Interview | Joe Russo Mounts Up | Part One

Written By: Chad Berndtson

No sooner did Joe Russo open up calendar space with the announcement of a near-Furthur-less 2014 than he began to confirm all kinds of other gigs, from sit-ins (The Black Crowes) and thrilling one-offs (a pairing with Soulive’s Eric Krasno and Neal Evans, a return of The Complete Last Waltz, the second-ever Joe Russo’s Almost Dead Show) to full-blown tours (Cass McCombs) and the promise of much else to come (Phil & Friends, Shpongle). This is not a guy who takes much time off. Or one who waits for gigs to happen.

[Photo By: Adam McCullough]

JamBase connected with Russo this month for several expansive discussions over a three-day period. It’s been five years since he and brother-in-arms Marco Benevento more or less hung up the Duo and headed to other pursuits – Joe to a period of antsy transition, until getting a life-changing phone call from Bob Weir’s camp in 2009.

In Part 1 of our wide-ranging interview, Russo takes us through his time just before and then his years with Furthur, as well as a brief look ahead to some other things he has percolating now and why “taking time off” isn’t ever really an option.

Check back tomorrow for Part 2, where we’ll deep dive into the future of the Duo and other things on Russo’s mind including the return of Joe Russo’s Almost Dead.

JAMBASE: So Joe, no sooner did we hear about the Furthur hiatus than your dance card is once again filled. You’re touring with Cass McCombs, doing dates with Shpongle, doing various configurations and one-offs, sitting in with the Black Crowes, playing with The Complete Last Waltz. How are you prioritizing your commitments?,

JOE RUSSO: I am finding myself with a bunch of time now. This is the first time I’ve found myself with this much time off in years. I have a studio I’ve built and it’s been great to just come in to work at 8 or 9 a.m., and clock in, and write some music.

Previously Furthur was my first commitment over the last few years, so I would fill in the blanks on other stuff based on what info I’d receive from those guys. So this is going to be exciting and new. I’m kind of going back to the old days of slapping together a bunch of stuff, and I kind of just look at my calendar and talk to my wife and try to make sense of all the things that are on the table.

JAMBASE: Time management has to be a tricky thing in the Russo house.

JR: I’ve never been good at that, and I’m guilty of overcommitting my time. The calendar may say you can do it all, but you can’t. Sometimes I’d be traveling and be exhausted, or on the calendar I’d see time off from Furthur so it’s like, yeah, of course I’ll go to Europe with Shpongle, not realizing the hit your body takes with all that travel, and then going back to the mindbending Furthur thing.

But it’s fun. I’m definitely starting to be more aware of how the little squares on my calendar work. I’m always looking at big picture but I’m also just excited to be having the opportunity to play so many different songs with so many people I love and respect.

JAMBASE: How much planning will you do be doing versus just leaving time open for one-off gigs?

JR: It’ll be an interesting mix. I look forward to doing more stuff in the moment. The way that Marco and I started back in the day was completely improvised and “let’s go for it.” Now that I’ll be around a bit more, I’m looking forward to throwing guys together and making that kind of music again.

JAMBASE: I’ve always been curious how you mentally sort out all this material in your head. Do you know the Dead stuff cold, and can you switch back and forth easily from Dead, to Zeppelin, to The Band to other stuff you’ve got in front of you? Do you have to relearn a lot of material before gigs?

[Joe Russo’s Almost Dead Performing “Brown Eyed Women” at the Brooklyn Bowl]

JR: The Furthur thing was the most intense learning experience I ever had. I learned 160 songs within the first couple of months – 60 alone for what ended up being what was essentially an audition, with those first three shows we did [in 2009]. After those shows came 10 straight days of rehearsal in San Rafael, and even then I’d get an e-mail with names of 10 songs that were going to be performed that night.

It was pretty insane. My brain was pretty well gone but it helped me a lot – in a way, it’s helped me how to learn to do new material in a very short time. The Bustle stuff, I mean, that’s my childhood – that’s me in my parents’ basement bashing it out when I was a teenager.

If there’s anything else that’s been hard to learn it’s the Shpongle stuff. That music is slightly counterintuitive – it’s not an organic band playing music, but you’re learning what these producers make with all the tools they have at their disposal and how to assimilate into that. So that’s been a cool lesson to learn, too – I’m still reading off my computer when I do those gigs, hopefully one day I’ll just ingest it! [laughs]

But Shpongle goes against the way I’ve always listened to music; Grateful Dead songs go off places but they have a hook, a melody and a form. So that’s been a really different place in my brain. And now I’m in the middle of learning about 50 songs for the Cass McCombs tour coming up, which I’m so excited about, too, so I’ve been in the shed for that.

It all keeps my brain active. I love learning songs and getting them in memory – this huge collection where you become that much more intimate with music. You hear things you’ve never heard before and whatever sonics you’re taking in open up new ideas and new forms.

JAMBASE: We’ll touch on all of your current projects but I want to spend some time on Furthur. What’s your read on why it was time to put Furthur on hiatus?

JR: I have mixed emotions about it, but in my heart, it’s cool we’re taking a break. I honestly don’t think anyone expected this to last as long as it did, and we’ve been going after it so hard. If it’s a break or if it’s the end, I think the last two tours were the best we’ve ever played and I’m so psyched to go out on a high note.

That said, I’m going to miss playing with those guys, but I have a feeling we’ll all be swimming in the same circles and playing together again. It might not be under the Furthur moniker for the foreseeable future, but John and Jeff and I will be playing with Phil, and probably playing with Bob, and that’ll all be nice.

It’s a well-deserved break. Phil and Bob…those guys are monsters. The time, energy and love they put into what they do, they both just deserve a break and to chill and do their own thing. I’d love to say we’ll back in 2015 but I can’t say that.

JAMBASE: What do you remember about getting involved with Bob and Phil and how Furthur first came together?

[Photo By: Andrew Blackstein]

JR: It was pretty out-of-nowhere. Marco and I did that tour with Mike and Trey in 2006 and we did a bunch of shows with Phil & Friends then, too. I played with Phil only very briefly but we did get to meet.

When they were putting [Furthur] together, I know John Molo’s name was floated but I think he had a previous commitment. My name came up somewhere in there, and yeah, it was three years since I’d met Phil or whatever, and I get a call from Matt Busch, Bob’s manager, and this kind of cryptic message about something on the West Coast.

I wasn’t playing a lot – I was in a pretty serious transitional time trying to decide what the next move was. Marco and I had wrapped up the Duo thing, and I was playing jazz gigs and restaurant gigs. My wife was about to open a café, and I was going to try to do that with her, and I was saying to myself, well, I’ve had a really good run, maybe that’s it. Being a musician or artist isn’t an easy life so I really was thinking, maybe I’ve hit the top of my mountain musically. Then I get the call.

JAMBASE: It all sounded so closely guarded. I remember working on something with John Kadlecik at the time, related to Dark Star Orchestra, and I brought up Furthur shortly after those first gigs and he was like, ‘Nope. I can’t talk about it.’

JR: Nothing was overt about it, that’s for sure. I had no idea who was going to be in the room when I got there. And then I still wasn’t sure; I thought it would be maybe for benefit gigs or something, and we’d go out and play these shows and that’d be it. I really didn’t think too much about it at the time. We had rehearsals, which ended up being an audition for the group as a whole. And then we get this shock because we’re told we’re going to do this for a while and clear our schedules.

It was such a cool, out of nowhere thing. My wife – my girlfriend then – was the one who said to me, I think this is an audition for a Phil and Bob band. And I was like, no it’s not, don’t be silly. And of course…

JAMBASE: What’s that they say about your wife is always…something, something?

JR: [laughs] Right, right.

JAMBASE: When did it become clear that Furthur was going to continue, at least past the first tour? You said it seemed to everyone that it wouldn’t last long, and given the choices Phil was making, changing up groups all the time, I think that’s what everyone assumed from the outside, too.

JR: After the first year, I think we were all hopeful. The original idea of it was a very casual one, and it just kind of took off. Everyone was having a really good time and I think we were all thinking it was a thing, and then, you know, once we played Madison Square Garden, we said, yeah, this is a thing. But I really don’t think anyone thought it was going to get to that level. Bob and Phil really wanted to play together again, and lucky for me and for all of us, it became a band.

When we first started, I had no idea what this music was. I had barely a frame of reference. The school I’d come from was a band culture with a lot of improvisation and changing on a dime kind of stuff. We were able to make those moves with Furthur but we really did our own thing – it wasn’t a Dead replica, it wasn’t playing the songs the way they were always played. There was lots of new stuff coming off that stage.

JAMBASE: Did you have any background in Dead music before Furthur?

JR: I did not, no. I was…maybe…well, I was kind of an anti-Dead guy!

JAMBASE: Uh oh!

JR: I guess I was a little outspoken in my younger years. I confess: I just didn’t get it. I grew up in Jersey and I was a metalhead. I was into louder, faster shit and I never gave it a chance. It was one of those things. When I was a freshman in high school, I show up in my Slayer t-shirt and one day I have all these friends in tie-dye, and I’m like, what the fuck just happened?

All my old friends from that era of my life were just cracking up when this whole thing happened to me. Where I landed with Furthur I don’t anyone, most of all me, would have expected it. But I’m proud to say I love the Grateful Dead. I never took the opportunities to hear it. I think if someone had played Blues for Allah or “King Solomon’s Marbles” for me when I was 17, I would have been like, this fucking rules! But I heard “Scarlet Begonias,” and in my other ear I’m listening to Ride the Lightning. I’m not feeling “Scarlet Begonias [laughs].”

JAMBASE: Were you ever worried about being embraced by fans? Dead fans are a pretty critical bunch, but even beyond that, you have a group of fans who didn’t get to hear the Dead but who had a frame of reference for how, for example, Molo played drums with Phil Lesh & Friends.

JR: I’m not sure if they embraced me in the beginning, but I just wanted to do the music justice. I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thigns but I wasn’t concerned – I knew I was able to play my instrument well with these guys.

Everyone wants to be liked but I wanted to serve that music well and serve myself well at the same time. I tried to start taking some liberties pretty early on. I wanted to pay homage to what had been done before but not spend my life playing someone else on stage. Again, I’ve been so fortunate to make music with so many different people. I like the way I play, so I want to bring that to anything I do. But you know, this was the biggest gig I’ve ever had in my life. I tried not to be too intimidated.

JAMBASE: People are still buzzing about your Central Park gig with Phil Lesh and Eric Krasno. Can you share how that came together?

JR: The Central Park gig came together as another brilliant Pete Shapiro idea. He’s always coming from a place that makes the fans psyched. I believe it really is his mission to bring people special moments through music. I think there’s an attitude that’s like, ‘As a fan, I’d like to see Phil, Joe and Eric Krasno randomly playing in Central Park’ so he does that for himself, the fans and the rest of us.

I think the idea was finally confirmed late evening the night before. Phil was in the middle of a great run of shows and he’s busy as hell. Kraz was playing from 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. that morning -in Chicago! These guys pulled it together for something special. And I’m honored to be surrounded by people who care so much about those special moments, to make sacrifices to bring a little more joy to some unsuspecting passersby.

We had a great time. Kraz and I were just kinda jamming along as Phil showed up and once again (Phil) was plugged into his massive 6-inch bass speaker, he encouraged us to just keep going on as we were and he joined in. I don’t believe Phil and Kraz had ever even met, but here they are making music on a beautiful afternoon in Central Park. It really was a lot of fun. We played for about 30 minutes and then Phil had to get to soundcheck for his show at Best Buy and Kraz and I headed off for a lil’ downtime before our performance that night at Brooklyn Bowl with Neal Evans, Alecia Chakour and Cochemea Gastelum. Not a bad day!

Come on back tomorrow for Part 2 of our interview with Joe Russo, where we cover Almost Dead, Cass McCombs, The Complete Last Waltz, Shpongle, and the burning question of whether he’ll reunite with Marco Benevento.

Joe Russo tour schedule:

Nov 14 Todd Sickafoose’s Tiny Resistors ~ 55 BAR NYC 10PM

Erik Deutsch Keys ~ Jon Goldberger Guitar
Shane Endsley Trumpet ~ Alan Ferber Trombone
Joe Russo Drums ~ Todd Sickafoose Bass

Nov 27 The Complete Last Waltz ~ Capitol Theatre Port Chester, NY

With Cass McCombs

Dec 2 The Sinclair ~ Cambridge MA
Dec 3 II Motore ~ Montreal, QC, Canada
Dec 4 Great Hall ~ Toronto, ON, Canada
Dec 6 The Empty Bottle ~ Chicago, IL
Dec 7 Zanzabar ~ Louisville, KY
Dec 8 High Watt ~ Nashville, TN
Dec 9 The Earl ~ Atlanta, GA
Dec 12 The Bowery Ballroom ~ New York , NY
Dec 13 Boot & Saddle ~ Philadelphia, PA
Dec 14 Ottobar ~ Baltimore, MD

Dec 27 Joe Russo’s Almost Dead ~ Capitol Theatre ~ Port Chester. NY