Interview | Joe Russo Mounts Up | Part Two
By Scott Bernstein Nov 14, 2013 • 10:20 am PST
Joe Russo’s a busy guy. In the first part of our sprawling new interview, he offered some perspective on his time with Furthur and talked about the freedom of his most flexible schedule in years now that Furthur’s on hiatus. In this second part, Joe talks about his current commitments and potential future activities – and whether or not they include old buddy Marco Benevento.
[Photo By: Adam McCullough]
JAMBASE: Let’s talk about Joe Russo’s Almost Dead. This was a gig that came together as a lark back in January, and suddenly after that it’s the most buzzed-about Dead tribute band in years, so much that another gig is coming end of December at the Capitol Theater. How do you feel about this?
JOE RUSSO: Well let me say that we do the Freaks Ball a lot, and we’d been looking around for something to do. I love that gig, the NYC Freaks list really helped the Duo out a lot in our early days and we’re indebted to them. We always come back to play that party regardless of where our lives have gone, and respect where it began.
So this year was a two-night party and it was like, one night we’ll do Bustle – that’s kind of standard-issue for that gig now. We were then thinking, what else can we do? The Dead thing came up, and I was like, I don’t know, guys, I’m in the band that’s doing that, you know, for real. But this just worked out. We figured it’ll be Bustle, plus Tommy Hamilton. It’s a great bunch of friends and we’ll just do it: Bustle one night and Almost Dead the other. So we called it Almost Dead and then it became Joe Russo’s Almost Dead and people were already calling that “JRAD,” and we were like, fuck, yes, JRAD! [laughs] So we had to do it.
It was so goofy and tongue in cheek when we got together and rehearsed. The beauty of playing with your friends is any songbook will be exciting if you’re playing with people of like minds. I was so excited soon after we got into because it’s this music that I had grown to love and I was thinking wow, I’ll get to play this in a no-stress atmosphere with my best friends. That’s really all it was: we hoped it would be awesome and if it sucks, whatever.
We weren’t thinking too much about it. Neither Scott nor Tommy sounds like Garcia. They can get the licks for the applause but really, no one on that stage was doing anything other than play the way they play over songs we all love. And our thinking was, if we’re having that much fun, I think it’s hard for everyone else not to have fun, too. Our goal was to get into that 68-71 Dead vibe when those guys were like punk. Shit, man, the Dead were aggressive and the tones were aggressive and trashy and that’s the music where a lot of us live normally, so it was so much fun to do.
[Joe Russo’s Almost Dead Performing “St. Stephen” at the Brooklyn Bowl]
JR: We were shocked. I came out of there thinking, people fucking hated it [laughs], and we were all like, maybe that was bullshit, but we had fun. And then for the next few days people are calling me up saying, dude, what is this thing? We got calls. We got requests. We got offers for festivals. And we all had other things going on so we put it away.
But knowing that Furthur wasn’t going to do a New Year’s show, I was like, fuck it, let’s do it again. We’ll do one a year, though technically this’ll make two this year. We talked with the guys at the Bowl and it was then suggested we try the Cap. It’s selling really well.
JAMBASE: Well, hey man, scarcity, right? People want it, and if you’re telling them it’s once a year, maybe…
JR: If people enjoy it as much as they say they did, well, I guess we’ll do it again. The Capitol Theater is one of the greatest places in the world to play, and to get to be on that stage with my best friends, that’s special for me. Pete Shapiro is always good to us, and this just makes sense. If it tanks, it is what it is. If it does great, that’s great. We have a working song list that I’m pretty excited about and we’re going to get up there and just for it.
JAMBASE: Well, as you said, that’s the school of thought you came from.
JR: Yeah, for sure. And I’ve taken all this time to learn this music. I’ve learned a new language. It’d be a shame if I can’t speak this language anywhere but Furthur. I’d be missing this music, and not being able to play it and do different versions of it.
JAMBASE: So I want to switch gears and talk about the Benevento Russo Duo. Will you and Marco play together as the Duo again?
JR: I would love to. He and I have talked a lot over the last three years about doing it. We’re always excited about the idea. Marco’s one of the most incredible musicians and people I’ve ever known, and we go back to being kids. I hold the times we were playing together up with the best times of my life. The way things would work with the two of us – I do miss that.
But a lot of time has gone by while I’ve been with Furthur, and the music he’s making with his trio is incredible and I know it’s hard for him to put that on hold in the interests of trying to reboot the Duo. Don’t get me wrong; we’ve talked about maybe we do a show, but then it’s like, we’ve got to practice. We don’t want to come back after five years and have it not be better than it ever was.
I have a romanticized version of us making a new record and doing a little tour, but I’d want the production value. I’d want us to work on it and for it to sound really good. I want to remember all of my parts with the Duo, which I couldn’t right now. When you get right down to it, it’s a scheduling thing – I don’t think either of us doesn’t want to do it. One day we’ll do it. It’s never off the table, but I’m not sure it’ll be any time soon.
We did a couple of acoustic gigs in 2010 and 2011. Those were fun and low pressure because it’s not the same aesthetic as the full-blown Duo. We got pretty intense in the Duo and toward the end we were really writing this hooky instrumental rock stuff. But who knows what we’d do or what we could do. There could be this one drunken night at his place in Woodstock where we say fuck it and we record an album right then and there. But there’s nothing in the cards right now.
JAMBASE: We’ll be waiting on you guys, that’s for sure. While I still have you, Joe, I want to round-robin it a bit with the other gigs you have coming up. What do we make of the Complete Last Waltz?
JR: We did it last year at the Warfield in San Francisco and it was incredible. The cast of characters involved is pretty great, and this will be the night before Thankgsiving at the Cap so there’s that. It’s a big lineup: the Bustle crew and Sam Cohen and Stuart Bogie and Cass and Nels Cline, and the lead singer of Blitzen Trapper just signed on and it’s just this awesome cast of really talented people from all over the place. Richard Swift from the Shins is going to to come in and play piano and sing and there are so many other people I’m not mentioning.
It’s a lot like the Almost Dead thing where people know the songs and love the songs and we’re going to play the songs but not try to emulate. It’ll be in tune with The Band and what The Band sounds like but but it’s just a huge group of people having fun.
JAMBASE: And it sounds like you’ll be spending more time in your studio?
JR: Over the next year I’ll be getting my studio together to be able to provide drum tracks for people’s records from here. I’m going to get my studio chops back up and also hopefully release a record of my own in the next year. It’s a billion little things, you know, all of them gratifying. It’s been a long time since I can focus on a bunch of things, and as much as the last few years have been wonderful, I have an itch to do some more creating off the stage, too.
JAMBASE: More immediately, you’re playing a bunch of dates with Cass McCombs. How did you and Cass connect?
JR: My wife turned me on to a Cass song called “That’s That.” It’s one of my favorite songs now, but it took me a while to get into his stuff. I didn’t check it out that much at first. It’s a beautiful song but I just hadn’t checked him out that much. But my buddy Jon Shaw, who’s a close friend of mine, started playing bass with Cass so I decided I’d better hear some more.
I’ve been listening to him a bunch and it’s such incredible music. As time went on, Jon brought Cass to a Furthur show, I think Coney Island. Cass is a big Grateful Dead fan, and he and I ended up both part of the Move Me Brightly gig at TRI Studios. By that time we were more familiar with each other and we talked about doing some playing.
He came to a few more Furthur shows and we began to talk seriously about making some music, and finally he asked me to come down and record. What’s funny was that Mike Gordon ended up being in on the session, too. I didn’t realize he would be there and I went in and I see Mike and I’m like, oh, what’s up, man? Cass and Mike had met at the TRI session too. Mike just sounded so fucking great on the stuff he recorded.
I gotta respect Cass so much. He does what he hears. He’s not pigeonholded as a songwriter or anything, and he’s just one of these people where you just watch him and hear him and you’re like, I like the way this guy plays. So he was doing some touring and asked me to do a run with him, and we’re in for a two week run starting in December, mostly on the East Coast and in the Midwest a bit. I’m planning to pick up some dates with him next year, too, and hopefully he’ll find some pockets where he’ll have me again.
You know, before Furthur I so badly wanted to play with indie rockers – play with the cool kids, you know? And then I met all of them through shared interest in the Grateful Dead! That’s a weird transfer. I’ve gotten to play with all these indie guys basically through and to the side of my experience with Furthur.
JAMBASE: Is it consciously important to you to collect new experiences – to make sure you keep opening yourself up to new opportunities and new sounds?
JR: Oh yeah. Every opportunity gives me something I can apply to anything else. Something I’ve learned in Furthur could be applied to a Shpongle gig, even if those two could be the furthest thing from similar. I think it’s important for musicians to play in as many situations as possible. You can always learn so much, and I’m just so thankful to have been a part of all of these situations.
JAMBASE: Are there situations you haven’t yet been a part of that you’ve always wanted to try?
JR: You know, not off the top of my head. I think I’ve been very lucky. I get to scratch all of the itches I have and scratch them often, so nothing’s coming to mind.
The Shpongle thing, like I said before, was a very different situation. I mean, Marco and I did some stuff that was pretty lo-fi – stuff held together more or less with duct tape – but to go into a situation like Shpongle and play to a click track live, that’s the biggest new experience I’ve had in recent memory. Playing with a click track in my ear was so interesting and helped me immensely because it’s so different than anything else I do.
JAMBASE: When you’re carving up your calendar, how much time do you leave quote-unquote open for ad-hoc or one-off or just pieced together gigs, like the one at Brooklyn Bowl with you and Kraz and Neal this month?
JR: It’s crazy because I look at my calendar, and wow, my year’s almost full again already! [laughs] I don’t know if I leave time ever open. Things like that gig just tend to happen. They happen because Krasno will text me and be like, hey, you want to play the Bowl in two days, do something? I’ll be like, yeah, totally. But I like to fill up my calendar.
JAMBASE: Yes sir.
JR: But when you do have a lot going on, you then have enough to cover yourself if you want to sit in a studio for a week and just spend five straight days, like I’ve just done, trying to get just the right snare drum sound. I try to pick up gigs where I can and I try to fill my schedule as much as possible. Things tend to pop up here. There are a lot of musicians around here into doing those spontaneous gigs and people don’t often realize how quickly they come together.
JAMBASE: So just to fill in the gaps, you’ll have some Shpongle stuff and some Phil Lesh stuff next year it sounds like, too? Phil did mention he plans to do some playing with you and Jeff and John K.
JR: Yes, most likely I’ll be doing some dates with Phil. There’s more Cass, like I said. And as far as the Shpongle stuff, oh man, we’re excited to do some stuff next year. It’s not announced yet and I can’t quite explain, but we will have a big U.S. show next year.
But overall I’ll be out there. That’s what I do.
