“This was the hardest record I’ve ever made in my entire life,” Les Claypool says. “We were building the pyramids. It was a monumental undertaking and accomplishment.” Claypool and Sean Lennon spent three years on May 1’s The Great Parrot-Ox and the Golden Egg of Empathy, the just-announced third album from their joint project, the Claypool Lennon Delirium. It’s a wildly inventive ride, a full-on rock opera packed with trippy prog journeys, Lennon’s rich melodies, and Claypool’s string-straining bass-guitar madness.
The album’s story is inspired by an oft-cited thought experiment about an AI that ends up destroying the world after following paper-clip-making instructions too literally. “It’s hard enough to write a bunch of good songs,” Lennon says. “But to make them all fit a narrative was really hard — but also really fun in the end.”
Next up is Claypool Gold 2026 summer tour, with Primus, the Delirium, and Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade all sharing the stage each night. In the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Claypool and Lennon go deep on the album, and much more. To hear the entire interview, check out Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above. Some highlights follow
The duo’s creative dynamic comes down to one conflict: Claypool likes to get the take and “go fishing,” while Lennon is more obsessive. “When we’re making these records, he’s more like Paul [McCartney] and I’m more like his dad,” Claypool says. “I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s good, let’s go,’ and he’s like, ‘Well no, I’ve got this glockenspiel part I want to play on the harmonium’ — oh, and ‘I’m gonna redo all these layers of vocals.’” Claypool also sees his role as counteracting Lennon’s melodic tendencies: “I throw the warts and pimples and barnacles into the mix,” he says. “Otherwise it’d be all pretty — [he] likes the pretty stuff.”
Willow is the only guest vocalist on the album, and it turns out she and Lennon have been friends for years. “All celebrity children just know each other,” Lennon jokes. “There’s a network. If you do Control-Cap-Shift-Nepo on Facebook, there’s a secret Facebook where we all just hang out.” More seriously, he adds, “There’s stuff Willow and I understand about being children of celebrities that’s hard to explain to other people. “
Lennon also reveals that he and Willow have a history of unreleased collaborations. “She’s just a cool friend of mine who happens to be an amazing singer, and we’ve actually worked together on a bunch of stuff over the years that hasn’t even come out,” he says. “She listens to metal and jazz and funk — she’s just really open-minded and experimental. I admire her a lot. I think her style is really sick.”
Lennon first discovered Primus after sneaking into a club in Italy as a teenager. “ I’ll never forget it,” Lennon says. “It was so good. People were jumping off the balcony. It was actually terrifying. There were like these Italian kind of shirtless, mohawked punk guys, and Les was just, like, killing it. I loved it.”
Lennon and Claypool played nearly every note on the album themselves, including drums, which they traded off. “When I start playing drums, it sounds like a Claypool record,” says Claypool. “Whereas when [Sean] plays, he’s got that Bill Ward, kind of Ringo, loping feel, which completely changes the landscape of the tunes.” Adds Lennon, “I’m genetically connected to the Sixties psychedelia. I think I have that loping feel that the Colonel likes sometimes.”
Claypool, a lifelong Rush fan, is thrilled about the band’s upcoming reunion. “I’m very excited to see the fire in Alex’s eyes again, and Geddy being so excited,” Claypool says. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing… Seeing the breath of life that their new drummer has blown into their world… I’m very happy for them.”
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone‘s weekly podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now, hosted by Brian Hiatt, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Check out nine years’ worth of episodes in the archive, including in-depth interviews with artists including Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Questlove, Halsey, Missy Elliott, Dua Lipa, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers, Yungblud, Rick Ross, Alicia Keys, the National, Brian May, Roger Taylor, Ice Cube, Taylor Hawkins, Willow, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Killer Mike, Julian Casablancas, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Marr, Scott Weiland, Liam Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Donald Fagen, Charlie Puth, Phil Collins, Justin Townes Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Sebastian Bach, Tom Petty, Eddie Van Halen, Kelly Clarkson, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, the Zombies, and Gary Clark Jr. And look for dozens of episodes featuring genre-spanning discussions, debates, and explainers with Rolling Stone’s critics and reporters.
