RossJames first met Phil Lesh because he answered a Craigslist ad. Brian Lesh,Phil’s younger son, was trying to find a guitarist and pedal steel player forhis band. James answered the ad and auditioned at Lesh’s home, although Philwas on the road at the time. James got the gig and later met the Grateful Deadbassist at a rehearsal at the Lesh household. “[Phil] helped me carry my gearinto the house and I was walking into the house, and he was like, ‘Watch yourstep here.” He’s always just been Brian and Grahame’s dad,” James says, callingfrom his Denver home.
Asthe quote may suggest, James was not always a Grateful Dead fan. “I didn’t growup listening to the Dead; I wasn’t that familiar with [their music],” heexplains. However, through meeting Lesh, helping with the opening of TerrapinCrossroads and eventually playing in The Terrapin Family Band, James has growna deep love of the Dead’s music. “It’s like the next chapter of the Great American Songbook,” he says.
James’love of both the Dead and Bob Dylan (whose songs he often plays with Phil)drove him to create his new project, ‘Gotta Serve Somebody: A Celebration ofDylan & The Dead.’ The project, which features a rotating group ofmusicians, can be seen at Brooklyn Bowl in New York City on Feb. 25. Thisiteration will feature Nicki Bluhm, Grahame Lesh, Scott Law and Alex Koford.Tickets to the show are available here.
Below,James discusses the upcoming show, his relationship with Phil Lesh, his love ofadjusting setlists on the fly and much more.
I just wanted to start with yourupcoming Brooklyn Bowl show, “Ross James’ Gotta Serve Somebody: A Celebrationof Dylan & The Dead.” Of course, you have a history of playing withGrateful Dead members and playing Grateful Dead music, but I’m curious aboutthis project. How did this particular concept and show idea come about?
Eversince I started playing with Phil, we always played a lot of Dylan tunes also.There was one gig we did out at the park at Terrapin Crossroads where we did acelebration of the Dylan and the Dead tour that they did. That was kind of whenI first had the idea to do something like this. The way that the show flowedwith just Dylan tunes and just Dead tunes and no other covers was prettyseamless and interesting and I thought you could expand on it a lot. I’vealways loved the Dylan Rolling ThunderRevue from ‘75, that’s one of my favorite tours and live performances ofall time. The energy and spontaneity of that tour combined with the excitementof Europe ‘72, which is my favoriteDead era. It’s sort of what I’m looking to combine here, that fresh, raw energyof both those tours, and weaving from a Dylan tune, to a Dead tune, and backagain. It’s a good opportunity to bring some of my favorite musicians togetherto play it.
Speaking of your favorite musicians,you have a stacked lineup for these shows. How did the lineup come together?Did you have people in mind in advance?
Iplayed with Grahame and Alex in the Terrapin Family Band in and in differentbands. I’ve played in Alex’s band, he’s played in my band and all sorts ofdifferent stuff over the years. And then I have a trio with Nicki Bluhm andScott Law, that sort of came about from this trip we do in Europe every yearwith a group called IGE that brings together all kinds of musicians for twoweeks in Europe. We’re doing that again this year in Prague with Peter Rowanand Greensky guys and String Cheese guys and all sorts of people. So, that’s myhistory with those guys. I’m really just looking for an excuse to play with anyand all of them at any opportunity. It’s really cool, Grahame has actually beenplaying bass lately in a band called Capitol Sun Rays.
I also saw he’s been playing somebass at Terrapin Crossroads gigs. I think there was one recently where Grahamewas playing bass for a little bit and then Phil came and replaced him on bass.It was a very cool moment.
Hewas here in Denver, he stayed with me when he was playing with the Capitol SunRays, which is this band with Luther Dickinson and Amy Helm and Birds ofChicago. He sounded great on bass and we were just talking about getting a gigor two live while he’s playing bass because it seemed like it would be a lot offun. So it’ll be really cool to explore these tunes with him playing bass andAlex on drums. And Scott Law and I have a group called Cosmic Twang. Scott andI play electric guitar together, and it’s pretty close to heaven for me. I lovegetting to do that with him and Nicki somehow manages to fit so perfectly intoall of that. There’s a really good chemistry between all of us and we’ve justplayed so many shows together. I know that when we get on stage it’s going tobe great.
Absolutely. Speaking of the showitself, you mentioned weaving back and forth between Dylan songs and Deadsongs. In terms of the setlist, will it be mostly Dylan songs that the Deadplayed or will you do some songs that they never played themselves?
Kindof a mix. I love the Rolling Thunder stuff,so I tend to start there all the time. But the Dead did “It’s All Over Now,Baby Blue,” right? (double check) Either way, we might play that song, but theversion that I love of that song is actually performed by Link Wray, one of myall-time favorite guitar players and songwriters. His version of “Baby Blue” isoff this record that’s from the late ‘70s, early ‘80s maybe. It’s not thegreatest record, but his version of “Baby Blue” is so cool. It’s about takingsongs and playing them the way I want to play them, not trying to replicate orduplicate anything, Just celebrating the music and trying to play it the waythat we want to do it.
I assume - considering you guysaren’t a band that’s playing together as that group all the time - that therewill be some setlist planning. Will there be room for something like, let’ssay, all of a sudden you’re playing “Fire On The Mountain,” when you weren’tplanning on it?
That’ssomething that happens almost every show that I organize. That’s what’s reallycool about playing with these guys too, is that they’re all game and everybodyis listening. If somebody plays something and we all pick up on it, we can allgo there. I’ll have a sketch of what we are going to do, but it’s never carvedin stone.
That sounds great. Separately fromthis show, how did you wind up playing with Phil in the Terrapin Family Band?How has your relationship with Phil grown in your time playing with him?
It’scoming up on ten years ago at this point. Brian, Phil’s younger son, waslooking for a guitar player and a pedal steel player for his band. He had justposted an ad on Craigslist in the Bay Area and I had answered it. It didn’t sayanything about anything other than that they were looking for a guitar player.I went to audition and it was at Phil’s house, but he was out on the road. Ididn’t grow up listening to the Dead, I wasn’t that familiar with it.
AtTerrapin Crossroads, there are all of these photographs all over the walls ofPhil with everybody. There are pictures of the Jammys and Questlove and Warrenand Trey and Bob Dylan and everybody. There are all of these pictures all overthe place and the bass player from the band is playing Doug Irwin’s bass. Ididn’t recognize what that was and I had never seen anything like it. I wasjust like, “Where am I right now? What is going on? This doesn’t feel normal atall.”
So,I got the gig with Brian and played with them for a couple years. Phil would alsocome to our shows and he’d be there at rehearsal. I remember the next time Iwent to rehearse at the house, I pulled into the driveway and Phil was outside.He helped me carry my gear into the house and I was walking into the house, andhe was like, “Watch your step here.” He’s always just been ‘Brian and Grahame’sDad.’ He’s such a Dad, like, “Watch your step, Son.” He’s the nicest, sweetestguy. Both him and Jill have been really, almost parental figures in my lifesince then. I’m really lucky to have gotten to know them. But to backtrack, wewere playing in Brian’s band, which was called Blue Eyed River at the time, andthen Phil would always come to gigs with Barry Sless in Fairfax. They’d just behanging out and watching. He sat in with us one time at a place called IronSprings Brewery in Fairfax and that was the first time I played with them. Thiswas the summer before they were going to open Terrapin, they were talking aboutit.
Iwas a live sound engineer at the time, and I was saying that it sounded reallycool what they were trying to build and if they ever needed any help withanything production-wise down there, I’d love to help. I basically started as aproduction assistant for Robbie Taylor. If anyone knows Robbie Taylor, theyknow what an interesting place to start that might be. It was a strange thing:the month before they opened up, they did all these rehearsals and I washelping out with sound. They did these four soft opening shows in the barbefore there was ever a stage in the bar or anything. I ended up playing allfour of those shows, and it was like, Tim and Nicki Bluhm and Jackie and BobWeir and Railroad Earth guys. I don’t even know who else, but I didn’t know anyof these people and I didn’t know any of the songs they were playing. And I wasdoing sound at the same time, so I had a mixing board next to me on stage,doing monitors and front of the house.
Butthat was how it started at Terrapin and then it snowballed into a milliondifferent things. I ended up tour managing for Phil for a couple years, likeduring Fare Thee Well I was his manager. I was helping with anything thatneeded to happen down there, like playing music, to setting up shows, tobooking bands. To answer your question about my view and relationship withPhil, it’s just grown. We’ve been through so much on so many different levels.Sharing those moments on stage with him is an indescribable thing, even on anight when it’s not the best show. There’s always at least one moment thatlifts you out of your body with that guy. We’ve also shared the experience ofbuilding Terrapin. We were involved in so many of the same meetings and ideas.And going to art museums on the road with him, there’s just all kinds of stuff.He’s a sage and it’s a privilege to get to know somebody like that.
It’s interesting to hear you talkabout how you weren’t a Deadhead prior to starting to play this music. I feellike I hear about that sort of thing somewhat often from people who are nowparts of the greater Dead scene. For example, when Joe Russo joined Furthur, hejust auditioned, having never really heard the Dead’s music, and now of coursehe’s a big part of the community. Same thing with you: as you said, you startedoff not even knowing the songs, and now you’re doing a show where part of it isa tribute to your favorite Grateful Dead era.
Joeand I have bonded over the similarities to our winding up in this universe forsure. As an outsider or somebody who hasn’t experienced it, I grew up listeningto country music and punk rock. I thought I knew what the Dead was and then youcome to find out there’s so much more there than I gave credit. And so manyincredible people in and around it. The songs are really incredible, there areso many incredible songs in the catalogue. It’s like the next chapter of the Great American Songbook.
To bring it back to the show,related to your changing relationship with the Dead’s music: was there a momentwhen you realized you were a big enough fan to have a favorite era? Or, to putit differently, a moment when you realized you loved the music in a deeper waythan just enjoying performing the songs?
It’sa little hard for me to pinpoint one moment because it’s all been such a blurand it all kind of happened so fast. The openness to exploration, once I reallygot that and was comfortable with that, you realize that it’s this never-endingthing. It’s just constantly growing and changing. Never having to play a songthe same way is something that has always interested me. And that’s somethingthat I love about the Dylan side of this too because that’s something that he’sdone over the years, just reinvented arrangements of tunes. That’s somethingthat resonates with me in a huge way. There have been so many moments where alyric from one of these tunes that I’ve heard a million times hits me like afreight train. Almost every night playing with Phil there will be a tune thathits me in a new way because of what’s going on in my life or I’m open toreceiving it in a different way. That’s something that I appreciate about boththe Dead and Dylan, the lyrical content of all these songs. It’s not just aboutgreat music, but the stories and the humanity in all the lyrics.
I do have one more question aboutthe venue, Brooklyn Bowl. What is it about the Brooklyn Bowl that fits withthis show?
Anychance I can play in one of Pete Shapiro’s rooms, I’m a happy guy. I loveworking with him, I love the way every one of his venues feels, the way hisstaff treats you. In terms of the Brooklyn Bowl in particular, I’ve probablyplayed there 20 times at this point; it feels like home. The first time Iplayed there, the neighborhood was not the same as it is now. It’s really coolto see it change. The crowds are always great and the folks that come out tothose shows are always so appreciative of the music. What I’m really excitedabout for this show is that I’ve also got the Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show asa part of it. Lance, the guy that does that light show, is a dear friend ofmine from California and has done a million shows with us. We even got him todo Red Rocks with Phil last year, so I’m really excited to get to bring thatSan Francisco thing to the Brooklyn Bowl for this show.
