by John Patrick Gatta

The Zen Tricksters have proudly donned their admiration and respect for the music of the Grateful Dead on their collective, musical sleeves. When the group emerged in the late 1980's as the Volunteers, they predominantly interpreted that band's music. The Tricksters still play a number of Dead covers, although increasingly they have introduced original tunes into their sets (they recently released their second disc, A Love Surreal). At any rate, given the group's history, many people found it interesting indeed that Phil Lesh tapped guitarist Jeff Mattson and keyboard player Rob Barraco to join him for a number of shows as two of his Friends. This interview with Jeff focuses on his performances with Phil. Next month, we will speak with Zen Tricksters' bassist Klyph Black about A Love Surreal and other Trickster Trivia.

JG: I've talked to Klyph a couple times in the past and finally get my chance at you. (Jeff laughs) Heard you've been playing out a bit with some other folks...

Jeff Mattson: Yeah, it's very exciting. Warfield shows with Phil Lesh and Friends. Three Warfield shows, the 7th, 8th and 9th of October.

JG: How did you get hooked up as one of Phil's Friends?

JM: Well it was J.C. Juanis. He writes for Relix and he did a big interview, a cover story on Phil, a couple issues ago. I think he's been helping Phil out, sort of finding talent for the Phil and Friends shows, like getting in touch with people and stuff like that. Phil is interested in finding some new younger faces to play with and he got our latest cd ("A Love Surreal"). I originally though Phil probably had heard of us because we're known to play Grateful Dead music. But in fact, he had never heard us. He just finally got around to listening to our cd and loved it, which was gratifying. A lot of people just assume, `Why is he using a Grateful Dead cover band?' Basically we were picked by the by the virtues of our all- original cd. He was really impressed by the fact that we could jam in the studio; something he always felt that the Dead had a hard time doing.

JG: Explain to me how the rehearsal process went prior to the shows.

JM: Rob Barraco (Zen Tricksters' keyboardist) went down there first because they were rehearsing with Warren Haynes and they didn't have a keyboard player. So, he went down for two days and that was kind of like an audition for him. Zen Tricksters had a few shows up in the northwest, so Rob came back up. We did those shows.

Then, Steve Kimock was unable to be there for more rehearsals. He was doing shows, so I got to play with Warren for two days. That sort of qualified as my audition. Then the whole thing broke up for a week. People went off and had gigs and stuff like that. We went back home and then Rob and I came back for six days of rehearsals with the lineup, with Steve Kimock and John Molo and they added Bobby Strickland on saxophone. We did the three shows with rehearsals the day of at the Warfield before the shows.

JG: Wow! It was almost like summer repertory theater in a way--rehearsing very quickly and then rehearsing one the day of a show in order to get things right just before the curtains open.

JM: Yeah. Exactly. Phil's totally committed to doing completely different shows. It's not like fine tuning one night of music and playing three nights in a row. It's not the idea at all. It's three completely different shows.

JG: I would be interested if you could run through the whole gamut of getting the call, 'Hey come over and rehearse,' the audition, to the rehearsals to the actual performances.

JM: Let me just say, it was the culmination of a wildest-dream-come-true kind of a thing. Playing with Phil Lesh was something I've sort of been fantasizing about for 25 years. It was just a tremendous thrill and lived up to every expectation musically and personally. The other thing about it was that I thought as I saw different people doing these shows I started to feel, without sounding egotistical, that something might actually happen. I didn't know when or if it really would, but I felt it was in the realm of possibilities. We are a touring act that has a national reputation. We have two cds of original music under our belt, we're not just a Dead cover band though we certainly understand and know the Grateful Dead music. In some ways it seemed, at least to us, that we could be an obvious choice. As it turned out, Phil heard us and happened to dig us. But nothing really prepares you for that moment... one night we were out on the road and I called my answering machine, and there was a message from Jill Lesh saying, "Would you and Rob be interested in coming down and playing with us?" (laughs) First I thought it was a joke. Someone's goofing on me. She went on into detail, and I realized, this is the real deal. It was very exciting, and then to go down to Club Front and use that studio- that whole scene, being there, meeting Ramrod and Steve Parrish and Robby Taylor and all the crew there.

JG: Were you trying to split your thought process in half--in awe and trying to soak it all in while at the same time trying to be sharp so that they won't say, "I don't know...we thought he had it together..."

JM: Yeah, exactly. You're right, part of you that's "Wow! This is really cool." But you don't want to sit there and judge like a fan, even though you are. You have to be true to yourself, just keep it under control. I think they know that anybody who's obviously been a student of Grateful Dead music is going to feel a certain way and they're very kind about that. By the same token we're there for a very specific purpose. Fun, but we had work to do and took things very seriously, and got down to it. The experience was really enjoyable.

JG: As for performing live, how was it at that moment, again were you kind of split or were you so into the moment and getting it right that you didn't even realize what happened until it was over?

JM: The irony of it is that to play good music you really need to be completely in the moment because of the nature of doing different arrangements of a tune. And we're following these musical cues of Phil. He sort of conducts the band, hand gestures and stuff like that. You need to be very focused and very in the moment. However, in advance I did say to myself, which is the opposite of what I normally think, "A few times when I play tonight, I'm going to step outside the whole thing and just take a mental picture of it all so I have some nice clear mental pictures, impressions of the whole thing." I allowed myself that. I'd just say, `Hey, instead of listening, I'm just going to look over and realize that I'm playing with Phil Lesh and Steve Kimock and I'm onstage at the Warfield, a soldout house, and I'm playing some of these songs with the guy who wrote them.' I did enjoy that and take enough of that in so that I'll always remember that.

JG: That brings up one aspect of your performance. With the jams of Zen Tricksters, when you do Grateful Dead songs, it reminds people of certain periods of the band, circa '69-'77. Did you go there or somewhere else?

JM: Some of our favorite stuff for sure is the '73, '74, which is some of the more jazzier stuff they did. Actually, this was an interesting paradox. I tried to shed any direct link except within the song itself, playing the part of the songs, but when we got into the jams, I tried not to quote Jerry anywhere directly. I don't think that's what Phil wanted at all. He wasn't looking for a Jerry clone of any kind in there. So I was not trying to evoke a particular era or anything like that. In fact, I think what the concept of it really is, is that you take these songs further into the future. Phil was interested in finding new ways to approach them and go to new spaces in the jam. There was a lot of jamming and it's great. The sets are constructed so there's barely a break at all in between songs. They're all connected.

JG: As far as the jams themselves, I guess we're back to the rehearsals again, did they form there or was it the direction that Phil gave on the Warfield stage that influenced the musicians? In other words, did it happen that you'd be rehearsing a song and maybe it would be five to 10 minutes and then you get onstage and it turned out to be 20 minutes?

JM: That's true. I think that Phil felt that once we really had the structure of the tunes nailed down that the jams would take care of themselves. We got out there, and once we realized, `Wow, okay, we're really stretching these songs out. Go for it.' That's when the magic really happened. We really had good chemistry onstage. It felt really good. Everybody got a chance to blow. Steve played great. Everybody played great. I was particularly impressed by Steve. He really shined.

JG: That's funny you mentioned Steve because that was going to be my next question. Let's face it. You've been playing as the only guitarist in a band for a long time now. What was that like?

JM: It was an adjustment. Throwing in the saxophone too. That's what was nice about having the week to play together beforehand. We took a little bit of time to create a band dynamic. Even in a traditional band, a lot of times you have a lead guitarist and a rhythm guitarist and bass. Defined roles. It's not like that here. Everybody is a support musician and a soloist. It's like, "Get in there and say what you have to say and make room for somebody else and then support what they're doing." That part of it isn't really scripted at all. You just needed to be listening constantly. Can I add here? And if it's nothing, don't play anything. Just lay out.

JG: I know setlists from the three shows have been posted on websites, what numbers, in particular, stood out for you?

JM: The most interesting non-Dead thing we did was "Jump" by Van Halen. (laughs) Let me say here for the record, that was Phil's idea. Initially, when he said, `We want to try "Jump."' We all looked at each other, "Jump? Van Halen? Really?" Not the first song you would have thought of. The actual verse and stuff like that were fairly straight ahead. He constructed it solo-wise. It turned out to be 22 minutes long. There's a set of chord changes in the middle of that that on a Van Halen version would take like 10 seconds or 15 seconds. We probably stretched that part out to like 15 minutes. (laughs) We had Rob Barraco and Bobby Strickland and Phil sang it.

JG: Who knows, maybe next Phil and friends will have Eddie Van Halen in it.

JM: Who knows? (laughs) And so this was the big shocker. Phil decided to open the first night with it. (laughs) We actually started out with some throat singing, harmonic overtoning while the curtains were closed. (titled "Om Chant" on the setlist site) Throat singing and the curtains opened and those chords started Bum, bum, bum...it was just fun to look at the audience's expression. Recognition crops over their face and then this sort of bemused look, kind of like, "Is it? Could it be? It is. Wow." Then they started laughing 'cause it's really out of context. But then 15 minutes later, you can barely remember what song it was, everyone's up there jamming and having a good time. (laughs) The other thing that was interesting, we did a number of straight ahead jazz tunes. We did "My Favorite Thing," the John Coltrane version and I know they've done that before. I think that's one of Steve Kimock's numbers that he does with some of his own bands. But we also did "Milestones" by Miles Davis. We opened the second night with that. We did Miles' version of "Some Day My Prince Will Come." I was really impressed, Phil loved that kind of stuff and he really never had an opportunity to play it. I guess it didn't fall within the parameters of what the Dead did or wanted to do. Rob particularly adapted to playing straight ahead jazz. We had Bobby on the sax, so that was nice. We had fun with those.

JG: Were you comfortable the whole time?

JM: The straight ahead jazz isn't something that I do a lot. I'm not as comfortable with that as Rob is. It was an experiment. We talked about it. I said, "Do we look at this authentically? Straight ahead here?" Phil was, "No, no, however it comes out." If it would have come out being like a rock interpretation of that or whatever. However it came out, as long as it sounded good, would have been fine. He wasn't looking for a purist interpretation of it. As far as the Grateful Dead stuff goes, some of the stuff had a change of keys, but that's no big deal to accommodate Phil's voice.

JG: Yeah, obviously Phil's is a lower voice than Jerry's.

JM: Yes, Jerry has a higher range. That changed the feel, that made it really enjoyable. It made it fresh. I think that's what we were going for. The whole basic concept was not to recreate the way The Dead played it, but to capture and instill the essence of what that music is about--freedom and stuff like that. See where else it could go. I read a lot of controversy on the internet about Phil using the Zen Tricksters and they immediately see it as `Why is Phil resorting to using a Dead cover band?' Like I said before, the truth is he hired us based on our original cd. He was not looking for a replacement for Jerry Garcia or anything like that. He is looking for people who are emphatic to the style of music that it is and we have that sort of bottom line commonality and we understand the music and we can go to different places. Some were kind of thinking we were going to go in there and be like some kind of replacement for Jerry. I was like, `No. It's' not about that at all. First of all, I dare not walk in those shoes. Second of all, that's not what it's about. What it's really about...okay we've got this great body of songs plus any new ones we want to bring along.' Phil likes to do "Wolfman's Brother" with Phish. Dylan songs, "Like a Rolling Stone." So there's some stuff outside of there. The Dead always threw in new covers certainly, Dylan songs. So it's just all about we have a bunch of musicians here who understand how this works and we have the added advantage, most everybody knows the songs to start with, so now we don't have to spend a lot of time learning mechanics of the style or the songs themselves. We can really spend more time on finding new angles to approach them. and new ways to segue between them.

JG: Even though Phil didn't do another round of The Other Ones dates, he seems to be doing a lot on his own. Did you sense from him a renewed vigor for music and life?

JM: Oh my God. Let me tell ya something. He is remarkable. The good bit of it has to do with his new liver. First of all, he looks great. He looks better than he has in years and he has boundless energy. We're all going home after the rehearsals and I'm going to sleep and he's got all kinds of stuff on his plate--planning a tour, his kids and the whole nine yards. He is just loving life. He's full of enthusiasm and he wants to play. He's loving playing. It's a beautiful thing. It's really inspiring. It really makes you happy to see.

You've got to remember too, everybody else in The Dead had their side projects over the years. Phil pretty much just did The Grateful Dead. Now I think he's really enjoying getting the opportunity to play with all these different musicians `cause he never did that. I think it's really good healthy input for him, different angles on stuff. And I think he's really into being a really loving husband and father. He's really happy right now, enjoying his life. He's really enjoying the musical experience. I know he wouldn't be doing this at all if he wasn't enjoying it `cause his feeling on it is like... in fact, I just read a post on his website yesterday, discussing that. He said there were some times when the only reason the Grateful Dead toured, was because of the fan pressure or because of economic pressures, all kinds of different pressures on them. He vowed to himself that he would never play for any other reason anymore other than he wanted to. He is the master of his own destiny now. It just shows, Phil and Friends, you know? Phil calls the shots and they do what they want to. I didn't know him before, but I get the sense that he's happier than he's been in a long, long time.

JG: Do you feel like you learned anything from the experience?

JM: I did. It's interesting that we came back and did three shows in the Carolinas this past weekend with The Zen Tricksters. We took the approach and experimented with it and it was very successful. Our traditional set would be, maybe, five songs and then maybe four songs joined together by jams. Not written in stone like that but that would be an average. We did songs where we joined everything together by musical bridges and sound waves and each set was almost, a non-stop wall of music. It was really fun finding all the interesting spaces. I mean, we did that anyway, but we're doing it a lot more now. That's a very specific thing and, as we continued to experiment with that, the other thing is just about making sure you're doing what you love and keeping it fresh and doing whatever you can to keep it fresh. We're lucky enough to quote unquote play for a living and we enjoy that. We do. We really love to play or we wouldn't be doing this. Traveling around isn't exactly as glamorous as everybody thinks (slight laugh). Every night we get to play music and that's... God, that's a wonderful thing. That's the main thing. It's also just very gratifying that having played with Phil Lesh, it's very affirming in its own way, that he thought enough of us as musicians to join him.