By Paul Freeman [2003 Interview]

Phil Lesh helps to ensure that Dead music will never die.

Lesh's inventive, imaginative bass playing was an integral part of the Grateful Dead's sound. He was part of that musical and cultural phenomenon from the band's 1965 launch until Jerry Garcia's passing in 1995.

A native of Berkeley, Lesh continued to explore the band's material in later incarnations, including the Other Ones, the Dead and Further, as well as his group Phil Lesh & Friends, which he formed in 1999.

We spoke with the artist following the release of his 2002 Phil Lesh & Friends album, "There and Back Again."

Lesh, 78 at the time of this writing, has recently completed a number of concerts with the Terrapin Family band. He operates a San Rafael, California music venue called Terrapin Crossroads. Lesh and Bob Weir are doing some duo dates in the spring of 2018.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
I love the new album.

LESH:
Well, thanks very much. I have to agree. I am so delighted with it. When you go into the studio, you can only hope for one thing -- that you're going to make a good record. And I've got to say, this band came into the studio and they delivered. In three weeks, we had the whole thing done.

PCC:
Obviously the band was ready before you stepped into the studio.

LESH:
Yeah, but the funny thing is, there were three or four songs that we hadn't even played live. We put them together in six days of rehearsal and the three weeks in the studio. And it was really a great experience.

PCC:
This edition of Phil Lesh & Friends -- do you see it as a new incarnation or as a continuation of what you've been doing? PHIL

LESH:
Well, I would say that, yeah, it's a continuation, but that, at this point, it's the finest flowering of everything I've been trying to do over the last four years.

PCC:
And this is really your first solo studio album?

LESH:
Well, yeah, but you couldn't really call it a solo album, because I don't sing all the songs or anything like that. These guys are definitely not my backup band.

PCC:
Had it just not been the right time before, to try to do something like this?

LESH:
First of all, with my various bands before this one, I had been mostly doing Grateful Dead material, trying to reinterpret and give a sense of the depth and richness of all of the Grateful Dead material, a lot of which hadn't been performed by the Grateful Dead in the last few years of its existence.

But then with this band, I just started to write material. I had a little flurry of creativity back about a year ago. And it led me to be able to work with Robert Hunter [frequent Grateful Dead lyricist] again. And so it turned out we had a lot of new material, which, when we were playing them in concert, it would kind of break up the momentum, because people hadn't heard this stuff and they weren't really sure what it was. And they couldn't sing along with it, because they didn't know it.

So I thought, "Gee, it would be a really good idea to get this music out there, so that people can hear it and learn it." I think it's kind of important for the audience to learn the music, as well as the musicians, so that they can understand it better and enjoy it more... and even sing along sometimes.

PCC:
Did there seem to be any particularl reason for that burst of creativity that came?

LESH:
You know, I think it was just the quality of the band that developed as we worked together. I don't know. And the other thing is, I got an electric guitar for myself a couple of years ago as a birthday present and I just started playing it and it started teaching me. And some of the things that it taught me were these songs.

PCC:
You've had other "Friends" lineups. What is the chemistry of this group that really makes it click?

LESH:
Well, it's something that's beyond chemistry, really. I think of it as alchemy. I guess I'd have to say that the group mind aspect of this band is the strongest of any band that I've had. In other words, under the right circumstances, we can become a single organism... mentally or spiritually. And that somehow opens up a door or a pipeline for us to that eternal music, which is always playing on some other cosmic level. And we're able to tap into that in live performance. And actually, we were able to tap into that a little bit in the studio, too, which was an amazing experience.

PCC:
But though it is, as you say, a real band experience, are you comfortable being the front man in this situation?

LESH:
Well, actually, I'm not really the front man. I play the bass and sometimes I give cues and sometimes I count off. But equally, the other guys in the band do the same thing. I don't sing all of the songs. I have a couple of really great singers in the band, one in Rob Barraco [keyboardist]. And so it's really pretty much a group effort. I'm nominally the front man and it's my concept. And so it is my band. But it really is a group effort.

PCC:
Your vocals are very strong. Is that something you didn't really want to concentrate on in the past?

LESH:
You mean with Grateful Dead? I had problems. I had lost a large part of my range from singing improperly. And I just wasn't really entranced with singing... nor with the sound of my own voice. But when this whole thing started happening and I started dealing with old Grateful Dead material, there were some of these songs that I needed to sing myself. So I started taking voice lessons. And everyone seems to think that my singing has improved immensely since I started doing that. And I'm enjoying it. It's fun to sing -- in the studio, on stage, anywhere.

PCC:
Some of the new songs you had lived with on the road. Is it difficult to then hone them down into a manageable length on record?

LESH:
No, as a matter of fact, it was a very intriguing and exciting process, because the reason we went into the studio was to do exactly that, was to focus that energy and the concentration that the band was capable of, focus it down into compositions that tell a story in one single gesture.

That's always been my goal, even on stage. But on stage, of course, we're improvising. And we're making it up as we go along. In the studio, we're actually able to compose everything and arrange it so that it tells the story, I'd say, with the least amount of effort and the least amount of repetition.

Going into the studio, we did have to reduce them in a way. And, of course, for the radio, you have to reduce them even more.

PCC:
The jamming, in general, is it as much of an adventure for you as it ever was?

LESH:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, this band really doesn't noodle. We're always going somewhere. We always have a goal in mind, whether it's the next song or whether it's just to expand where we are now... or open a door from where we are now and go anywhere. But there's a goal in mind, so we don't stay in one place that long.

PCC:
Is that an unspoken goal? Or is it something you talk about prior?

LESH:
Sometimes we'll describe it, in general terms, to ourselves in advance. And sometimes it just pops up. Sometimes, when we're tapped into the pipeline, the door just pops open. And all of sudden, there's a road, a path, as it were, the start of a journey. And so we'll go through that door and we'll follow that road. Sometimes we end up turning and coming back to where we were and then taking a turn and going on another road to get to wherever we're going.

I think of it as surfing on a current in the sea of chaos. And the songs are kind of like islands of order, in the sea of chaos. And we follow the currents. Sometimes the currents take us way out to sea. And then sometimes we have to turn around and get back to some area that will take us to one of these islands of order where we go ashore and we hang out a while and we'll play the song. And then we push off, as it were, and get back in the current and find out how we're going to get to the next island.

PCC:
But after so many musical journeys, the possibilities still seem infinite?

LESH:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Music is infinite.

PCC:
It must have been particularly rewarding to work with Robert Hunter again.

LESH:
Oh, it was. It was an amazing experience, because one of the songs I was working on, I was playing it and I changed the groove around and all of a sudden, it just sat up and said to me, "I'm a Robert Hunter song." And so I called him and said, "Bob, I've got one that has your name all over it." And he said "Come on over." I brought him two more. And he had lyrics for all three within 48 hours.

PCC:
Is it just a matter of being in sync?

LESH:
Well, you know, you can't decide to be in sync. You can't say, "Okay, now I'm going to be in sync." It sort of has to happen. And one really doesn't have any control over it. Or at least, it doesn't seem like it. Conscious control, I should say.

PCC:
You've played with a lot of the musicians like Phish, what do you think of the whole jam band phenomenon that's been happening over the last several years?

LESH:
I'm delighted with it. I think it's the kind of approach to music that we needed, at any time, but especially now, with what's going on in the music... industry, I guess you'd have to call it. It's not -- how shall I say? -- not as involving or as deep as I'd like to hear music be. So jam bands serve a purpose and fill a need. Maybe people don't even know they need this kind of music, but I think they do. I think they want it.

PCC:
They need it so they can expand their horizons musically?

LESH:
I would say that it puts them into that space, the same space that the musicians are, more than say pop music would. It puts them into that space where anything can happen, where every new beat or every new bar of music is an adventure.

PCC:
Back to the Grateful Dead days, why is it that you've been able to have this amazing connection with the audience. It goes way beyond what audience/performer connections usually are.

LESH:
Well, it's kind of hard to define, but I think that what that approach to music offers, as I said, is that sense of adventure. Art is supposed to be dangerous. It really replaces, in human culture, it replaces some of the, or should replace, some of the activities like war or hunting and gathering... and that nomadic experience, where you never really knew where your next meal was coming from. And I think art, and especially music, can give us that.

I think it's a human need. Humans need to be stretched. They need to be challenged. They need to not know where they are or where they're going... every so often. And I think that this music really provides that. It's the last great American adventure. You can't hitchhike. You can't hop a freight. You can't run away with the circus. All that's over. But this, you can do. And I think the community of Deadheads and other jam band fans are the people who are trying to find that sense of adventure.

PCC:
The fact that they were so willing to go off on all these various experimentations with the Dead, does that make them more open to whatever directions you want to take now, individually?

LESH:
Well, I would say so, yeah. And one of the interesting things about it is that I'm seeing so many young people at my shows -- and I know that the other guys from the Dead, with their bands, are also -- that are too young to have seen the Grateful Dead.

PCC:
That must be really encouraging,

LESH:
It is. It is, because it just proves to me that this is something that's needed. Humans need this. In a way [laughs], we're performing a public service.

PCC:
It must be fun to still play Dead songs in your set.

LESH:
Oh, yeah, I mean, that's still the core of our repertoire. We haven't developed enough of our own stuff that we could play a whole evening of our stuff -- not that I'm even sure that I'd want to do that. I would still want to bring out some of those old Grateful Dead classics, because I think we bring something to them that's new, every time we play them.

PCC:
You mentioned community, is that something you're continuing with Unbroken Chain [www.unbrokenchain.org]?

LESH:
Yes, that's a charitable foundation. And we're just trying to continue with the tradition, really, of doing good work and offering our services in benefit situations and trying to help people get along.

PCC:
Proceeds go to a number of worthy causes?

LESH:
Well yeah. One of our main thrusts right now [in 2003] is Hepatitis C research, because that's why I'm here, is because of a liver transplant, because I had Hepatitis C. And also music in schools, because, as you know, everywhere in the country, there's not enough money for schools. And the arts are the first thing to go.

PCC:
You mentioned the transplant. What kind of new perspective did that give you on life and on music? It must have been pretty dramatic.

LESH:
Well, I learned what I thought was important and what I thought I should concentrate on. And that bullshit and stress were not a good thing for me. So I pretty much have just decided to go my own way.

PCC:
And was that a vastly different way from where you were going?

LESH:
I think it's just an extension of what I was doing with the Grateful Dead. But, at the same time, my family is even more important than it was. And it was the most important thing in my life, even before the operation.

PCC:
You have two sons?

LESH:
Yeah, 12 and 15.

PCC:
Are they into music?

LESH:
Yeah, I mean they like it. My older son is a big Creed fan. And the younger one, he likes a lot of different stuff. And they both study piano. But I don't really see either one of them becoming a musician, although that could happen. But that's okay, because I just want them to do whatever they love to do.

PCC:
What's the situation now with the other Dead members? Are you communicating well at this point?

LESH:
We're actually getting together. I've played some gigs with Bobby and with Bobby's band. And he's sat in with my band. We've done a couple of gigs together. All of the surviving members got together on New Year's Eve for a set in Oakland at Henry J. Kaiser. And we're actually talking to one another... in a friendly manner. And we're realizing that the most important thing is not to let the business destroy the relationships.

PCC:
Easy to say, but hard to do, I guess.

LESH:
Well, it was in the past. But I think we're beyond that now.

PCC:
Do you think, no matter where you go musically and whatever you do in the future, you'll always think of yourself first and foremost as a member of the Dead? Or not necessarily?

LESH:
No, not necessarily.

PCC:
What role does that play in your life now, that history?

LESH:
Well, that's just what it is -- history. It's background. It's where we all came from. And it was the major experience of our lives, I think for all of us. That doesn't mean there isn't more.

PCC:
Do you try to focus more on the future than on the past?

LESH:
Absolutely. Don't you?

PCC:
I try.

LESH:
[Laughs] It ain't easy.

PCC:
So what are the future projects you'd like to bring to fruition?

LESH:
There are -- well, not thousands -- but many different things. I'm working on a song cycle that describes the ascent of the soul through the planetary spheres after death. It's all going to be done in like a set-length performance. And I'm hoping to have other musicians than the band actually involved in that.

And there's a kind of a jazz crossover project with Greg Osby who's one of the cutting edge sax players and bandleaders in jazz today. I still have an idea of an opera that I want to write. And there's also some orchestral music I'm working on. So I just want to keep making music.

PCC:
Are you still working on symphonic interpretations of Grateful Dead music?

LESH:
It's interesting that you ask that, because this band has sort of superceded that. I guess my subconscious goal in attempting that was to find closure with Grateful Dead music, so I could go on and do something else. But I discovered that there is no such thing as closure. There is no final interpretation. What I was trying to do was to put out on paper, and in orchestral garb, as it were, my final thoughts on Grateful Dead music. And how it worked and how the songs could morph from one into another. And how there could be several songs playing simultaneously by different sections of the orchestra and so on.

But when I started playing with other musicians who loved Grateful Dead music and brought their own interpretations to it, I realized that there was no such thing as the final word. In other words, this music demands to be reinterpreted anew every day.

PCC:
Is it ever a weight, the fact that so many people know every note you play and study and analyze on and on?

LESH:
If that was a worry, no one would ever play a note. It's just like, if that was a worry for politicians, they would never make any moves.

PCC:
It sounds like there are so many exciting projects on the horizon. When the Dead did have to come to a halt, were you confident that this would come to pass?

LESH:
Absolutely not. I had no idea what was going to happen.

PCC:
Was that a scary time, not knowing what would come next for you, musically?

LESH:
Yes and no. In a way, it's scary. But it's also exciting, because all of a sudden, it's like you're young again. And all doors are open. You just sort of have to choose which one you're going to walk through.

For news on this artist, visit www.phillesh.net.