The Ultimate Gig: How Primus Found Its New Drummer

The last time we caught up with Les Claypool, he was touring with the Fearless Flying Frog Brigade. Now it's finally time for a headlining Primus tour, after the indefinable rock band joined Maynard James Keenan for two Sessanta tours with Puscifer and A Perfect Circle last year and this spring. But the band hit a snag last fall, when longtime drummer Herb Alexander announced he was leaving the group. With the tour already scheduled, including a date at Red Rocks Amphitheatre this week on Wednesday, July 9, Claypool and guitarist Larry LaLonde put out a global call on social media for audition video submissions.

Out of more than 6,500 drummers who submitted, they narrowed the pool down to nine, inviting the prospects to come to L.A. for an in-person audition. John Hoffman — or Hoffington, as Claypool now calls him — ultimately secured the gig. The audition process was recorded for a YouTube series dubbed Primus Interstellar Drum Derby, which includes comedic asides with Fred Armisen and Bob Odenkirk. You can immediately hear the chemistry between an earnest, wide-eyed Hoffman and his musical heroes. "I'm just an underdog from Louisiana, just trying to make my dreams come true out here," he shares in the series.

Now, after performing on the Sessanta 2.0 tour as well as sitting in for songs alongside drummer Danny Carey — one of his heroes — for the Tool Live in the Sand festival in the Dominican Republic, Hoffman is still absorbing his new reality. How has his life changed? "It would be easier to say how it hasn't changed," he responds with a laugh.

He remembers feeling "a bit of skepticism" when he saw the call for audition submissions. "I didn't know how authentic or real it was," he says, "but I was also extremely excited at the same time, so I immediately made a video to send in and put my hat in the ring."
Hoffman had been part of many bands around Shreveport, Louisiana, where he's now become a hometown celebrity. "For the last almost twenty years or so, I've been pretty much just a local drummer playing around the Shreveport area and touring around the region, the Midwest and the South, playing with lots of different bands," he says. "But it was almost in the trenches, the underbelly of the music industry — I'm setting up my own gear, booking my own gigs, doing everything DIY. So when I got the Primus gig, it was a huge level up, to say the least. And that's something I've had to get used to, the idea that all I have to focus on now is just playing drums."

Some prime advice he's received from his new masterclass-musician peers is to recognize that he earned it and deserved it (we all know how impostor syndrome feels). Hoffman has been playing drums since he was a kid. His dad and mom had moved to Hawaii after winning a trip there through a contest, and his dad played keys in "one of the biggest rock bands on the island," he says. Hoffman was born in Honolulu, where he lived for a few years before the family moved back to Shreveport. "There was always music in the house, and I gravitated towards the drums when I was a baby, pretty much," he says. He moved to Phoenix for a time, where he was gigging consistently, and returned to Louisiana, where he joined even more groups. "I built a name for myself as the top-call drummer around the area. If anybody needed a drummer, I was the guy called," he recalls. "I was playing with about twelve to fifteen bands, bouncing around whoever's schedule could fit me."

Primus has been one of his favorite acts for a long time. "Like a lot of people, when I was a teenager, I discovered Primus and I completely fell in love with the band," he says. "It was just one of my absolute favorite bands; I was a huge Herb fan — loved the way that he played. I was a huge Brain fan, as well. When the Brown Album and Antipop came out, I listened to those albums constantly."

After Hoffman submitted his first audition video last November — a rendition of "John the Fisherman" — Primus put out another message on social media: The band wanted people to not just play Primus songs, but showcase their own "flavor." In the YouTube series, Claypool comments on how he could barely differentiate Hoffman's drumming from what was on the track. While that shows impeccable form in itself, he and LaLonde wanted to see more personality. So Hoffman sent in a video in which he shared live performances and riffed on a multitude of theme songs, including Tom and Jerry, Reading Rainbow, Inspector Gadget, Ren and Stimpy, The Jetsons and Seinfeld. He cheekily titled it, "How I became the NEW drummer for PRIMUS." Now, that's flavor.
In December, he received an email from Claypool himself, asking Hoffman if he would come to Los Angeles for an in-person audition in January. "When I saw the email, I saw that it was from Les and I read it, and I just, I dropped to my knees and started crying uncontrollably," he recalls. "It was such an overwhelming moment. ... It probably took me thirty minutes to just collect myself and stop slobbering on myself. I responded to that email as soon as I was able to collect my faculties, and I said, 'Thank you, I will absolutely be there.'"

He was one of nine; eventually, it would narrow down to Hoffman and Gergo Borlai, the Hungarian drummer who has contributed to hundreds of albums and won two lifetime achievement awards. In the Drum Derby series, Hoffman acknowledges Borlai as an inspiration to him for several years. He hadn't known Borlai was there until they happened to bump into each other in their hotel, as Borlai was checking out and Hoffman was checking in.

After the first audition sessions, he and Borlai went to Primus's headquarters for the finals. "Part of that process was us playing an entire set of Primus songs, as well as learning the song 'Little Lord Fentanyl,' which is released now, but at the time, it was not a complete song," Hoffman explains.

Claypool showed each of the drummers the riff he wrote for the brand-new song, and tasked them with writing the drums. They recorded the sessions, and Hoffman's drumming is heard on the new single "Little Lord Fentanyl," which features Puscifer. The YouTube episode gives a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how the song was built. Claypool calls Hoffman's chops "a combination of Jay Lane and Stewart Copeland" — an incredible compliment. The new Primus lineup got the final version on the third take.

"I just got a bass riff from Les and I had one evening to go and write, and then come back the next day," Hoffman recalls. "We recorded it as part of the process to see how I would do in the studio. The version that I recorded in the audition process is the actual drum version that's released now."

When Hoffman got the news that he secured the gig, he was at Claypool's Pachyderm Station for trivia night. "The crew was having a bit of a wrap party. ... We're all just hanging out; there were probably 25, thirty people there, all close friends of the band and the band members and crew," Hoffman says. "I didn't realize it, but they had already chosen me. I was under the impression that it was going to be two or three weeks before they made an announcement, because they had to go over all the footage and all that."

Hoffman was sitting with a glass of wine — Claypool is also a winemaker — and doing his final interview for the Drum Derby when, all of a sudden, he heard everyone singing, "For he's a jolly good drummer, for he's a jolly good drummer..."

Claypool and LaLonde walked out with a cake whose frosting spelled out, "Hoffington, you got the gig."

"It took me a few seconds to process what was going on," Hoffman admits (you can see his shock in the Drum Derby video). "Then, when I saw the cake...I was 100 percent sure what was happening. I started crying full-on. I was in a room full of people and I was trying so hard not to really, really cry in front of people — if I had been by myself, I would have been rolling on the floor. It was a total surprise; I had no idea it was coming. It was an overwhelming feeling of joy, relief, any word you can imagine that would describe the feeling of joy."

It's emotional to watch the scene, and impossible not to smile as you watch the self-proclaimed underdog realize his dreams have become reality. In the Derby video, Claypool says, "I do remember after that first day that we felt very strongly about, 'Wow, I think we got our guy. Unless Hoffer really chokes tomorrow, I think he's going to get the gig.' It almost feels scripted, the way that this has all come about, because Hoffer came out of the blue, he wasn't going to get an audition, he resubmitted and we were totally blown away, brought him in, he played. ... And he killed it."

"This is Hollywood scripted," LaLonde adds.

Primus drum tech Tim Solyan chimes in: "To me, personally, I feel like Gergo was playing Primus songs with these guys, versus when John came in, he really seemed like the drummer in Primus. He had that feel."

On top of the news that he landed the gig, Claypool informed Hoffman that his first show would be in the Dominican Republic for the Tool fest. "So when Les goes, 'Oh, by the way, you're going to come with us to the Dominican Republic and we're going to have you surprise everyone and come out and play with us alongside Danny Carey, it was this amazing cherry on top of this overwhelming situation," Hoffman reflects. "It's like, you're going to go debut on an international gig in paradise alongside one of your all-time favorite drummers? When I say it out loud, it's like, you could've written it out and made a movie out of it."

The next morning, he was heading to the airport to return to Shreveport when he got a text from Claypool: "Get ready," it said, with a wink-face emoji. Within a minute, "my phone started exploding like it never had before," Hoffman says. The announcement was out.

"My life has not been the same since," he says.

When he got back to Shreveport, it was a celebration. "There are things that happen there, but there aren't that many things that people can be super proud of," he notes. "The fact that I've been around the city for so long and I've played with so many people — pretty much every band and artist there, I've played with at least once — it feels like a win for a lot of people. It definitely feels like every time I leave the house, it's like I'm taking a victory lap."

He's now preparing to bring that victory lap to Red Rocks. He's never been to the venue before, and is still pinching himself.

"I'm beyond excited about it. Red Rocks is a legendary venue, so I'm absolutely pumped," he says. "It's going to be a really great show; I think that people are going to be very happy with some of the song selection. Hopefully I don't go choke!"

Primus and Ty Segall, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 18300 West Alameda Parkway, Morrison, 7 p.m. Wednesday, July 9. Tickets are available via AXS.