Metal Anarchy

During a recent interview with Rock ‘N’ Roll Grad School, Primus drummer John Hoffman offered an update on the band’s new album. According to him, the group have “done a lot of recording” for the effort.

Hoffman said the following when asked if the band have finished the recording process:

“No, we are not. We’ve recorded a few songs, like we just put out ‘The Ol’ Grizz’ [on the ‘A Handful Of Nuggs’ EP, which came out in May]. And then we did a cover of [DIO’s] ‘Holy Diver’ featuring Puddles Pity Party on vocals. And we did ‘Little Lord Fentanyl’ last year, which was actually part of my audition process. I was thrown that song as part of the audition, and I had one night to come up with my drum parts. And same with Gergő [Borlai], who was the other drummer in the finals. It was part of his process, too. And we each had the ability to kind of show what we would bring to the table in a recording situation. And, thankfully for me, the guys liked what I came up with. And a lot of people don’t realize this, but the drum part that’s on ‘Little Lord Fentanyl’ is the actual drum part that I played during my audition, for the ‘Drum Derby’. So what you’re hearing on that song is me nervously trying to get through the song with these brand-new parts that I just came up with, and thankfully it worked out.”

He continued when asked if he knew his parts would be used for the final version of “Little Lord Fentanyl”:

“I didn’t know that they were gonna release the song the way that they did. At the time, I was just looking at it as just another part of the test. It was like the final test, really, because at that point, I submitted all of my stuff through the Internet, and that took a couple of months from the time that they announced that they were looking for a drummer until the auditions started. So I had been in kind of correspondence with people, the management mostly, up to that point, and then I had my initial audition in Los Angeles, and then from there, the final audition, which was a three-day process. So by the time I got to that part, where I’m recording the song, I had already been through quite a bit of audition process at that point, so it just felt kind of like the final test. But I do think it’s cool that we ended up using the actual drum part from that time because it’s almost like an imprint, a photograph of what was going on at that exact moment.”

He also circled back to the album:

“We’ve done a lot of recording. At this point I feel like it’s been a lot of sort of just coming up with riffs and seeing kind of what sticks, and also spending a lot of time in the room with [bassist/vocalist] Les [Claypool] and [guitarist] Larry [LaLonde] to just get on their level and have me become completely the drummer that they want and that they’re looking for and they can work with without having to think about anything. You have to spend time. You can’t usually just jump into a room, especially with guys like that, on their level, as creative as they are, as used to doing things their own way as they are. It’s a process. Not that it’s been difficult, but like I say, I feel like a lot of the recording process up to this point has been more of a getting to know you as opposed to this is what we’re gonna show the world.”

[via Blabbermouth</a>]