Has Stewart’s position changed?

To an extent. He went to Trey’s show a couple weeks ago and he said, “Oh, now I get it.” That’s sort of the glory of Oysterhead the three of us come from very different areas but also have some common ground. So we’re always tugging each other into these different areas which makes it amazing. I’ve never been in a situation where there’s three alpha dogs.

How did you work out the alpha dog issue?

We debated back and forth. I’ll say this though, when you’re used to running with ball all the time it’s an interesting feeling to be tossing the ball back and forth and having everybody running together. Does that make sense?

Yes, and it’s a cool sports metaphor

From a guy who doesn’t give a shit about sports. [Laughs.]

You mentioned Warren Haynes earlier. How was your experience working with him? [Claypool collaborated with Haynes and Matt Abts on a track for the forthcoming release, The Deep End].

Warren’s a monster. That guy’s incredible. A good friend of mine is a huge Warren Haynes fan and for years he’d been telling me I should hook up with Warren. I was like, “Okay, whatever.” It just came happened and he was a monster, not only his guitar playing but his singing as well. We were singing some parts together on that tune when were in this little chamber with the microphone. I had to stand about eight inches away from the mike and he had to stand two feet from the mike and face the opposite direction and his voice was still louder than mine on tape. His throat is like a lion’s. A huge amount of air goes through those pipes.

I’ve been watching him every night we’ve been playing with Phil. He and Jimmy go back and forth trading licks and they really complement each other well. There are times when I hear some of his phrasing and the way he attacks the strings that just blow my mind.

Let’s talk briefly about the Jammys. This year the Frog Brigade performed with Junior Brown. When did you first hear Junior’s music?

We were in Europe and I got a phone call from Mirv who was in a band on tour with Primus. He called and told me to turn on a certain channel. I had never heard of him. It was some European broadcast and there he was wailing away and we were all blown away.

And the first time you met him was the day of the Jammys?

Yes.

How much did you work out what you were going to do?

Well Junior is bashful, he was definitely keeping to himself. We did a little jamming at soundcheck. Not a lot of hanging. But I thought it was amazing. We added Paul Shaffer too which was a last minute thing. We were ready to go on and Junior said “Hey Les, what do you think about having Paul play with us?” Well our drummer’s name is Paul so I said “Paul? He IS playing with us.” Junior said, “No, no Paul Shaffer. He wants to sit in with us. He’s an old friend of mine.” There he was and he jumped on up.

I was speaking with Paul and he said that he had met you once before.

One of the worst experiences of my musical career although Paul and those guys were all cool. Larry [LaLonde] and I were monster Letterman fans. we were so excited, it was the only talk show that we would do. We wanted to do something special for the show. So we did our soundcheck and everyone was cool. Then we went downstairs and I had brought these penguin costumes, the same ones we had worn on our album cover. We put these things on and the woman who books the show came down, opened the door, looked at us and her expression dropped. “Is that what you’re wearing? Is that what you always wear?” I said no and she stormed out of the room.

Then my road manager comes back and says man that lady is freaking out screaming, “How dare those guys do that?” They thought were trying to pull a fast one on them. It’s not like were dressed as penises. At first I thought that maybe because the front of the costume was white it might be too hot for the camera. So they were threatening not to let us play. Then they took Larry upstairs so that Dave could look at him and approve whether we could go on or not. Well we played, and after the show nobody talked to us. It was just total bullshit. It was like being kids getting caught stealing cupcakes out of the cafeteria. It ended up being great, they ended up using the thing for TV commercials and stuff but it was just a real drag, an uncomfortable situation.

Final question: you took home a Jammy bowl this year- Live album of the Year, for Live Frogs, Set I. What are your thoughts on that?

Obviously I’m pretty new to this whole community so it was a bit of a surprise. Actually the whole reception into this world has been a surprise. I tend not to get overly excited about awards in general, maybe I’m just tainted by the Grammys and whatnot. If you’re on Sony you have a better chance of winning because they have more votes. I put more weight in smaller events than I do the great big giant awards shows, I think they mean more. And I filled that sucker full of jellybeans.

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