Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Stereogum, John Hoffman revealed how he found out about his addition to Primus. The drummer says frontman Les Claypool decided to break the news with a message written on a cake.

Hoffman said the following:

“I was told that everybody gets a nickname from Les. The day that I’m leaving, Les texts me that morning and he said, ‘Hey, do people call you Hoffer?’ He asked me two or three different names. I said,’Yeah, people call me Hasselhoff,’ or whatever. And his response was, ‘Hoffington. You’re going to be Hoffington.’ I didn’t know what it was for. I was just like, ‘OK, I’m Hoffington then, that’s cool’. And I’m going on Google like, What is a Hoffington? I figured it was some nautical term. I thought it was like a boat or something. I think it’s just something he made up.

I had finished the audition process that afternoon, and so the whole crew and everybody in the band is kind of having a wrap party for the most part. It was a trivia night at [Claypool’s wine tasting room] Pachyderm Station. I’m planning on leaving the next morning, catching my flight. The audio-visual crew, they’re doing interviews the whole time I’ve been hanging out.

During all of the audition, I had a mic on me and there was a camera following me around, so much that I totally forgot that I was being filmed and recorded all the time. So they’re like, ‘Hey, man, before we go, can we get one more interview just to get your thoughts on the whole thing?’

They set me up for the interview, and they’re asking me a few questions and they say, ‘So how did you get along with the crew?’ And it kind of hit me. I was like, ‘It kind of sucks, man. I really enjoyed a lot of these people. I’ve made a lot of friends here. It’s going to kind of suck if I don’t really ever get to see anybody again.’

And as I’m elaborating on that, I hear, coming out of the kitchen, a group of people and they’re singing [sings] ‘For he’s a jolly good drummer.’ So I see this group coming out of the kitchen, and it’s led by Les. I’m doing this interview… and I’m like, ‘Should I keep talking… or? What’s going on here?’

After a couple seconds, I realized that they’re coming towards me and Les is carrying a box. I realize that they’re singing to me, they’re bringing me a box, and I kind of lose it a little bit. I’m full of emotion already at this point, even after the last couple of months of this process, so it didn’t take a lot for me to kind of start tearing up anyway.

But when I realized that they were bringing me this box, I just kind of started losing it. And he sets it in front of me. And I opened the box. And it was a cake. And written on the cake, it said, ‘Hoffington, You Got the Gig.’

Then I really lost it. I mean, I just buried my head. The tears were coming out. So a little time went by, I realized that there’s a room full of people watching me right now basically cry in my arm with my head down. So I realized I needed to get up and sort of address the situation and say something. They’re saying ‘So how does it feel, man?’ They’re hugging me and all this stuff. I’m just like, [ugly crying noises].

And so Les is like, ‘So you got the gig, and also you’re going to go with us to the Dominican Republic, and you’re going to play at the Tool in the Sand Festival on stage with Danny Carey.’ Oh, by the way, on top of this huge opportunity in this life-changing moment… you also get to go play with one of the consensus greatest drummers that ever lived.

Tool… when I was growing up, always seemed like a real mysterious and dark kind of band, full of mystery and shrouded by facts and kind of replaced by your own imagination. And so I just imagined [Carey] being kind of distant and kind of standoffish and weird, and he’s not at all. He’s just so cool.

And he had the nicest and most positive and encouraging things to say to me that day that I met him as far as my future in the music industry and with Primus. And it meant so much coming from a legend like him to have sort of an approval.”