Les Claypool

Oysterhead is an alternative rock supergroup featuring bassist Les Claypool of Primus, guitarist Trey Anastasio of Phish and drummer Stewart Copeland... of The Police, with both Claypool and Anastasio providing vocals. The style and sound of the band is a collaborative eclectic mix of bass-oriented funk metal. In April 2000 Superfly Productions asked Claypool to assemble a band to perform during New Orleans Jazz Fest. Claypool contacted Anastasio and together they agreed on mutual hero, Copeland. Oysterhead was originally intended to be a singular live performance at New Orleans Saenger Theatre on May 4, 2000. The band compiled a set of almost entirely original material for the show, practicing at Muskegon's Frauenthal Theatre. Tickets were scalped for up to $2,000 each and in the audience were Francis Ford Coppola and Matt Groening. In 2001, Oysterhead officially reformed to record and release an album entitled The Grand Pecking Order, which featured nine new tracks in addition to four songs originally debuted in New Orleans. The release of this album was supported by a brief tour of North America, during which nearly every show was performed to a sold-out audience.
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Sausage were a short-lived alternative/funk rock band featuring a reunion of the 1988 lineup of the San Francisco Bay Area band Primus. They released... the album Riddles Are Abound Tonight in April 1994 through the Interscope Records imprint Prawn Song Records. Primus was formed in 1984 by singer and bassist Les Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth. The two of them played with a number of drummers before eventually settling on Tim "Curveball" Wright two years later. At this time, Jay Lane was playing with The Uptones, and later the Freaky Executives, for whom Claypool acted as a roadie. Claypool was a huge fan of Lane's, and when Wright left Primus in the summer of 1988, Lane was asked to suggest his replacement. Lane accepted the position himself, as the Freaky Executives were, in Claypool's words, "in record company hell. They were somehow getting dicked around by their record company". After recording a demo together, which they titled Sausage, Lane left Primus at the end of 1988 when "something good happened" with the Freaky Executives' record deal. Huth also left shortly after, wishing to dedicate more time to his family as he had just had a son and was expecting another.
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Colonel Les Claypool's Fearless Flying Frog Brigade is one of many musical projects involving Primus bassist Les Claypool. The original band was... formed in summer 2000 and consisted of: Les Claypool , Todd Huth , Jay Lane , Jeff Chimenti , Skerik , and Eenor . Les Claypool has described their sound as, "It's kind of a King Crimson meets Pink Floyd meets Frank Zappa type thing." The band released two live recordings in 2001, Live Frogs Set 1 and Live Frogs Set 2. Set 1 is a mix of covers and originals, including "Thela Hun Ginjeet" and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" . Set 2 is a live cover of the entire Pink Floyd album, Animals. A studio album was also released in 2002 entitled Purple Onion. All three albums were released on Les Claypool's Prawn Song Records. Claypool formed the band to play the Mountain Aire Festival, a jamband festival that takes place in Northern California on Memorial Day weekends each year.
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Interscope Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group that operates as one third of UMG's Interscope-Geffen-A&M label group. Interscope was founded in 1990 by Jimmy Iovine and Interscope Communications' Ted Field with financial support from Atlantic Records . Initially... it was distributed by the Atlantic Records subsidiary East West Records America. A&R Executive John McClain and producer Beau Hill were also part of the original founding team. The original focus of the label was on hip-hop and urban music, but by the mid 90's its range began to expand, to extent where its roster would be as wide ranging to include the industrial rock artist Nine Inch Nails , shock rocker Marilyn Manson, Limp Bizkit, Helmet, No Doubt and later the Latin artist Kings Of Flow in a unique partnership with Los Angeles based indie Latin label. Following UMG's acquisition of PolyGram in 1998, Geffen Records and A&M Records were merged into Interscope.
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