Mike Gordon & Oteil Burbridge Discuss Phil Lesh’s Influence On ‘Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast’

Season 11 of the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast launched with the first installment of a multi-episode tribute to Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, who died in October at age 84. Phish bassist Mike Gordon and Dead & Company bassist Oteil Burbridge appeared as guests on the episode hosted by Jesse Jarnow and shared their thoughts on Lesh’s influence and legacy.

Lesh will be honored today with a street dedication at The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. “Phil Lesh Lane” will be unveiled at a celebratory ceremony held before the four-night “Unbroken Chain: A Celebration of the Life and Music of Phil Lesh” series of concerts at The Cap coinciding with what would have been Lesh’s 85th birthday on March 15.

Referencing that milestone, the Deadcast episode with Gordon and Burbridge is titled “Phil 85, Part 1.” As explored in the episode, Gordon saw the Grateful Dead live in concert for the first time in 1982. Phish covered the Grateful Dead during their earliest shows and Gordon and his bandmates shared the stage with Lesh numerous times.

“By the middle of high school, certainly by the end of high school, I was definitely a Dead fan,” Gordon explained. “Everything about Grateful Dead music – it combined a bunch of things I had liked before in new ways and every little piece of it was a microcosm including the bass. Eventually I thought the bass was probably the most unique thing about it of all – Phil’s contribution.”

Gordon described noticing the clarity of Phil’s bass in the mix of live Dead tape he heard on the loud car stereo installed in the car of his high school bandmate. Gordon was careful not to let Lesh’s style overly influence his own approach to bass playing.

“At a certain point I will say that I specifically avoided learning his bass lines because I liked it too much and a lot of the times there weren’t patterns and lines to figure out like there are with other bass players. There were — a little bit with my high school band and then early on in the first, let’s say, year with Phish — there were some Grateful Dead covers I was learning but it wasn’t really a matter of taking a deep dive into the bass playing.

“I think it was just too — it’s strange that I didn’t early on because that’s how I did it with everything, including piano and guitar and bass all the way through high school. I just heard stuff and I would just put it on a cassette [from] my cassette recorder, from the radio or a record, and then sit there at the piano and rewind every second and really go deep into it.

“I don’t know why with Phil Lesh I didn’t do more of that. My only guess — I know at a certain point I just liked it too much and it was going to become too much, it was going to rub off on me anyway and if I was going to keep any originality to my own playing I would have to avoid it.”

Gordon went on to detail his appreciation for Lesh’s style of playing, zeroing in on what he learned from Phil’s use of a pick. Gordon remained in awe of Lesh’s talent and musical knowledge, which he spoke about while recalling the last time they performed in concert together.

“I got to play with Phil just less than a year ago and I still can’t describe it in words very easily,” Gordon explained. “It’s almost like a conjuring trick of magic to be able to imply the chords and the rhythm and all these things without playing them. By weaving in and out of them, I’m going to be melodic and I’m going to be a powerhouse of solidness. That’s the way that I perceived it. And it doesn’t even seem humanly possible.”

Burbridge, who joined Lesh’s former Grateful Dead bandmates Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann in Dead & Company in 2015 (Kreutzmann has since left), has become intimately aware of Lesh’s style of bass playing with the Dead. Burbridge will return to the Las Vegas Sphere to kick off Dead & Company’s 2025 residency next week. When he takes the stage at the technologically enhanced venue, Lesh’s influence will be a prominent component of Burbridge’s own bass playing.

Speaking to Jarnow on the Deadcast, Burbridge stated:

“Phil had no rules. So he would do all these bass substitutions. So for people that don’t know music harmony, if you’re playing C major it’s like ‘happy,’ right? But if I play an A then it makes it a minor, so now I can turn it dark even though everybody’s still playing the same thing and I can just make Dracula, or whatever – just create some other tension.

“[With] Phil there were no rules. He was allowed to do whatever he wanted. So he gave me permission to do a lot of things where I might get a frown in other bands, like ‘don’t do that. Don’t bring Dracula out’ …

“Phil has this way – it’s like Mercury: you try to put your finger on it and you can’t do it. It’s amazing he’s just a constant puzzle, which is beautiful. He said it all the time, his whole ethos was, I think it’s a Beethoven quote, ‘It’s every artist’s duty to confound expectation’ and that’s his bass playing perfectly.”

The Deadcast episode also explores Lesh’s early musical development and influences that led him to joining the Grateful Dead. Listen to the full Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast episode below: