Photo by Dino Perrucci
Scott Metzger is busier than ever. When he’s not selling out Red Rocks with Joe Russo’s Almost Dead or leading his band WOLF!, he’s picking up an acoustic guitar to collaborate with his trio The Showdown Kids or sitting in with Phil Lesh.
“I’m finally getting my shit together,” the guitarist says. “I have a management and booking agency for the first time in about 15 years. And I’m looking at it as a time to make a push. The timing feels right.”
Recently, Metzger paused his hectic schedule to chat with Jambands.com. In a wide-spanning conversation, he touched on recording with WOLF!, JRAD’s meteoric rise, playing with members of the Dead and how a chance run-in with Tom Marshall and Trey Anastasio kick-started his career in the jam world.
As the year comes to a close and we dive into 2018, you’re focusing more on WOLF!. What’s your take on where that band is both in the studio, as well as in the live setting?
In terms of the studio stuff, we’ve been in the studio a couple of times now just putting down rough versions of songs that will become the next record. I couldn’t be happier with the way it’s looking. As long as we hold up our end for the rest of the process, I think it should be the best record yet, for sure.
And in terms of the live stuff, we’ve decided that it’s time to try and get out further than just the local bars and whatnot that we’ve been playing in Brooklyn for the last four years. It seems that in 2018, for a number of reasons, is the perfect time to start to spread out and, at the very least, start hitting all the cities in the northeast.
As far as that new studio project, do you have a timetable on that?
No timetable right now. It is a work in progress.
Tell me a little bit about your newer project, The Showdown Kids with Katie Jacoby and Simon Kafka. Are there certain muscles that you get to flex, or itches you get to scratch, with that outfit that maybe you don’t with WOLF! or JRAD?
Yeah, I mean, both of those analogies are perfect. First of all, it’s all acoustic; there’s no drumming in it, so it’s very quiet. Maybe I’m just getting older. But the older I get, the more I enjoy quiet music. And I’ve always been a huge fan of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, who were two musicians that played acoustic jazz in France in the 1940’s and ‘50s. And that’s sort of my attempt at playing in that style.
I know the Showdown Kids covered Phish’s “Stash” a couple of times. How did you learn to incorporate that into your sets and make it work in a three-piece acoustic setting?
That song is kind of the reason that the band is going to start to do more gigs. It got a lot of eyes on the band. Basically, some other fine person at Relix got in touch and said they were doing something to celebrate Baker’s Dozen run that was happening. And every day for 13 days they were asking a different artist to cover a different Phish song. And initially, I wasn’t going to do it.
I’m very aware I’m already in the Grateful Dead cover thing and I am a little afraid of becoming just a cover band guy. So initially, I actually said “no” to that. And then the next day, I sort of started thinking—maybe it would be fun to cover a Phish song. But how could I do it that it wouldn’t sound like Phish at all? Like, totally reinvent one of their songs. And it just sort of occurred to me that the melody on “Stash” is sort of in the gypsy jazz wheelhouse, and that it might lay really well with that instrumentation with just the two acoustic guitars and the violin. And sure enough, when we demoed it out, it’s that great.
I think you guys totally made it your own. Another kind of weird connection you have to the Phish world is that you were in Tom Marshall’s band Amfibian. How did you met Tom? And do you guys keep in touch?
We do. Well, actually, it’s a good story. For the better part of a decade, Tom and I had been out of touch, but I certainly keep up with him on social media and whatnot. And when we did “Stash” I kind of got the thought that he might like to hear that. So I sent that to him and now we’re back in touch and we’re talking about how he has a podcast that he’d like me to be on. So, thanks to Relix, me and Tom Marshall’s thing is kicking back up.
I met him when I was 19. I was playing in a coffee shop with an experimental, sort of noise group that I had called F-Hole. I was playing in Princeton at a coffee shop called Small World. And that’s where Tom and Trey are from, Princeton, NJ. They had gone to high school with the bassist in F-Hole, Matt Kohut, and came wandering into the coffee shop. After the set we all sort of started talking. Trey was asking me about what guitar players I was into, and kind of feeling me out, I guess. And then he looked at Tom and said, “I think this is your guy.” and Tom then said, “I’m putting together a band called Amfibian and I need a lead guitar player. Would you like to come and jam with the guys and see how it feels?” That was probably 1999, I guess.
Were you a Phish fan by then? Did you recognize Trey when he walked through the door?
I did not, no. I was sort of into other stuff at that point. I was listening to a lot of punk rock and a lot of straight-ahead jazz back then. I had no idea what a big deal Phish was, frankly. Just where I grew up no one was into it. So then, when we got into Amfibian, Tom gave us all tickets to the Garden, I think it was the night before New Year’s in ‘98 going into ‘99. And I just couldn’t believe what was happening. How big of a thing it was, and how much freedom the band had, musically speaking.
While we are talking about your super talented friends, Nicole Atkins fronted WOLF! not too long ago. What was it like to shift WOLF! into a pseudo-backing band? How did you and Nicole strike that balance to create nicOLF!
[Laughs] Never heard that before, good word. It was very easy for us to flip into that role because WOLF! started as a backing band. WOLF!’s progression was that we were backing up singers around New York City. And then one night the singer didn’t show up for the gig but the club demanded that there’d be music. So we went out and improvised the set of instrumental music and that was the first WOLF! gig ever. So we had a lot of traction. We had a long track record of backing up singers and we know how to do it very well.
Me and Nicole go back very far—we’re both New Jersey natives and both of us have been in the music game longer than either of us would care to admit. So it just made perfect sense. Nicole’s always been one of my favorite contemporary singers. She’s a great musician and has a real vision for what she thinks her music should be. So we did those five shows last year and it was great. I hope we get to do more somewhere along the line.
You guys were also on TV together, right?
Yeah. We were on Showtime. Cameron Crowe had a show called Roadies. We played one of her songs as a duet called “A Little Crazy” and it was just the two of us performing. It was the season finale of Roadies and it was pretty crazy. The episode was us, and Eddie Vedder, and Robyn Hitchcock. It was star-studded, for sure. Big rockstars and us!
I kind of want to shift gears again, and talk about JRAD. Tracing it back, what are your roots with the Dead? Were you a Dead guy from the get-go or did you find them later in life?
Later in life. My good friend Matt Kohut, who was in the band F-Hole, had given me a copy of Live/Dead when I was 18 or 19. And I liked it—I liked the punk rock attitude behind it, musically speaking. And someone else when I was in college gave me a tape of Cornell ‘77 and that was pretty much all that I knew. Which is funny, because I later got called by Phil Lesh to play that [Cornell ‘77] gig. He did a recreation thing, and John Mayer came. That was the first night John Mayer ever played Grateful Dead stuff. Little did I know when I was driving around in college listening to that show that I’d be playing it with the bass player and John Mayer.
When you fully dove into the Dead songbook to play it with JRAD, what were your reference points? Where there certain recordings or shows that you studied?
No, not certain shows but anything that Joe would send. He would send the show list and I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the tunes, so I would go and find a studio version of each tune and then I’d find a Grateful Dead version, and then I would also check out a Further version, because the arrangements would change a lot over the years.
You play the same song for 40 years, it’s gonna change. So I needed to know which arrangements were the most current. Those Further tapes really helped with that.
That’s fascinating that you were listening to Further versions—seeing where Joe fit into the puzzle…
I wanted to know how Joe was drumming on these songs. It would help to get the arrangement together by watching the Further thing, so then I could be like, “Well here’s what Joe’s doing, here’s how Joe is approaching this tune.”
I think that at this point, we’re like 200 songs deep on the book…I’ve been a working musician for 20 years, practically, and I’ve never worked so hard in my life than for JRAD. To sit there and be able to watch Joe—and I’ve been playing for Joe for so long that I know his body language and stuff—that’s really helpful. The power of the internet.
I think all that hard work obviously paid off. From your perspective, what was it like bringing this project to those big rooms like Red Rocks? Did you ever see it kind of going in this direction, kind of launching into the stratosphere?
For the second part of that question, absolutely not. None of us did. This band was gonna be a one-off. It’s the ultimate example in my life of, “Things work when you don’t try and plan them out too well.” I don’t know if I’m wording that too well, but this band is a series of happy accidents in a way, but also five guys that have been playing together in different configurations for 15 years. So the chemistry was there and we’re all really hard working guys, we’re all very grateful guys, we understand what a great opportunity this is and also what a big responsibility it is, too. There’s a lot of people out there that this music is really, really sacred to. And for them to be trusting us with that is a big deal.
In terms of how did it feel going to the bigger rooms, I don’t really know how to answer that. It’s a different energy for sure. You kind of have to play a little differently in the bigger rooms but, for me, I’m just up there. I feel like that I’ve gotta roll to fill and it’s important for me. I think at the end of the day it comes down to the quality. And if you start to let the bigness or success of something overshadow the reason, I think that it starts to backtrack. Honestly, it kind of sounds weird, but I didn’t really think too much about it in terms of playing the bigger rooms.
I want to pick up on something you said about the music being sacred to a lot of people. Obviously, the Dead community is entirely unique and I’ve heard you say before that people not only want this music but they need this music. I was wondering if you can follow up on that idea.
The sense of community that’s going on within the Grateful Dead thing is totally unique. And it’s so strong that people’s entire lives revolve around the scene, and the band and the music. I think that what the band represents to those people is this sort of adventurous spirit. When the original Dead came up in the 60’s, the country was really fucked. There was a lot of tension in the air and things were not cool, necessarily. And the band offered—Look, this is all my dime-store psychology, I don’t know for sure. But what I see when I look back on it is that they offered an alternative.
When I listen to those old tapes of the Dead playing, they were really taking real chances up there. And some nights they stuck the landing and sometimes they didn’t. I think that what we’re doing on stage is similar in spirit, even if it’s different in execution.
You shared the stage with Phil Lesh and Bob Weir in the past. Are there any lessons you learned from those guys that you keep in mind as you kind of carry the flame?
I haven’t played with Bob that much, so, I’m still sort of cracking that code.
The songs you guys played together at LOCKN’ were amazing.
It was fun, it was really fun. I’ve heard it through the grapevine that Bob sort of thinks we play everything too fast.
That’s my favorite part about you guys. The “One More Saturday Night” from LOCKN’ is rocking!
Well, I don’t know if you heard, but right before we did it Joe leaned over and was like, “We’re gonna have to do it quicker than you’re comfortable with.” ‘Cause we were running out of time, and we just like that style.
But with Phil, I’ve learned so much from Phil being on stage with him for so many hours over the years and, my god, the guy’s gonna be 78-years-old and I did gigs with him this year and we’d be up there for three and a half hours.
On the last song of the encore, he’s still hitting the notes with just as much intention as he did with the first song of the night. And that, to me, is integrity through the roof. Not resting on your laurels. And that guy’s still so excited about music. He’s genuinely emotionally involved, and I think that just goes to show that if you don’t forget why you started doing something in the first place, and you get a little lucky, things work out for you and you stay the course. I mean, you can have a career for 50 years if you want it. That gives me a lot of hope.
As far as future plans for JRAD go, are you guys trying to tour more?
I don’t really know, exactly. I think that our minds are pretty much blown already as to how far this thing has come. We’ll just see how it keeps coming at us, and take it from there.
I wanted to ask a quick question about your other band RANA. Are there any 2018 plans for that project?
Not as of at the moment. RANA has played I think once every 18 months for the last three years or so. So, we might be coming up on 18 again. So, who knows? You never know.
Speaking of the number 18, you’re playing Freaks Ball 18 later this January at Brooklyn Bowl. You’re gonna play in Hola! with Joe Russo, sharing the bill with Circles Around the Sun. What can we expect from that?
I think this will be my sixteenth time playing Freaks Ball. I’m beyond grateful that they just keep having me, that I keep getting invited back, and the support that that community has given over the years, is literally astounding. I feel so lucky to have the Freaks behind us. It’s a big deal and it doesn’t go unnoticed.
Hola! is—Avi [Bortnick], Andy [Hess], and Joe have all played together a lot. We’re all New York City guys and it’s kind of more groove-based music. We might have some new material. I think it’s like our fourth gig, but people seem to enjoy it. So we’ll keep that going.
I’ll be looking forward to it. Is there anything I haven’t asked about that you want brought up in the piece?
I appreciate you asking. I will say, in terms of the Freaks Ball, I think Neal Casal [of Circles Around the Sun] is one of the best guitar players around. And I’m so excited to be on a bill and just watch him play guitar. That guy is such a class act on and off the instrument. He’s what I like to call a “grown-up musician” for sure. So I’m very psyched to share the bill with him.
Well, you’re a busy guy and you’re doing a lot of awesome stuff.
Yeah. I feel really lucky to be as busy as I am, frankly. So I’m gonna take advantage of it.
