Metal Anarchy

As previously reported, Bill Burr recently got to perform “Too Many Puppies” alongside Primus and Tool bassist Justin Chancellor at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. Now, during a new episode of the Monday Morning Podcast, the comedian further discussed the opportunity, saying he “was psyched” to play drums for the legendary musicians.

Burr said the following:

“I got to sit in on ‘Too Many Puppies“. And I can’t even… you know, I’m at the Greek, and me and my brothers, we used to jam way back in the day. We used to try and play the few songs that [Primus] had where [bassist/vocalist Les Claypool] was sort of playing a bassline that my brother could keep up with.

And to just be looking up and seeing him, and then seeing [guitarist Larry “Ler” LaLonde] looking back at me, smiling and everything. And [drummer John Hoffman] was like, beyond cool. Oh, my God, he sounded amazing. And he just got a brand new orange sparkle DW kit. And I just saw that thing. I was like, ‘Dude, that is going to look fucking sick under the lights.’ And it did. It looked like it was glowing.

And then, oh, by the way, Justin Chancellor from Tool was playing bass also, and then fucking Guitar Center me was up there. But I was psyched. I fucked up some of the changes. They kind of asked me a couple weeks ago, and I thought, for some reason, it was the middle of August, so I was just ripe for that roast.

And I was like, “Oh fuck, it’s the next day.’ So I had my little drum chart, and I went and I sat down, and I put it down, upside down. And then I had in-ears — which I never used — and they were working of course until I sat down, and then they weren’t.

I could still hear the band, but I was just going, ‘What the fuck?’ So I messed up a couple of changes. But in the end, those 16th note triplets — there’s like four fills. I played the first and the third, and John murdered the second and the fourth. But I did the 16th note triple thing, then just played, like a quad thing. You know, I stayed in my wheelhouse.

But it sounded… I think I pulled it off. But my favorite part was when I went out to the crowd after, and I went with my lovely wife, and she didn’t know anything about Primus. And as we were walking in, running into people, ‘Hey, man,’ ‘How you doing?’ And she was trying to get a read on what a Primus fan is.

Primus fans are everywhere from like Grateful Dead-ish to like jocks to like introverts to outgoing people. It’s just a wide mass of people that don’t look like they should be together, but they do. There’s some sort of through line that you can’t quite put your finger on for a Primus fan.

So when I went out to the crowd and I sat with my wife, she had this look on her face. She was going, like, ‘These guys are great. I like this. This is sort of funky.’ I go it’s kind of like Rush meets conspiracy theory meets, like Bootsy Collins. I don’t know how to like describe it, but it’s fucking awesome.

And the end of the concert when I saw my wife chanting ‘Primus sucks’, I was telling Les afterward, I go, ‘That was the music equivalent of if my wife actually sat down and watched a sporting event with me and high fived me in the end.’

So I got to do that. And then today I’m sitting in with somebody else at like, sort of like a Guitar Center thing, which is where I belong, which is cool. And then that’s the end of my my three-night in a row, getting outside of my comfort zone.”

[via The PRP]