ARCHIVES: Primus sails the seas of 3-D – guitarist Larry LaLonde enters third dimension at F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre
When Primus, the funky alternative rock trio from San Francisco, announced that they would be embarking on a three-dimensional tour, many fans asked, “How can a band do a tour in 3-D?”
It’s such a peculiar concept that even guitarist Larry LaLonde isn’t exactly sure how it’s going to work yet.
“We’ve been trying to incorporate more and more video stuff into our show and trippy stuff that plays off the music, like weird visuals and textures and stuff. I think it was probably our manager, Brad [Sands] – he probably just bought a new 3-D TV; I’m assuming that’s where it came from. I think he was probably like, ‘Hey, man! What about 3-D?’” LaLonde said of the tour’s origins in a recent phone interview.
“So we started investigating what the possibilities of this were and came across some guys that have been working on this technology, and it’s pretty cool. I’m pretty blown away by it. We haven’t actually put the whole thing together as far as like doing a show or playing it with the band and everything, so I’m pretty excited about it. We’ll find out in the next couple of days how it all works, but so far everything I’ve seen is pretty amazing.”
It wouldn’t be the first time LaLonde has tread new musical territory. Inspired by a Rush concert and his neighbor’s “really cool” Fender Stratocaster, he bugged his parents at the age of 12 to buy him his first guitar, received lessons from virtuoso Joe Satriani, and delved into the burgeoning thrash metal scene by 15, playing in Possessed, which was widely credited as the founder of death metal.
Metal was the perfect genre for the young axman to hone his technical chops but, as the music became heavier and faster, he increasingly felt that he would rather be a part of something fresh and innovative, like the Dead Kennedys and Frank Zappa.
“It finally got to a point where heavier and faster kind of became sort of the sound of a garbage truck going down the road,” LaLonde cracked.
“A bunch of my friends were into the Grateful Dead and King Crimson and all this kind of stuff, so all of a sudden I’m hanging out with them and started getting into Frank Zappa and all this stuff. It kind of made me just switch into that. I thought that was like the next level of music to be into.”
That next level came in the form of Primus, which released six groundbreaking studio albums since 1990, one of which went gold (“Tales from the Punchbowl”) while two others went multi-platinum (“Sailing the Seas of Cheese” and “Pork Soda”). The success of singles like “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver,” “My Name Is Mud,” and “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” can largely be attributed to the quirky but catchy bass lines and lyrics of frontman Les Claypool, but it is LaLonde’s guitar that fills the space in between and helps complete their sound.
“I want to make sure the guitar part is kind of perfect, or at least perfect in my mind to make everything work. … You try to find the holes, try to find the places where it fits in and makes sense. … The Police was that way a lot; a lot of guitar parts were kind of fitted around the bass and bow wow wows. A lot of bands I was into were bass heavy,” he explained.
“It’s funny. Sometimes stuff will just really be off the cuff songwriting and it won’t really be thought about too much, and then there’s other times where I’ll kind of really think out a part because there will be like a really interesting bass line that I want to make sure that I don’t mess it up.”
Tired of the “record, tour, record” cycle, the group went on hiatus in 2000, playing shows sporadically over the years as LaLonde joined Tom Waits and Serj Tankian of System of a Down on the road and recorded two albums with his own band, No Forcefield.
“It was definitely a whole other experience to not be such a big part of the band. I was just sort of a side guy, so it was kind of cool to just slack off a bit and just play guitar and not have to worry about much else. They’ve all been really fun things,” he acknowledged.
“The No Forcefield stuff was another thing that was just cool because it was a crazy scene. It was a lot of hanging out in the turntable world around San Francisco. That scene was kind of like the next wave of how guitar used to be as far as people being really being into learning and pushing the boundaries and practicing. I hadn’t really seen anything like that since the metal guitar days.”
Rejoined by one of Primus’ first drummers, Jay Lane, the band hit a new creative stride in 2010 as they began working on their first studio album since 1999’s “Antipop.” The result became the well-received “Green Naugahyde,” released last September.
“Getting back in was exciting and everyone was ready to do it. On top of that, now there’s a lot more technology to make things easier, as far as I can pull up all my song ideas on my phone. I can record stuff and go home and work on stuff. All those things kind of made it a lot more fun. Back in the day, you were waiting for a tape to rewind and do another take. It’s a lot faster now. There’s not as much downtime, which is nice,” LaLonde recalled.
“As far as the songwriting, a lot of it was just jamming in the studio. Since we did have so much time off before this one, I had a ton of song ideas together. So, I mean, the basic idea behind the whole thing is that we just went in and just started doing it. Before we knew it, we just had an album.”
The new surround sound 3-D tour, which stops at the F.M. Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday, Oct. 16 at 8 p.m., will also leave little downtime for Primus this year, but that’s not what has the 44-year-old worried.
“I better not wear the 3-D glasses because I might not be able to multi-task on the guitar playing and the video watching. ‘Hey, man! This is a cool movie!’ Oh, yeah, yeah, guitar!” he joked.
“Maybe the next one we just put on ‘Free Bird’ by Skynyrd in the back speakers and that’s the show. Minimalist. Give ‘em what they want.”
Primus 3-D Tour
Location: F.M. Kirby Center (71 Public Square, Wilkes-Barre)
Date: Tuesday, Oct. 16
Time: Doors at 7 p.m., show at 8 p.m.
Cost: $35-50
Photo by Jason Riedmiller Photography/NEPA Scene
