Joe is a big part of this album and you have an interesting story on how you met.
We talk about it all the time. I was probably between 20-24, living in Sussex County, New Jersey. I had a gym membership to the Sussex YMCA and I would go there all the time to work out. As a kid with long hair, I think I stood out because everyone else was really clean-cut. I was in the locker room, and some old guy starts talking to me, just making small talk. At some point he asked what I did, and I said I play music, and he was like, “Oh, my son plays music. He plays with Phil Lesh and Marco Benevento.” And I was like, “I know who your son is.” [Laughs.] So before I officially met Joe, I met his dad, half-naked in a locker room.
Speaking of holiday traditions and the Russos, you have always been involved in “The Last Waltz” shows that take place at Port Chester, N.Y’s Capitol Theatre every other year.
I love the feeling of doing that every year, just getting people together. In a way, I hope this Christmas album finds a home in people’s holiday time. It’s one of these things that to me feels simple—it creeps into your tradition—it could be something you want to put on year after year, which is how I feel about doing “The Complete Last Waltz.” It’s just a nice thing.
You have also been involved in Dave Harrington’s annual holiday jam in years past. Did the music you played as part of that all-star show make it onto your Christmas LP?
No. When we did that, my former bandmate and friend, Christian, and I—he’s a singer and we also played music together and grew up in New Jersey together—we got together and decided to do Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph” in a Tim and Eric-style performance, if you will, where we dressed up in these really ridiculous red suits and slicked our hair back and did it at like a level four, which is really cool to save your powder and not rock out. It was one of the funniest, coolest, most electric things I feel like I’ve ever done on stage. It’s very hard to describe it. I’ve only seen a couple video clips of it, but we had the whole audience—it’s fun to hold back on stage.
This year you are also playing an official Christmas show at Market Hotel in New York. Do you plan to make that an annual tradition?
It’s gonna be our first real, more conceptualized Christmas event. Delicate Steve is going to be the band and Same Evian is opening, and we’ve got surprises in store. I’d love to make that a thing each year. I played guitar for The Growlers last year, 2017, on tour, and I have a lot of respect for those guys and their manager, Jared, and together they create some really cool events as a band. Every year they do a holiday show in LA and they get Christmas carolers in The Wiltern, in the lobby as you’re walking in, doing Growlers songs. I always thought that was really special.
Your next proper solo album is also set to be released in early 2019. How would you describe that record compared to your other LPs?
I would say the key feeling I had going into the making of the album and, in a way, the thing that inspired all the music was this feeling of confidence. I could rest easier knowing that I’m going to be playing music for a long time. The patience that comes with that, it inspired me to take a bit of a chance on this next record musically. This next album is now an amalgamation of everything that’s been an inspiration up until this point, but more like a little detour.
It was also inspired by, very randomly, Dr. John, who’s somebody I’ve always really liked growing up. But something hit me at some point around the time of working on the record where I was just like, “This guy was a fucking freak,” and that’s so cool. Sometimes you gotta just stick to what you’re doing.
It will have been two years since you released a full-length of original material, which is slightly longer than usual for you. Did that extra time influence your approach and sense of freedom?
Yeah, totally. I was also thinking about Kanye West a lot. He’s a genius artist. In the most basic way, I was like, “This guy is cool and lucky to be where he is with music where he can be on top of the world.”
It is cool to be able to comment on what’s going on in the world or how you’re feeling musically up to the minute before it’s released and then drop the album. Ideally, it’d be cool if I ever got to that place where I didn’t have to wait eight months or six months for the record to come out. But right now, I’m very happy. This might be the shortest time in between composing a Delicate Steve record and releasing it ever.
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