Hunter S. Thompson would be proud

Les Claypool:
That song is about a trip that I took to Los Angeles with Adam Gates who actually is the artist who did the picture that we're going to use for the record. He's just an old friend of mine and he had a band called Monkey Rhythm a while ago and they were going to shoot this video down in L.A. Some college students that they knew were going to do it as a project so he and I drove down to Los Angeles one night in his Datsun and we were fried on acid. So there were many very interesting things that happened to us on the way down. It was a full on Hunter S. Thompson experience. So I couldn't really tell the whole story in the song because there was just so much shit that went on but there's little references to different things. But I remember, we're driving along and it would be completely dark and every now and then I would lean up and grab the little map light thing that folds out and aim it at my face and click it on and go--like some crazy face and he'd start freaking out because it was the most hilarious thing in the world to us.
And we pulled into some truck stop to get gas and I bought a pack of cigarettes. I hadn't smoked in years. I bought some cigarettes and I stole a lighter and we bought a bunch of candy and, being idiots, bought a bunch of stuff, got back in the car and I started smoking all these cigarettes just to be a bastard filling the car with smoke. We were just fucking with each other the whole way down. I had this gum that when you bite it, the stuff squirts in your mouth, you know? And I didn't realize it was that kind of gum 'cause I hate that stuff. So I had this gum and I took it and I was squeezing out the juice and I was sitting there just squeezing it onto his shoulder while he was driving, the juice from this gum and I ate it. And he's like, what are you doing? And somehow the whole car seemed like it was full of this sticky stuff. It was everywhere. It was like the most horrible feeling.
So we ended up in L.A. and there's references to us flying over the grapevine through the fog and hearing--Faith No More's new song had just come on the radio, from the Introduce Yourself record, which was my favorite Faith No More record. It came on the radio and it was the total perk me up and we go flying over the grapevine. And we get to L.A. and we had been listening to this radio station, I guess Deep Purple was coming to town or something so that whatever heavy metal station down there was playing Deep Purple all the time. And we were going back and forth from that station and this college station where these people were talking on the radio. It was like Howard Stern type stuff. They were bullshitting.
So we're driving along and it was too early for us to show up at this video shoot, but it was late and we were tired and we didn't have a hotel or nothing, we didn't have any money. So Adam goes, "Well, we played the Roxie before." 'Cause I didn't know L.A. at all. He says, "Well, we played the Roxie before. Let's pull in behind the Roxie." So we pull into the parking lot behind the Roxie and we park and I'm lying there and he takes off. And I'm flipping through the channels and some Deep Purple song comes on so I'm listening to it on that station. I'm just lying there kind of half asleep kind of still frying and
the song ends and I flip the radio back to the college station and I hear Adam's voice on the radio and he's all, "Yeah, when you think of acid, think of Monkey Rhythm." Click. "That was Adam calling from a phone booth. His friend is asleep in the car right now behind the Roxie. And they've driven down here..." and I was like whoa. It was like total mindbender, you know. Pretty soon Adam comes walking back around the corner. I told him, I just heard you on the radio. He goes, "No way, they played that over the air? " So that's what that song is about. It was just one of those crazy weekends. Hunter S. Thompson would be proud, I think, of that weekend.