Jerry Garcia died in 1995; but the music hasn’t stopped. Lesh is still touring almost as frequently as he did with Dead, playing new interpretations of seemingly infinite amount of songs that were in the Dead’s catalog. On Sunday, Oct. 21 at 7 p.m., Phil Lesh and Friends, will be playing the War Memorial at Oncenter, 515 Montgomery St. If you haven’t picked them up already, tickets can be purchased by calling 472-0700.
Phil took the time during a stop in Philadelphia to chat with me over the phone about the birth of the Dead, the in-between, and the after-Dead life:
Q:
After seeing a few of your live shows in recent years, as well as your Grateful Dead compatriot Bob Weir with his band Ratdog, one thing that sticks out from all the shows is that the audience is predominantly a younger crowd. How does it feel to be able to influence every generation 40 years after the Dead’s incarnation and what do you think draws them into your music?
A:
It’s very gratifying to see younger people in the audience, I’ve noticed that also. A lot of younger people are looking for something different, and are bored with what they hear on the radio. And of course there’s always the possibility that their parents, or brothers or sisters have turned them on to it.
Q:
The Dead’s crowds have always been one of the most dedicated. Does the vibe and energy from the crowd these days seem the same as the early days with the Dead?
A:
Yeah, it usually seems like it is. Although I’ve got to say that on this most recent tour, the enthusiasm and response from the crowd has been infectious, it’s like it’s stepped up to a new level. Of course I haven’t been out in a while, I sort of took a year off from last summer, doing just a couple of one-offs in San Francisco, and so, you know, sometimes if you don’t get out for a while, they get hungry for it.
Q:
When you guys were playing the acid tests with Ken Kesey in ‘65 before the whole psychedelic scene really took off, did you guys know you were onto something musically that would still be around influencing and affecting people some 40 years later? Or were you just kind of riding the wave and seeing where it takes you?
A:
Of course there was a sense of riding the wave, we had a really strong sense of being in the wave, or you know, maybe even a little ahead of it. We knew that we were onto something major in the way we were approaching the music with the collective improvisation group-mind aspect. Nobody really thought about how long it was going to last and in those days, we thought of it really as a temporary thing. When I started out, I didn’t see myself still doing after more than five years. Maybe that was like a defense mechanism, of not wanting to want it too much and go on forever, even though it was the best thing that ever happened to me at the time.
Q:
The Dead’s style of music evolved into a different phase seemingly every two years after you released the first album in ‘67. Was that one of the things that kept the music from ever getting repetitious?
A:
The thing about it, was, the way we approached the music, it was always fresh. We deliberately decided to make it new, and every time we played a song, we’d try to play it different. We didn’t play the same licks in the middle with the same fills behind us. We built that freshness, you know ... it all depends on the moment and the alignment of the stars and all of that; we built that deliberately into the music from the get-go.
Q:
What was your favorite phase of The Dead?
A:
My favorite period of course, has to be the first nine years - from ‘65 to ‘74 - because it was like an unbroken span of development and the music just kept getting more and more amazing and more diverse and it went in so many different directions. After that, it was pretty much trying to integrate all of those areas and all of that stuff into a continuum, so we could play the neat little songs that we had been coming up with, and also improvise on them in the same way we had in the acid test period.
Q:
The Dead seemed to be at every major event during the late 60s: Monterey, Woodstock, Altamont and so on. What was it like being involved in a renaissance-like period that changed the face of modern music, with so many ideas coming from everywhere all at once?
A:
It was a very vital time, you know, and I kind of miss that. It was really cool to be in that group. What can I say, all those great artists ... Even the older musicians, like Buddy Guy and those guys. It was something special.
Q:
With the Dead, you guys were on the road constantly, and you, along with Bob Weir and Ratdog, seemed to tour just as much as you did when you guys were with the Dead. What’s the connection between the Dead and the road? Do you find it hard to stay away and what keeps you out there?
A:
Well, it’s kind of like ... that’s where the action is. I could play local gigs, and get by in that way. But it’s not as satisfying as it is to bring the music to a new place every night, or every other night. It’s more of a challenge ... the traveling part isn’t always grand, of course. Even the best hotels get to be really, really boring after a while ... so there’s that aspect of it. I think it’s a challenge, and a responsibility. The Grateful Dead always felt that we had a responsibility to bring the music, because studio recordings didn’t really capture the main thing we tried to do, which is create a space where people can lose themselves in an ecstatic release, accompanied by their peers and like-minded people. Records don’t really do that, not even the greatest records. It was our responsibility because we believe in the music, we believe in what it can do, and we had to take it out to the people, and that’s what we did, and we’ve been doing it for over 40 years.
Q:
It seems that every member of the Dead had their own individual style that blended to form one harmonious collective. Is that what you tried to do when gathering your current band together?
A:
Yeah, absolutely. Each individual musician has his own approach and perspective. I like to mix it up a lot and bring different musicians in to give the music a new slant if you will. That said, I’m hoping to keep the band I’ve got for a little while now, because I really like it.
Q:
How did you meet up with the new band? Recommendations or chance jam sessions that lead to you inviting them in the band?
A:
John Molo, the drummer, has been with me for years, and he’s kind of the backbone of the whole thing. And I’ve known Larry Campbell since my band toured with Dylan’s band back in the early part of this decade. And after he left Dylan, I ran into him at The Jammys and one thing led to another and he became a friend and joined the band. Steve Molitz, the keyboard player from electro jam-band Particle ... I heard their stuff and have been wanting to integrate some electronica elements into the music for sometime now - and Steve is just the perfect guy to do that. And not only that, he handles all of the chops for the keys on the Americana/roots tunes ... he’s really an all-around guy. And then there’s Jackie Greene, who is a young singer/songwriter from Sacramento who put out two or three records, and I heard one of his things on the radio and liked it so much I bought the album and liked the whole album. And I was talking about it in an interview and I got an email from Jackie who said ‘gee, thanks for the nice comments on my record,’ and then I was working on another project thought ‘maybe Jackie Green would like to work on this, and so I called him, and it’s one of those serendipitous things. You never know when you’re going to come up on somebody who is an important piece of the music, which is really exciting and love that aspect of it.
Q:
With hundreds of songs in the Dead’s performing repertoire, how do you guys decide which songs to play each night? Certainly there’s a lot to remember.
A:
That’s pretty much the paradigm. We never do the same setlist twice and in fact, if we repeat a song. Putting a new band together is kind of laborious because you have to rehearse all of the material and there’s a lot of Grateful Dead material, so we keep adding stuff in on the road so there’s a constant influx of new material.
Q:
Back in the late 60s, who were some of your contemporaries you were influenced by, like maybe Jack Cassady from the Jefferson Airplane, and where are you drawing your influence from these days?
A:
I always admired Jack’s playing, but I never wanted to be influenced by anybody in that world. So my inspiration came from jazz players like Scott LaFaro and Charlie Mingus as far as the bass is concerned. I started out as a classical musician playing the violin and trumpet, studying composition and stuff ... my inspirations are, in the way that I play the instrument, are Bach, Handel and Baroque Renaissance counterpoint in the way the bass lines work in that kind of music, and just sort of try to bridge the gap with that back into our music.
Q:
I know there’s an official live Grateful Dead cd from the War Memorial in ‘77, where you will be playing next Sunday 30 years later, so I know you’ve been coming through Upstate New York for quite a while. What are your impressions of your travels through the area?
A:
Upstate New York has always been generally a great place for us to play because the audiences are so enthusiastic. New York City is one thing, it has it’s own character of course, but the Upstate audiences are just as enthusiastic in their own way. That’s the thing that sticks out. New York, generally the whole state, is a great thing for us.
Q:
What are your plans for the future? You just going to keep riding the same wave you’ve been riding since the acid tests back in ‘65?
A:
Well, I think it’s a different wave now. It’s just a little bit different now, we’ve added some different colors to it. And I’m going to tour as long as it’s musically gratifying or satisfying and I feel it’s working. So far, I don’t see any end in sight. This new band has a limitless amount of potential and I’m definitely going to explore that until there isn’t anymore to explore. Which, the thing about is, you can never get to the bottom of it, you can never completely master it. There’s always some corner or some vast expanse of music that’s waiting to be accessed or incorporated ... there’s millions of little musical universes that are waiting to be explored, and it’s not something that you can come to the end of. So I’m just going to keep exploring till I can’t see anymore, or hear or stand upright.
