Primus, the genre-blurring trio from Northern California, has released a new episode of Interstellar Drum Derby, an experimental video series that reflects their long-standing tendency to create music well outside the usual lines. With its surreal visuals and unpredictable rhythms, the latest entry once again breaks from traditional drum content, offering something more theatrical and exploratory in its execution.
The series began several years ago as an abstract collaboration between bassist Les Claypool and drummer Tim Alexander. Over time, it’s taken on a life of its own. Each episode functions less like a drum solo and more like a short film centered around rhythm, without adhering to any particular format. The newest addition to the series doesn’t deviate from that path. There’s no countdown intro, no clear arc, and no attempt to explain itself. Instead, it leans into layered soundscapes, visual oddities, and a persistent refusal to simplify the act of drumming into spectacle.
At a time when most online music content leans heavily on production polish and algorithm appeal, Drum Derby feels purposefully out of sync with digital trends. Its structure, or, perhaps more accurately, its lack of structure, allows Alexander’s drumming to serve as narrative rather than backdrop. The performance isn’t about precision or speed. Instead, it focuses on feel and timing, with Alexander using space and silence as intentionally as sound.
Best known for his work on early Primus albums like Frizzle Fry and Sailing the Seas of Cheese, Alexander brings a signature tension to the project: a quiet complexity that resists obvious interpretation. In this format, he isn’t just demonstrating technique. He’s exploring phrasing and impulse, moving through passages as if telling a story he doesn’t plan to explain. It’s rhythmic, but it’s also conceptual, bordering at times on interpretive performance art.
Unlike traditional drum showcases, Interstellar Drum Derby avoids teaching moments or technical breakdowns. There are no tips, no sponsored gear shoutouts. The intention seems to be different: to present rhythm as something fluid, internal, even strange. That decision gives the project a certain clarity. It knows what it’s not trying to be.
For those familiar with Primus and their catalog, this direction won’t come as a surprise. The band has long preferred absurdity over accessibility. Even so, the Drum Derby series offers something unexpected: a sustained, evolving look at drumming not as a skill set, but as a language that doesn’t always need translation. It challenges the idea that percussion must fit within a musical framework. Sometimes, it simply exists as movement and tone.
The audience for a project like this might be narrow, but its impact within that niche is clear. In contrast to the endless churn of viral drum videos and stylized playthroughs, Drum Derby positions itself in a slower, more reflective lane. It’s not meant to go viral. It’s not asking to be shared. It’s just: there, doing its thing in a quiet corner of the music world where weirdness still has room to breathe.