This podcast is being brought to you by WXAV.com. WXAV. Bringing the best artists to you. So let me begin.
Your collaboration with Les Claypool began when your band, the Ghost of a Sibertoothed Tiger, toured with Primus about a year ago. Can you tell us a little bit about how that tour helped foster this new project, the Claypool London Delirium? Yeah, well my band, the Ghost, we were just really psyched to get to tour with Primus. We were all big fans.
And once we got on the road, I think we all realized that we were kind of cut from a similar cloth. We had a lot of the same taste and humor and outlook and temperament probably as well, we're kind of mellow people. So we started hanging and jamming a little bit in the interest backstage with the crew sticks and stuff. And eventually I wound up sitting in on a song called Southbound Packeter during the Primus set, which was really fun.
That's actually probably one of my favorite primus songs. And I think it went well. So I think less after that, he thought maybe we should try recording something and the rest is history. We have it, it's just been released earlier this month, it's called the monolith of Phobus.
Phobos, yeah. Phobos, excuse me. It's a really great record. It's super old school psychedelic prog rock.
It just has a great sound to it. And I was wondering, was it really difficult for you and us when you were jamming to kind of find that sound or did it just kind of come organically? It certainly was organic. I mean, once we started hanging out, I think we realized that we had a lot of the same interest and taste.
So, you know, we started fiddling around and everything happened pretty naturally. There's some great tracks on there. You have Oxycontin, Girl, Boomerang, Baby, and my two favorites, the Cricut and the Genie movements. Can you talk a little bit about what inspired the Cricut and the Genie movements?
Well, I mean, I was just, we didn't, you know, we'd been reading articles and stuff about how the big pharmacy companies were kind of pushing, you know, Oxycontin and pushing all these antidepressants and how, you know, what the consequences of that are. And I've been thinking about how kids were like so overly medicated in this country. You know, like, boys have like a trouble sitting still and then they put them on Riddler or whatever. And a lot of people are unnecessarily kind of drugged, it seems.
But, you know, the industry seems kind of nefarious in a lot of ways. I mean, obviously they're good things about medicine and Western medicine, but there's this kind of darkness to do like these pharmaceutical overlords kind of having a legal monopoly on pushing these certain kinds of drugs. And it just seems like there's this weird, a false dichotomy or things. I don't know.
So that was kind of where the subject medic came from. We had a little kid, you know, rubbing his pharmacy bottle and a genie comes out, which kind of appealing to me because it, you know, it's kind of what's like a metaphor for what really happens in a way. It's like a false comfort, you know, all these medicines. Yeah.
I mean, I'm not like strictly, I'm not like Tom Cruise, I'm not like against medicine in general, but it seems like people are really medicated compared to like Europe, for instance. And you really get that imaging. I mean, with the lurks that you and must come up with, you guys really paint a picture of the dark side of pharmaceuticals and over medication. You mentioned in your interview, you unless recently got interviewed by Rowan Stone about this project, and you guys talked a little bit about how the monkey's movie head from the late 60s kind of really inspired you in a little bit inspired this project.
Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what's what this movie of head, you know, speaks to you? How does it inspire you? I don't know. I mean, I'd actually never seen head less showed to me and you're like, man, you gotta see head.
So we sat down. I was just blown away the jack Nicholson wrote it because I didn't realize that's what he was doing before he was a writer. I mean, so the whole thing was kind of fascinating to me. As a primary source of inspiration, I don't know that I can honestly say that it is.
I do love the Porpoise song, though. I mean, and I have listened to that song, you know, quite a bit, and I do think it's great. In fact, I think that whole album is pretty great. A lot of the songs, like the Harry Nelson songs, really good.
But as a film, I'm not really in a fissing honor to be honest. I saw it once, but I think it did inspire us in as much as, you know, we kind of had a fun night and then we went and wrote some songs. But I wouldn't say that it's like a blueprint for anything that I'm thinking. But it definitely is a funny movie.
Yeah, it's super trippy out there. And I'm with you when I found out that jack Nicholson wrote it, it blew my mind. The Porpoise song is the one that I play for people, you know, if I'm like DJing or something, where they're just like, what is this? Is it the coolest, like law 60 track?
And I'm like, it's the monkeys. And people are always like, no way. Like, you know, a lot of people don't think of the monkeys as having a super cool vibey track, but that one is super vibey. It's like up there with some of the vibeyish like tracks, you know.
It's one thing you want listeners to take away when they finish listening this record. Take away their clothing. I don't know. I don't really have any like, you know, the things that's out there.
I was just happy if people are digging it, you know what I mean? I mean, I don't know. At the very best, I think it would make people maybe think a little bit about how f***ing weird the world is. But you know, that would be if they don't get that, then it's fine too.
I'm just happy if people check it out. We're a college radio station. What do you think is some of the roles that college radio plays in the larger musical landscape, if you will? Well, you know, I've actually had a pretty good relationship with college radio from when I was the first record I did was called Into the Sun on the Grand Royal label, which was the VC boys label.
And I actually think I had like a, it was like number one on the college charts for a while, like when it came out, which you know, is probably the only one number one I ever had and never will have. So, you know, for me, like, it's been a sort of foundation of my whole career has been like the college scene because that's where people, first of all, programmers have a little more freedom because it's, you know, it's school, so they're kind of in control of their stations. And then, you know, the listeners tend to have more alternative tastes or be more open to different things. And they're not like sort of corporate, the corporations haven't infiltrated and like, you know, held every DJ every millisecond of what they're supposed to say and which kind of things are supposed to ask.
So, it's kind of, you know, to me, it's like the beating heart of American alternative, you know, music culture in a way, and it's important, you know, I'm glad it still exists. And to kind of piggyback off of that, with the current state of affairs with the economics of the world right now, a lot of universities are selling off their college radio stations to get some money. Do you have any words of encouragement or inspirations to any DJs that may be affected by this at all? Man, it's rough, isn't it?
I don't know. I mean, they better not be selling off their college stations. And I feel like it's, you know, that's like the final frontier of like real people versus the robot corporations, you know, I don't know. I mean, if they really are doing that, I'd be very sad.
And, you know, I guess if I was a DJ and I wanted to continue doing that, you know, in terms of like radio stuff, I would start my own station online or something, you know, at least there's opportunities to like stream your shows yourself, you know, to like, I'm just, you know, there's at least online opportunities now where in the past you're either FM or AM or or a pirate radio. But at least now, you know, there's ways of getting your shows out globally where people can just listen online, like all over the world. It's kind of cool. Like I get to listen to, you know, I get to listen to college radio or, you know, or BBC radio or NPR, like anywhere in the world, if you just get online, it's amazing.
Now you're currently on tour with the Claypool London delirium and we could be playing Chicago anytime soon. Yeah, I think we are, but not until fall, basically. Okay, awesome. And final question I have for you, and that is, what we'd be hearing any new music from the ghost of Sabretooth Tiger anytime soon?
I'm hoping you will. We're definitely planning on it, but we don't know exactly when, but we're definitely going to make another record. Charlotte's just working on something for her project and I started doing this. So we're kind of taking a little hiatus, but yeah, we're definitely making a record.
Awesome. Well, Sean London, thank you so much for joining me today. It was an absolute pleasure talking to you. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for listening to this WXAV.com podcast. Check out WXAV.com for future podcasts. WXAV, the Escape from Ordinary Radio.