Primus will perform tonight at the Pavilion at Riverfront in Spokane, WA. The band is performing Rush’s A Farewell To Kings in its entirety.

Bassist-vocalist Les Claypool tells The Spokesman-Review about the impact that Rush and Expo ’74 - Spokane’s 1974 world’s fair - had on his young life and how weird it is to perform on the site of the exposition.

Q: Of all the Rush albums to select, why go with the relatively obscure “Farewell to Kings”?

Les Claypool: "We’ve joked about doing this kind of project for years. We talked about doing (Rush’s) Hemispheres a couple of years ago. We talked about doing the Rush album 2112, but that was too obvious. I saw Rush when I was 14. It was the first concert I ever attended, and I’ll never forget it. It was at the Cow Palace (in Daly City, California). It was the greatest moment of my life at that moment. It was a mental ejaculation. Farewell To Kings holds a special place in my heart. We were going to do this when (Rush drummer, the late) Neil (Peart) was still on the planet. But we went on tour with Slayer for their final tour (2018-2019). We were going to do it not that long ago, but COVID pushed it back further."

Q: What kind of feedback have you received from the surviving members of Rush - Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson?

Claypool: "They’ve been amazing. (Primus guitarist) Larry (LaLonde) has talked to Alex all the time about which guitars to use. I’ve been going back and forth with Geddy about how the hell he did that stuff on bass, sang and played keyboards. Holy crap!"

Read more at The Spokesman-Review.

(Photo - Chapman Baehler)