Primus Unveil ‘Tragedy’s A Comin” Video

Sometimes the best cure for misery is laughter. That's why Primus frontman Les Claypool has opted for a silly video treatment for the band's serious new song 'Tragedy's A Comin'.'

The past year has been rough for Claypool, whose mother is "fading away," and whose brother's baby son was diagnosed with leukemia, so the song is "all about impending doom," Claypool told IFC.com. But instead of accompanying the band's first video in eleven years with gloomy or dire scenarios, Claypool and co-director Mark Kohr have exposed audiences to the plight of ... lobsters.

The clip depicts a lobster sitting in a restaurant tank, watching other lobsters being pulled out of the water to be served to hungry diners. As the crustacean stares through the glass, he imagines he's on a sunny beach, which is where Claypool and his lobster suit come in.

"I spent so many years dodging goofball bullets from doing the 'Wynona's Got a Big Brown Beaver' video that I don't resist it anymore," he said. "I got to put on a giant lobster suit, and that doesn't happen every day."

Claypool, who directed the 'Wynona' video in 1995, wrote the treatment for 'Tragedy's a Comin',' and directed the scenes that star Kohr as the restaurant maître d' who's about to sentence Claypool's lobster to a hot, watery demise. Kohr, who directed Primus' 'Jerry Was a Race Car Driver' and 'Tommy the Cat' in the early '90s, shot the rest of the video.

In a clever bit of self-promotion, the wines in the restaurant scenes area from Claypool Cellars.

Primus' seventh studio album, 'Green Naughahyde,' came out Sept. 13.