Photo by Stuart Levine
Scott Devendorf has long been known as The National’s de facto Deadhead and record collector, and this fall he’s secured his place in the Grateful Dead storybook by playing bass on Bob Weir’s intimate Campfire Tour. The National co-founder and Cincinnati native first discovered the Dead’s music in the late ’80s, long before his band helped define early 21st-century New York indie-rock. A few Steal Your Face shirts aside, Devendorf first publicly crossed into the Dead’s orbit in 2012 when he curated the HeadCount Bridge Session benefit at Weir’s TRI Studios along with his brother and National drummer Bryan Devendorf. That one-off event brought Weir in touch with a new generation of Brooklyn, N.Y., musicians and helped seed both The National’s massive Day of the Dead tribute and Weir’s first album in a decade, the cowboy song collection Blue Mountain (which was produced by Bridge Session musical director and Yellowbirds member Josh Kaufman). Scott and The National guitarists Aaron and Bryce Dessner contributed to Blue Mountain, and the Devendorfs will spend their downtime between sessions for the next National album backing Weir on the road. (Aaron Dessner was also slated to participate in the tour but had to pull out at the last minute due to a family emergency. Steve Kimock and Wolf!’s Jon Shaw have signed on as his replacements.) Shortly before Day of the Dead’s release, Scott spoke with Relix and Jambands.com about the new Dead tribute, playing with Weir and his long, strange trip from Shakedown Street to indie-rock royalty.
Let’s start by talking about Day of the Dead, Aaron and Bryce’s Grateful Dead tribute. How did the initial concept come to fruition?
This whole thing started several years ago now, the concept of it. We were like, “Oh, it’d be awesome and super fun to do,” ‘cause we’re fans and whatever. I remember talking about this at Coachella in like 2011 or something. That was sort of the beginning. It could’ve been even earlier than that. Just three or four of us—like Bryan and I and Bryce—were just sort of batting around ideas. It kind of remained dormant for a while, because we were touring, then making a record, then touring, and then I think we got excited about it again when we did the HeadCount thing.
Then we were off after all the touring, and we were like, “Let’s get it going,” because that’s what we do when we’re not touring—work on other stuff. My involvement has been playing bass on like 25 songs—“Terrapin” and all that stuff that was super fun. Then sort of generally rallying around ideas or suggesting things and batting stuff back and forth, listening to other stuff that other bands have done and expanding on it, which is always positive. It’s been a really fun thing to do, because almost everything someone turned in has been like, “That’s amazing!”
It’s interesting, the mixture of stuff. Some of the stuff definitely pays tribute to the ethos of The Dead, some of their jams and “Wharf Rat” with Ira Kaplan.
Yeah, I played on that, too—really fun. All the stuff that we did with Aaron, me, Josh, Bryan, Conrad, our sort of house band stuff—basically the HeadCount band with various people coming in—all of that stuff is more in the sort of traditional Grateful Dead world, with whatever addition the singer puts to it, you know? Ira really wanted something that was way more different and very Yo La Tengo in a way, in the end, which we were totally cool with, because we’re a big fan of that, too. Lee Ranaldo is a huge Dead fan; he’s been to tons of shows and has a vast knowledge of the catalog and the live shows, too. But also he’s obviously in Sonic Youth and doing his whole thing. Basically the house band stuff with each collaborator was a cool thing, especially when people were able to come and be there and work on the song as we were doing it. That was really special.
Over how long a period was that material with the house band recorded?
In April 2015, we spent about a week or 10 days up in Woodstock at Dreamland, and we had four or five days where people were scheduled to come in. So Will [Oldham of Bonnie “Prince” Billy] came in, Lee Ranaldo, Ira from Yo La Tengo. A lot of stuff we just did basic tracks for people to sing on. Then we did another section in February, and then in April we did another session in Hudson at a different studio called Future Past. That was with the guys from Grizzly Bear, and then also Lone Bellow came in and Otto Hauser did some drumming. It’s always a funny thing, people’s relationship with the [Dead], how big a fan [they are]. I know the Grizzly Bear guys are very respectful of the band, but it varies in people’s interest, and then you have someone like Charles Bradley who is not a Deadhead.
But he interpreted that song in a great way.
I’m a huge fan of all the interpretations. It was tough for me, because I’m a big fan and it’s hard to get outside of what the band sounds like. But also, I’m not a huge cover fan sometimes, so I’m just like, “Ahh!” Taking this stuff and kind of squeezing it into a new dimension is kind of a tricky thing.
The closest relative to _ Day of the Dead_ is the ‘90s tribute Deadicated, but that album was limited to a single disc.
That’s sort of the blessing and the curse with the thing because it can go on for so long—and Day of the Dead has—with the 200 songs or whatever, originals plus covers and traditional stuff that they made their own. It’s been interesting. Also, part of the curating process for us was throwing stuff out to people when we didn’t know if they were interested, and then some people were like, “Hell yeah I’ll do it!” Then others were, like, no response. It’s definitely been a mixed thing there. But people who we didn’t think would do it totally did.
Just the vast number of songs—going back to the Fare Thee Well shows, when they did five shows and only two repeats in five nights—that was just the biggest catalog of hits.
Yeah, it was basically “best of.” It’s funny—there are so many songs we haven’t touched, even huge songs that haven’t been done or may not be done that we’re kind of waiting to see if somebody will do it or whatever. I have a feeling there will be some emergency last-minute session where it’s like, “Oh, we have to do…” whatever. “Scarlet/Fire” or something.
While you were working on Day of the Dead in Upstate New York, Bob Weir was actually in the area working on his cowboy project, Blue Mountain. In certain ways, the two projects seemed to overlap in terms of players and an overall ethos of revisiting the Dead’s songbook in a rootsy way.
I was actually just there in Woodstock late last summer. The week before, we did some stuff back in Woodstock a couple of months ago, and then we went back and did some more stuff, and then Josh Kaufman, who’s part of the house band, is doing [Weir’s] record with Josh Ritter. It’s pretty special as far as hearing him talk about it and actually playing the songs. His voice, it’s a perfect timbre right now for it—it’s seasoned. It’s not as rollicking as, like, “Me and My Uncle” and that sort of thing.
When it came to the tribute album, did performing with Bob change the way you approached the project?
I guess it is inevitably a rabbit hole. That was sort of a given. I think there was enough space between playing with him at the TRI thing in 2012 and then doing it now, and then having our whole touring and everything happen between, it was a good breather to sort of be like, “Okay, we’re rehearsed and playing things, let’s get back in this.” And I think once we got together, and also got that band back together, it was really fun. Also, in a way, the songs are all written, so they’re there to interpret. So that’s easier than a band going like, “Oh, we’ve got to make new music.” But you want to do it justice and make something special out of it and make it new, in a way.
I think, for us, that was the thing. Dreamland’s got a crazy awesome sound—you can clap your hands and it sounds awesome—so it was like, if we play these songs, they automatically have a woody, real sound to them that’s cool without doing a whole lot of shit to them, like production stuff or otherwise. I mean, you heard the rough mixes and that’s pretty much everything. We haven’t done anything other than sing over them and mix them roughly. I don’t think there’s going to be a whole lot of overdubs and the other things involved in other recordings. It’s really cool. I don’t like to overstate that kind of shit, but it is like, “Woah!” You just strike a chord or play a piano or tap on some drums and it’s like, “This sounds awesome.” So if we could just capture that…
When it came down to decide what songs The National as The National were going to record, how did you guys narrow down on that? Was it where Matt’s voice fits?
Basically, yeah—songs that we felt had a certain emotional resonance that we thought would connect with the way he sings and the timbre of his voice. We also love “Peggy O” and “Morning Dew,” and he sang on both. We’re definitely going to use the “Peggy O,” and “Morning Dew” is kind of cool, but it’s a little more out-there. Someone else may do “Morning Dew” with that bass and basic track. Because Tallest Man On Earth actually did “Peggy O” when we were there with him, and he did “Ship Of Fools,” and sometimes you’ve got to try it to see if it works. But I think Matt’s “Peggy O” seemed to sit better with that track.
I thought that Tallest Man On Earth sounded awesome on “Ship Of Fools.” And “Peggy O,” I know it’s a Dead song, but it sounded like a National song, an interpretation. You wouldn’t know that that was known to the rock audience as the Grateful Dead’s.
We played it at the festival at Eau Claire in the summer. Josh was up there and like, “Let’s fuckin’ do it!” It was super fun, just because I love that song so much.
I guess three-fifths of our band was part of the house band, and somehow we channeled a National kind of vibe on that one. It was kind of interesting and educational to record in that way at Dreamland, where we were just doing stuff without intention—well, intention, but not knowing who was gonna sing or whatever. Things kind of came out like, “Oh, we’ve got to do this and we’ve got to do that.” Just kind of bang, bang, bang, do it. And it was fun. It worked out that way. Bryan was drumming, Conrad was drumming, Josh Kaufman was playing guitar and piano and singing sometimes. Conrad was also singing. We had a lot of splash vocals going, because we were like, “Somebody’s got to sing it!” So they were singing and playing. Sam Cohen played and sang. Walt was up there playing keyboards. It was like the whole TRI band again, basically. Bryce is playing on a couple of things, but he’s also doing a whole orchestration thing for “Terrapin.”
Shifting from the album towards your roots with The Dead, I know that all the guys minus Matt have various roots in the Grateful Dead world, and the Dessners never actually saw them live but that was some of the music that they really like, and your brother said that he did see them live. I know, obviously, you’ve seen them before. Can you talk a little bit about how you got into their music?
Weirdly, I feel like I missed them at the time. I saw them in ‘93 and ‘94 with my brother, and once, I think, by myself. I don’t really remember the second time. But anyway, not peak period Grateful Dead, but definitely an amazing experience. Really, I was in high school with a ton of friends who were fans, but I was more into punk rock and skateboarding and that stuff in high school. I was definitely aware of the band at that point, but I didn’t see them in the ‘70s, you know what I mean? I had many opportunities to see them, actually, in the last peak period in like ‘89-‘90. I think I went to the Cincinnati Garden, not to the show but just down to the parking lot to see and be like, “This is crazy.”
I had friends who were way into it who were then my roommates in college. We had a house and they lived upstairs and they were always playing everything. Then I kind of got into it around ‘90 onward, and then the end happened in ’95 and it was a bummer. Then, actually, in college, I had this thing with a fan, and then saw a lot of the different other bands in the Dead [universe], like RatDog, different ones here and there. I dragged my wife to a few—much to her chagrin. She’s more of a goth or, you know, that music. She’s like “Yeah, this is my curse. I didn’t like them when I was a kid and now here I am, dating and now married a to Deadhead.” I don’t know, it kind of stuck with me as a thing. It’s always sort of reassuring in a way. It’s a capsule of time, obviously, a 30-year capsule of time. The music, as I’ve gotten older, has resonated more emotionally, I guess.
I was into Phish with my brother in probably ’91. I’m trying to think of the last Phish show I saw…I guess they went on a hiatus in my Phish career. I saw a lot of Phish shows with my brother. That was a fun, totally different thing. I liked it not because of the emotional resonance, but more for the chops. I was like, “Cool, this is an impressive thing.” It was cool. I guess we saw Phish kind of as the Grateful Dead was finishing and Phish was starting, and there was that whole period of time. We weren’t big jamband guys but we were aware of it. As far as going to 50 shows or spending all summer on tour, my brother did more touring with Phish than I did. We went to a couple of New Year’s shows together and here-and-there kind of things. It was interesting to see how it transitioned.
It’s funny. Now kind of looking back, I really appreciate all of this early stuff with [the Dead] and how they were sort of indie-rock, in 1965 through 1980. Then they became the phenomenon. But you kind of love everything about the Grateful Dead in that way, looking back. It’s kind of like a historical document of 30 years. You’re just kind of picking out the little stories and the trajectory of their career and how they invented all of that stuff—the festivals, the sound systems, the whole thing. There is no Bonnaroo without the Grateful Dead.
Have you found that, in the last few years, you’ve been getting more into it in terms of the project you’re working on and also the fact that you’re older and it hits you in a different way?
I think so, yeah. I start to recognize the effect that it has had on my life. Like, all of these things have happened, not because of the Grateful Dead but other things, like new projects and cool little things and meeting new people. It’s a positive thing in that way. It’s always been fun. I’ve always been a fan. It’s kind of nice to see something around it. And I get to DJ their music at a bar!
When The National started and came to mass popularity, I don’t think people would think that you’d have a regular Grateful Dead night at a bar.
I feel like there’s always this thing where the fans and the culture around the Grateful Dead is everyone’s least favorite thing—the larger world’s least favorite thing. The perception of The Dead is based on their fans. I love all of it, but of course I could see people not liking the band or having an idea about the band based around the culture.
It was definitely a divide back when The National started, but I think I went to a typical Midwest, American public school high school. You’ve got everything. You’ve got punk rockers and metal dudes and hippies and the whole thing. It was kind of iconic, that stuff.
We started our Dead night in February [of 2015], the first one. And we were like, “Oh, let’s do it again!” Like, alright. It’s fun to do. People like it. This night, there’s no band, but there are good bands. The first three or four months there was a band. The first time was awesome, because it was like, “Alright, there’s a band coming in at 7:00 to 10:00” or whatever. The band was Gent Treadly, who I kind of knew. As soon as they came in and set up their stuff, it was kind of like this ragtag group of dudes, and we were just drinking, out here smoking, and I was like, “Okay, how is this going to go? Don’t know.” And then they just fucking nailed it. That one, “Help On The Way,” just jazzed out, six-string bass. I was like, “Holy Shit.”
The Freaks and Geeks mixture of people.
Absolutely. So I went to high school—I graduated in ‘91, minus four—and all that stuff was happening at the same time. Some of it was like, pre-that, some of it was happening contemporarily. I kicked myself all the time saying, “Man, if I had just gone in ‘89, ’90.” It would’ve been amazing! The last run and the whole thing. Woulda coulda shoulda. I remember that specific day Jerry died. I was doing laundry in my basement and I heard that and just started crying. Bummer, man.
It’s funny to see people who are contemporary to the sort of peak periods of the Grateful Dead who then started their own music careers based on them a little bit, but also other music and punk that was happening. It’s crazy. Because Yo La Tengo is very jammy, you know? But not like The Grateful Dead.
It’s interesting how all of that has been affected. Fugazi has an archive that’s rivaling the Grateful Dead as far as every show is different and that whole thing. Pearl Jam has been doing this, and Wilco—all of these bands that have very lengthy setlists are all owed to the Grateful Dead.
Do you find that The National is influenced by the Dead in that sense? Because, when I first heard you, it was not clearly four Grateful Dead fans of varying levels.
I think the music does not scream Grateful Dead in every way, but I think the aesthetic and the way of operating, in a way—we’ve always done our own thing and kind of tried to build a little family around working and touring. For me, it’s always been a model as far as keeping it this small thing. Obviously, they were big and sprawled in later years, but, you know, just a family. Our sound guy has been with us for 10 years now.
Definitely, I agree. I think that their model can be seen.
Yeah, they sort of bore all of that. I think some of it was that they thought about it, and some of it just happened, you know? Because it didn’t exist. As far as the music and the way that we play live shows, I always think about it when I’m playing, like, “Oh, wow, this is cool that we’re playing in front of anyone,” for one, and two, we think about varying the setlist. But we’re not a jamband, traditionally. But I think making it different every night and making it a unique thing—we’ll do shows, and especially if we’re in any Grateful Dead venue, like the Fox Theater, it’s like, “Woohoo! Show me the room where…” We’ve never played at Warfield or any of those. Weirdly, Berkeley, we played with Weir there. So I was freaking out inside.
In terms of The National, when you and Matt became friends, was that during your Dead period? Or was it like with your wife, where you weren’t into it and then later on, you’re like, “By the way, I’m this uber dork”?
We drove Matt to a Phish show at Deer Creek. We were in full-on camping mode. I was friends with him in college the first year we met, and we were both in music. He has a lot of funny music that he doesn’t admit to having. He had a Blues Traveler CD. He went to Miami University for a year or two and was in sculpture, and I think he was an RA. He has this little backstory that’s funny. He was definitely, like, an alterna-guy, but he lived in this house and bands would play at frat houses and stuff at Miami University. For a while he was not a huge reggae fan, because there was a lot of white reggae happening. Now he is. He’s into the syncopation now and polyrhythm and all that stuff. He had a Blues Traveler CD, and we were like, “Oh, Blues Traveler. Where’d you get that?” I’d never heard of it at that point.
It was that process of convergence. It was totally happening. The music we actually coalesced around was like Pavement, Guided By Voices, the Pixies, all of that stuff around that time when it was happening at the time. We had a little band in college that was nothing like any of that, but also trying to do that kind of stuff with some friends. We met because he came to see our show at Bogart’s in Cincinnati, and my brother and my friend Mike and myself had a three-piece band out of high school into college, and Matt constantly likes to tease me that I was dressed up as a jester handing out hamburgers. I’m like, I’m pretty sure that was Mike, but cool if you think that about me. That was early on in our friendship and our musical thing. We got into anything that was happening in the ‘90s alt-rock, like Dinosaur Jr. and all of that stuff.
What kind of music was the jester band?
It was like Red Hot Chili Peppers meets some bad funk-ish kind of stuff and some moody alternative stuff from the early ‘90s.
The Chili Peppers could’ve been a jam band if they came out 10 years later after their hits went a different way. George Clinton and Flea obviously could’ve done whatever they wanted.
Interesting to study, because we love Mother’s Milk, and then it became something beyond. Whatever. Music is music.
