Photo by Dean Budnick
With some downtime on his schedule as Widespread Panic scales down their touring plans for 2017, bassist Dave Schools is filling the time fulfilling some passion projects (including a new record from Steve Kimock) and collaborating with members of the Grateful Dead at this weekend’s Los Muertos Con Queso. Checking in with Schools before he travels to Mexico (and before the passing of Butch Trucks) he digs into Panic’s impressive stretch to close 2016, diving into the Dead songbook and why protest music is as important as its ever been, and who will be writing it.
I think the best place to start is reflecting on 2016, particularly with Widespread Panic. It feels like you guys really dug deep in the catalog especially towards the end of the year. How would you assess the close of the year for Panic?
A big part of it comes down to two things. One is, obviously, Duane Trucks. He’s fresh, and he has a fresh set of ears. He got past the 150 songs or so that are pretty much staples of the routine. But he kept digging because he’s curious, and he developed a sense of wanting to understand the long-term vibe of the band. He dug deep.
But the other part is, just knowing that we’re taking a year off, a lot of us wanted to recapture certain things and present them in a new light. When you ask what I thought about the fall tour, I’m kind of proud. A lot of bands that are 30 years old, cruising in to doing a really light upcoming year, might have just said, “Well, let’s just get through this shit.”
We probably put about 18 hours of rehearsal into all three of those New Year’s shows. I was proud of us; it’s a lot of work, but it pays off because the audiences get something they don’t expect. I mean, a Sabbath song every night at the second leg of the fall tour?
Also, we really got to flesh out Cocker’s “With a Little Help From my Friends” and “Burning Down the House,” and putting the strings on some of those songs really put their point across in a beautiful way.
I was going to ask who the big Sabbath fan in the band was.
In the old days, it was me and Mikey. We loved Sabbath. But Jimmy loves Sabbath as much as he loves John McLaughlin. And Duane loves Sabbath as much as he loves Sun Ra. So it just seemed like a no-brainer. It’s fun to play slab rock.
The opening night of New Year’s was presented chronologically, starting with your first records and progressing forward. How did that come about and was it intentional?
It didn’t have any real meaning other than John Bell came up with the idea and we all sort of picked the songs. There’s so many different ways to look at constructing a show. The sky’s the limit depending on your core material. We kind of did a history lesson at a New Year’s show at the Fox Theater a long time ago, but it started with JB by himself and then added a band member in the order that the band was formed. So this was different. It’s all in the name of “Is anybody going to notice but us? I’ll bet they will.”
Back to Duane for a second, you had high praise for him and obviously work with him in Hard Working Americans as well. As the bassist, what do you notice about his biggest strengths and what he brings to the music?
First and foremost, it’s completely intuitive; it’s groove-oriented, a lot of the same influences. We listen to a lot of the same things. He got lucky having Derek Trucks as an older brother, who really rode him hard. The drummer’s role is the sort of time-keeping heart of the band. Duane really concentrates on tempo, which is something that I’m really aware of. There was a natural locking up right then and there.
Because of that having already been fleshed out, road-tested and proven with Hard Working Americans, when things got dicey and we needed someone to come in really fast and learn about 120 songs in two weeks, it seemed like that was a great place to start. It’s not like we’re going to call up Kenny Aronoff or something like that. It was a family thing.
I do have a lot of high praise for him because he is a guy that does not shrink from a challenge. There’s some songs that are more challenging for the drummer than others in our catalog; he’s the guy going “Let’s knock these out!” not “Let’s continue to rehearse it” but “Let’s play it the very first show!” To me, that’s not necessarily my way of doing things, but I’m learning, and it makes me happy that I can learn from someone who’s half my age.
Speaking of learning songs quickly, in Mexico you’ll be playing with a unique group including Weir, Kreutzmann, Tom Hamilton and Jeff Chimenti. What was your initial reaction to this?
I thought it would be great! It’s a great learning opportunity for me because I’ve never played a lot of this material. I’ve done things with Bobby, and I’ve certainly played with Billy over the years, and obviously played with Mickey. The Mickey Band didn’t do much outside of the realm of the really standard, stock Grateful Dead book.
But this is a great opportunity for me to really get inside of the mind of Bob Weir. It’s a matter of learning some of the details. I can listen to music and be familiar with it as a listener, but to really dive into those details is different, and Bobby is a very detail-oriented cat. These songs are beautiful, they’re extraordinarily well-constructed, and they sound simpler than they are to play.
And that’s the whole trick with the Dead book. It is to get comfortable, and in order to get comfortable, you have to really get the details. It’s extra tough as a bass player because I don’t want to copy Phil Lesh. He didn’t even copy himself from night to night. He simply existed in the moment, in the music. That was always his goal, and that’s all those guys’ goal.
To present something different every night is a challenge and, like I said earlier, it’s not necessarily my nature to lean into challenges. But this is music that I’ve felt a kinship towards for a long time, and I’ve only dabbled in, to a certain degree, with some of the original guys. This is a great opportunity to surprise some people with the material we’ve chosen and also to put a new spin on it. That’s why this music is still loved and important. It’s not the people that deliver it, it’s the songs themselves and the methodology that people appreciate. I think that’s an important lesson for everyone.
Schools with Hard Working Americans- photo by Dean Budnick
What is your approach and mindset going into the show?
It’s not relying on what most rock bands’ clock would be, like a rhythm guitar player or a drummer a la simple, straightforward rock or R&B type stuff. I’ve discovered, in my many experiences with these guys, that it really lets them do their thing better if I can be a solid thing as bass player, and be more of a clock. I haven’t had the years and years of experimentation, both consciously, psychically and musically, that the group had in the ‘60s to form their own language.
A starting point for me is to choose my notes carefully, and to really maintain a clock so that Billy can dance on the drums. He’s dancing better than he’s danced in a long time these days. These guys are really jazzed; they’re super excited, they feel re-energized with all the projects we’re doing, so I want to just enable that. Jeff and Tommy are amazing musicians; they’re deep, deep cats, especially Jeff and his ability to flesh out these tunes and to vary the theme, musically, every night. His knowledge is super deep; he’s a real help to me.
We put a lot of extra time in, just the three of us, getting some little details and things straightened out. We put some good time into harmony vocals. Luckily, you don’t have to hear me sing. I just don’t trust myself. I’m going to concentrate on the bass and creating a situation where everybody else can soar. I’ll get my chance to soar too, don’t you worry.
It’s really fun because that’s the thing, the music is fun, and to really be able to let it play us, there’s a level of comfort and familiarity that has to be achieved. I have to let go and trust the other guys, trust the overall external clock of the universe to keep the song where it needs to be in that moment. I know that sounds vibey.
As far as preparation, how does something like this compare to playing with Phil Lesh and Mike Gordon as a part of the Steal Your Bass sets you participated in at Lockn’. What’s the goal there with three bassists on stage?
Well it would be like choreographing a ballet with three linebackers. But they’re three very experienced linebackers who’ve played on championship teams. It’s about not being in the same spot at the same time, and it’s about working together and listening. That’s an innate understanding that all three of us have.
Really, it was just a great experience; it was fun. It was a chance for the three of us to get together and have some shop-talk about our basses and rigs and tones. For me, the big payoff was the time before; the time spent with Mike while Phil was onstage playing at Lockn’ as we’re trying to figure out a Stravinsky piece that Phil had sent us sheet music for at 2:30 AM the night before.
Had you ever played with Mike before?
Not like that. Mike and I did a lot of hanging out in the era where Phish and Panic played a lot of shows together. But, mostly we were talking about other music. Gosh, that seems like a long time ago.
Let’s shift to Hard Working Americans. How has that band evolved from its birth?
That’s another case of: looked good on paper, and actually surprised all of us onstage. The rate of the evolution of the band, it was unpredictably accelerated. Literally, after twelve shows, we felt like we had been playing together for ten years.
We put the time in on the second record, and went out and toured, and I just finished mixing a live record that will come out sometime this year, which we recorded from our August tour. It’s got pieces from a show in L.A., Birmingham, Atlanta, and Lockn’, are all a part of it. But, it’s constructed to be like a show.
Not to graze on a really sore subject for many people today, but after Trump was elected, Todd Snider and I had a conversation about the time being righter than it has been in probably 50 years for the truly gifted songwriters to start crafting some protest music. And, it’s not about protesting the man who won the election; I mean, you could do that but he’s there, like it or not. It’s about being ready to protest the needs of people whose needs are not being met.
I think it’s just the artist has to rise to a responsibility in times like this when large swaths of people are feeling like they don’t have a voice. It doesn’t matter which side you’re on; if you don’t feel like you have a voice, you’re not happy. There really shouldn’t be two sides, and maybe part of the protests is “Let’s get together!” not “Let’s beat each other up,” and fight at the water cooler, and not talk to each other at family dinners. Let’s find the things we can talk about. Maybe that’s the best form of protest, maybe I’m naïve.
I don’t know, but I know that Snider is busily writing the greatest material he’s yet to write. He’s really hitting his stride as a songwriter, and he’s more intelligent, and more clever. It always reminds me of if Mark Twain were alive today and fronting a band.
Out of curiosity, who are some of your favorite protest songwriters aside from Snider?
I don’t necessarily look at things that need to be mentioned or raged against. But look, there’s the word right there, “rage.” I think Rage Against the Machine was some amazing modern protest music.
I’m not going to go down the canon of the folk singers; we all know Woody Guthrie, Arlo Guthrie. And a protest song doesn’t necessarily have to be what we think of as a classic protest song. It can just be something that raises awareness to an injustice in the world. You could look at “Paranoid Android” as a protest song.
I think some of the best protest songs have yet to be written; frankly, I think we’re going to see some in the next four years. I love Jerry Joseph. It’s almost like reminding people that we’re all the same, and that there’s love and grace and hope in the world. It flies in the face of those who would divide us by conquering us, and setting us against each other. I’ve been working with Jerry on a new record that’s being mixed right now up in Portland, and it’s some of the most hopeful and amazing melodies in songs he’s ever written. Jerry is a guy that just keeps getting better and better at his craft.
Those are my three things; I’m trying to get Steve Kimock to finish the record we started back in June. It’s the quartet of us, his son John Kimock who plays with Mike Gordon and the very talented Leslie Mendelson. They’ve written some words to some of Steve’s songs, and they’ve also written some songs themselves, and I think it’s a really fresh sound and it really jazzed me.
I thought I saw a way to get some more Kimock music out there and maybe attract some new fans because of the vocals. The way Leslie writes her songs, it’s a really beautiful record; it’s got some very experimental arrangements, courtesy of John Kimock, and some sound processing he can do. I’m really excited to get that out. Steve is a person that has a quality that I appreciate, which is that he needs everything to sound just exactly perfect, and I totally appreciate it. It’s worth the extra time to let him have the opportunity to do that. I’m really looking forward to that. I think that’s going to make a lot of people really happy when they hear this Kimock record.
