Did you rehearse with the band before the Tips show?

Rehearsals? What is that? I played with funky Meters for 14 years before, and we hadn’t had a rehearsal yet. So there certainly ain’t gonna be any now. Guys in New Orleans really don’t like to rehearse—you either have to be able to get up there and do it or you don’t do it. There’s not much in between.

But I’ll tell yah, honestly just the other night coming back after three years, it was like riding a bicycle. You just jump on and start riding. It was perfectly seamless, actually. And it was better in some ways because, I did 13 or 14 years with funky Meters and after all those years of playing basically the same songs, things can get a little bit stale. And I guess that’s how it was getting towards the end. There wasn’t much room for growth; there wasn’t any new material coming out. Nothing was happening. That’s really what spawned PBS—George and Russell and I were writing stuff, and we were demoing songs but we couldn’t get Art on board at the time.

So PBS kind of just formed out of that—out of the frustration of wanting to be able to record and the frustration of wanting to be able to go out and work. Art was going around with Neville Brothers at the time and so that’s just how PBS happened. But then PBS was really a completely different band. I mean, it really didn’t sound anything like funky Meters. The whole approach was different. You know, back then in the funky Meters— even though Russell and I had free rein to pretty much play like we played—there was still a level of respect that you had to pay to the original music. So, even though I didn’t attempt to play the songs like Leo, there’s still a level of respect that you have to stick to in order to keep the integrity of the song intact. Same thing with Russell, he didn’t play like Zig, but still he altered his style to fit what that music was.

And then when we did PBS, the chains were completely taken off—Russell played like Russell played and I played like I played and it was a totally different thing. So, that’s what made that band—even though we got tagged and trashed at the beginning for being the funky Meters without Art, it always had that stigma because of it and we could never get enough people—especially promoters and industry people—to really understand and listen to it see that is different, it’s not funky Meters. But I guess it never really caught on. It’s a combination of that stigma sticking with us and, like I said, we just made some bad business moves and things went sour.

Coming back to funky Meters, talk about coming full circle. The other night it was kind of like it’s back to the old thing but now—even though Russell and I have to hold on to the integrity of [the] original music—it felt like Russell and I are both bringing more of our own thing to the table. So, it’s grown into a third entity now. Now, it’s grown into this other thing which begins with The Meters, then the funky Meters, PBS and now this new thing that just opened wide up and played with free rein. It was a really relaxed gig, it was big and open, everybody played in a big way. There was no confusion, there was no train wrecks. It just grew all night long. It was really good.

I’ve felt that since the Original Meters reunited in 2005, the funky Meters has turned into its own band.

Right. Right. It’s really grown into a whole other thing now. And that’s been the whole thing anyway with these songs—it’s always been about exploring how far you can take these songs and where you can take these songs. That’s why it’s always in the moment. You know, you’re never going to hear the same version twice. You’re always going to hear something in there that’s not the same. And even though it might be the same song, it’s always going to be played as if it’s the first time, so there’s always going to be that element of excitement and surprise in it. I mean that’s what we live for. If you can’t walk up there on that stage and just forget everything else and just be able to be in that place right then and there, no matter what it is that you’re playing, well then there’s no point in it. That’s why there’s no rehearsals. That’s why there’s no strategy. There’s never any figuring anything out. Either you have to go make it happen or don’t make it happen. But luckily our odds are pretty good. It happens most nights.

You were one of a few New Orleans musicians who had their feet in both the New Orleans Meters/Nevilles world and the Grateful Dead world. In your mind, when did those two words first meet?

Well, I don’t think we ever did any shows with the Dead in New Orleans, [it was] always on the West Coast. I don’t remember what year we first did it. I guess it was around ‘84 or ’85—I’m really not sure. But we’d go out and do the New Year’s shows at Oakland Coliseum or at Henry J. Kaiser [Convention Center]. We did that every year for a few years. Honestly, I don’t remember the first time because we did it so many times, but I remember we’d always get up there and do that second set with them. That was fantastic. It was always really good.

The whole jamband thing—and George says this all the time—is like this: “We’ve always done that. You know, that’s always been our scene.” And in a real way, in the sense like we just talked, for us having bands, it’s not about rehearsing songs and arrangements, it’s just about this common thing in the song and then you’re able to just go onstage with the confidence that it’s all going to come together and go somewhere. There’s so many bands that ended up with that jamband title and in that jamband genre—and I guess these days anything can be considered a jamband because there’s almost every type of music involved. But I don’t really see anybody out there doing what we’re doing.

I’m not really sure it’s jambands. I think most of it’s rehearsed, but people call them jambands because they take solo sections and they might stretch out in spots but in the true sense—in the true improvisational sense—I don’t really hear a whole lot out there doing that same thing. So I’m not really sure. I was never really sure how something ended up in that genre or ended up with that title. And then at some point a lot of bands didn’t want that title anymore—they didn’t want to be called jambands. I remember doing an interview when Porter said something about jamband and the guy said “Wow, you admit to being that? Most bands don’t want to be called that,” and George said, “What are you talking about? We’re the original jamband. We’re not ashamed of it, we’ve always done that.”

It is the same thing. You find something new, it gets old after a while so you gotta find something newer and it becomes trite so you call it something else—then it becomes nostalgic so you go back to it. [Laughs]. It’s all the same. It’s all just music. All these genres and titles and things to label it, basically, are just music.

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