Primus doesn’t have a new album to promote. Nor is the iconic, eclectic San Francisco rock band overtly paying tribute to one of its many influences as the group tours this summer.

But that’s fine with bassist and band leader Les Claypool.

“We’ve got a few surprises up our sleeves,” he said.

Primus will perform Saturday at the new Ford Amphitheater in Colorado Springs. Fantastic Negrito will open the show.

“It’s gonna be a retrospective of all the things we’ve been doing over the years,” Claypool said. “But no Rush albums, if that’s what you’re looking for.

“We’ve done the Willy Wonka show. We’ve done the rainbow goblins show. We did the tribute to Rush’s ‘A Farewell to the Kings’ record. There’s been a lot of requests for us to do songs we haven’t played live for a while if ever. So we’re probably going to dig into a lot deeper pockets.”

Primus can only do that, Claypool acknowledged, because the band has, over the past 40 years, built an audience dedicated to seeing the band and hearing its recordings.

So what is that irresistible Primus sound?

“It’s all just devil music,” Claypool quipped, then took on the question more seriously.

“It’s really not a technique or a style,” he said. “I think with Primus, it’s three guys with very different backgrounds and a multitude of influences coming together. It’s funny, I get asked the Frank Zappa question quite a lot. But I didn’t go down the Zappa road. I think I had like one (Zappa) album my whole life. That’s more (guitarist) Larry LaLonde.

“Tim Alexander (drummer) has some world music. So that element comes in,” the front man said. “Obviously, I have a background with guys like Geddy Lee and Larry Graham and Peter Gabriel. Early Peter Gabriel was some of the biggest influence on me and Primus forever. But a lot of people don’t really spot that.”

Primus now has nine studio albums, two of them platinum sellers, and regularly tour the world playing arenas and amphitheaters. That, on a commercial level, would seem to be a success for the under the radar band.

“I always say you have to define success,” Claypool said. “Is success making a bunch of money? If you want to make a bunch of money, then you find what’s popular on the radio and you copy it. To me, success has always been being able to do what I want to do.”