the thrash line-up, he said that he was working as a carpenter at the time and “would have joined any band that paid me”.
“At the time I thought it would have been a fantastic, fun thing to do, but I’m incredibly glad it didn’t happen,” he added.
He also went on to dismiss the claims made by Metallica frontman James Hetfield in the Behind The Music documentary that he was “too good” to be enlisted as part of the band. When asked by Kerrang! about the comments, he told the outlet: “No, it wasn’t that – I just didn’t fit in.
“I had a blonde Mohawk and baggy skater pants and two different coloured tennis shoes – and this was back when they had long hair and tight pants,” he recalled (via Guitar World). “I told [Hetfield] he was full of it, and thought I was a freak! That was why he didn’t want me! And he just laughed, because it was true. I wouldn’t have fit. They’re not dumb.”
‘The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy’ is an AI-themed concept album that sees Claypool join forces with Sean Ono Lennon, and is set to be released on May 1 via ATO.
In other Les Claypool news, recently Primus shared details of a UK and European tour taking place later this year. Dates include headline stops at Manchester’s Academy, Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom, and London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town on August 17, 18 and 19, respectively, as well as festival slots. Visit here for tickets to UK dates and here for international dates.
New live dates also come following Primus sharing the “complete shock” departure of their longtime drummer Tim Alexander in 2024, and holding auditions for a replacement. They eventually went with John Hoffman, a drummer from Shreveport, Louisiana, who has a significant following on YouTube.