Dave Dreiwitz and Scott Metzger, SweetWater 420 Fest, 4/21/18- photo by Dean Budnick
One look at Scott Metzger’s tour schedule this summer reveals just how hard working this guitarist is. This week alone, Metzger will: 1) Play a one-off quartet show at New York’s (le) Poisson Rouge with Galactic’s Stanton Moore, saxophonist Skerik and bassist Andy Hess, 2) Continue his summer tour with Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, including a highly anticipated show at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Bandshell as part of BRIC’s Celebrate Brooklyn! summer series, and 3) Play an impressive four separate sets at this weekend’s Peach Festival in Scranton, PA, with Almost Dead, Chris Harford’s Band of Changes, Oteil Burbridge’s Oteil & Friends and a special duo performance with Burbridge.
“The summer’s crazy,” Metzger says, calling from Brooklyn just before heading out west for a few Almost Dead dates this past weekend. “You know, it is what it is with festival season—everything’s going on. Now there’s just so many festivals, it’s unbelievable.”
Metzger, who also leads his instrumental trio WOLF!, is looking forward to crossing the Prospect Park Bandshell off his venue bucket list—especially since it’s just a short walk from his apartment. Here, the guitarist discusses his busy summer schedule, the current state of Almost Dead, WOLF!’s new album, his musical relationship with Oteil Burbridge and even what it’s like to be at a Trey Anastasio Band concert with Tom Marshall.
So this upcoming Prospect Park show is going to be a real hometown show for you, right?
That’s exactly what it’s gonna be. It’s been a real goal to play the Bandshell for years now—I’ve never played it, but I’ve seen plenty of shows there. I live about three blocks away from the Bandshell, so one of the big things I’m looking forward to is just walking to the gig. Like, coming home after soundcheck, eating at home and then walking on back to the gig.
That’s great. I’m curious about your thoughts on the state of Almost Dead right now and your rising popularity. You guys have been around for a few years now and seem to just keep getting bigger.
I mean, we’re just as surprised as anybody, I think, at the demand and the crazy response that the band has gotten. I don’t think anyone saw it coming. And we’re still having a blast doing it. The band was going to be a one-time thing in 2013, and now we’re over 160 shows or something. After the first show we were like, “Maybe we could do another,” and after that one, we were like, “Maybe we could do five more.” And then it was like, “Oh, maybe we could do 50 more.” And so far, so good.
Everyone in the band is obviously very busy, playing with multiple projects—how do you find the time to do even the modest touring you do, especially with runs out west?
I think that all of us have made JRAD a priority. It’s kind of become the nerve center of everything else, and all of our solo projects or other projects that we do have greatly benefited from the exposure that JRAD has given all of us. So it’s definitely a priority.
Was there a moment when you guys realized that Almost Dead was becoming a nationwide thing—in terms of popularity and booking venues—and not just an East Coast/NYC-centric project?
That’s a good question. I remember when we did Hardly Strictly Bluegrass—that was 2014, so it was early on. We played this festival in San Francisco, and from my perspective it was a life checklist kind of deal to play Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. All of my heroes played there. That year, there were all these amazing people playing on all the other stages, like Buddy Miller, Emmylou Harris, John Prine. And we were a Grateful Dead tribute act sandwiched in between all of these people. It was our first time on the West Coast, and we were going into the main thing—playing Grateful Dead music in San Francisco. They expect a lot out of it, you know? And there were just so many people there for our set, like thousands of people—most of which probably saw the Grateful Dead more than once—and everybody stayed for the whole set. I can’t speak for anybody else, but for me that was a really eye-opening experience.
Almost Dead has delved deep into the Dead catalog, but are there any tunes that you haven’t touched on yet that you will this summer?
That would be a question for Joe—since the beginning, he’s written the setlists and he’s brought the new tunes to the table. Sometimes, we’ll be riding in the van from the hotel to the venue or something, and maybe the radio is on and a song comes on and all five of us are like, “Great song!” Two months later, that song will maybe show up in a setlist somewhere. It definitely sounds super nerdy to say it out loud, but it’s like a collective consciousness kind of thing. But honestly, we’re like 200-plus songs in to the catalog. I know there are more to do, but I think that for the last few months, it’s been more about seeing how many different directions we can take the tunes we’ve already played a few times, which is always the goal. For the first couple of years, it was just crazy. There were so many songs to learn, and every show there would be new songs and, because the thing grew so fast, the first time playing a song could be in front of 5,000 people or more, which is an interesting experience.
Did any of those instances not work out well? You all have a great connection so it probably couldn’t have been too bad.
There have been moments of being like, “Oh, I was pretty sure we were about to go to the bridge, and nobody went to the bridge, so now when are we gonna go to the bridge?” Those kinds of moments. But it’s like you said—the five of us have been playing together in different configurations for so long that when we have those moments, everybody dials in to each other and everybody’s very sensitive. We can massage our way out of anything. And sometimes, those are the best moments. The moments of confusion—where there’s a “mistake”—force you to be off the grid, and you can’t rely on your intellectual, this-is-how-the-song-goes kind of thinking. You have to get creative about how to get out of it, and you can end up in some really amazing places that way. And a well-placed tease is usually a good guiding your way out of something.
Switching to the upcoming LPR show with Stanton Moore, Skerik and Andy Hess—has that quartet ever played together?
No, that lineup has never done a gig together.
How did that gig come together?
It was really just that I heard Skerik was going to be in town, and the idea came up that we should do something while he was there. Then I heard Stanton was going to be in town, and that made a lot of sense, and Hess is a Brooklyn guy as well and happened to be available. So all of us have played together with different bands and different configurations, but it will be the first time that this particular quartet is gonna play. It’s exciting. I’m huge fans of all three of those guys. It’ll be cool. Andy was just over at my apartment, were going over tunes.
Will you guys have a setlist, or will it be more improvisational?
There’ll definitely be a setlist. It’s gonna be way more song-orientated, something completely different from a jamband thing. There’ll be solos and all that, but we’re definitely working from a blueprint of songs.
Any certain genres that you might pull covers from for that show?
We had an email chain that went around, and everybody contributed some songs to the setlist. When you have Andy Hess and Stanton Moore as a rhythm section, you have to take advantage of the pocket and groove that that offers. That will certainly be the focus of the gig—it won’t be spacey jams. Also, it’s one of those gigs where everybody is spread out, so there won’t be a rehearsal. We’ll just do a long soundcheck.
What is it like playing with Skerik? I’ve seen him sit in and play with a wide variety of acts, and it seems like there’s really nothing he can’t jump in on and contribute to immediately, you know?
Yeah, totally. He’s such a monster. He’s a musician that has so many bases covered. I remember hanging out with him down at Jazz Fest years ago, and he was carrying around a book of classical Stravinsky scores. That’s what he was working on. It was like, “Woah.” That is serious, serious music—and I’m sure that it’s not saxophone-friendly. That really said a lot about his seriousness as a musician. I’ve always remembered that about him. And when you hear him play, you can feel that depth coming through, whether it’s some avant garde thing or like a New Orleans-style groove.
You’re also playing with him at Brooklyn Comes Alive this fall, along with a very cool group that includes MonoNeon, who just played a trio show with Joe Russo and Eric Krasno in Brooklyn.
Yeah, that guy’s intense right?
Have you played with him before?
I’ve never played with him. And I’ve never met him. But it was funny—during the first gig that I did with Oteil, he was going on and on and on about this guy MonoNeon, and then I went to his website or Twitter page, and he has hundreds of videos of him harmonizing people talking. It’s one of the most intense things! I can’t imagine the amount of time that it would take to do one of these. Like, he would take this interview and figure out which pitch each word that you and I said was, and then play along with it. It’s pretty nuts. I tried to do it the other day, and I sort of gave up after like a half hour. It’s so intense. And he’s done hundreds of them. So Oteil was going on and on and on about what a fan he was of him.
Speaking of Oteil, you’ll be playing at Peach Fest with Oteil & Friends, and then you guys are also doing a duo set. Could you talk a bit about your relationship with him and how you started playing together?
We hadn’t met before he came and did three nights with Joe Russo’s Almost Dead at the Brooklyn Bowl. We were doing six nights and Dave [Dreiwitz] couldn’t do three of them because of Ween, so Oteil came in. And we set up on the same side of the stage, so we were right next to each other. It was really clear, right from the first soundcheck, that we were coming from a similar place, musically, because everybody’s sort of teasing other songs all the time, and anything that I would play, Oteil was playing stuff that was super complementary. He’s a master-level musician. Some guys just play the right shit all the time, and he’s one of those guys to me. It just feels right when you play with Oteil, and he makes you sound better. He’s a supporter. He’s a rhythm section player—he can play the traditional role of just a bass player, supporting something, but he goes beyond that and contributes to whatever idea you’re doing at the time, and his idea makes your idea sound that much smarter or better. Like we were over there and I played something then he played something, and I could see we were smiling at each at what we each were playing and there was just a muy simpático sort of vibe happening.
So that was when we met, and then he did the Red Rocks gig with us last year, and we had a very similar sort of thing. I remember I played—I think during “Greatest Story Ever Told”—I played “Tico-Tico,” which is this old Brazilian piece of music. It’s sort of obscure, and it had been a long night, but he just looked at me immediately and was like, “Tico-Tico”! He knew it immediately, and he smiled. So we have this great track record. After that, he called and I was just thrilled that a guy like that would ask me to play in his band for a few nights. Then after that, the call came to do some more, like Waterloo Festival and Peach Fest. And I’m just so happy for that guy. Every time I open up Instagram or Facebook or something, it’s like a picture of him in front of a stadium full of people. It’s amazing.
With the biggest smile on his face.
Yeah, and that’s the other thing about that dude—he’s like literally the nicest guy. I hang out with him and I walk away being like, “My god, I should be nicer. I should be as nice as that guy.” And I’m a nice guy!
That’s great that you’ll get to do the duo thing with him at Peach as well. Have you discussed what that’s going to be like, musically?
Oh man, I’m so looking forward to that. I’m not really sure. Everybody’s schedules are so crazy. We’re talking about talking about it. But really looking forward to it.
Speaking of duo shows, you also have a show with Krasno at Rockwood Music Hall later this year. That’ll be quite an intimate gig.
Yeah, it’s small. It’s like an acoustic-sized room. Less than a hundred people. We’ve been talking about doing something like that for probably five years now, but both of our schedules have been kind of crazy. Everybody’s all over the place, but we finally found a pocket of time that it would work.
You’ve mentioned that you’ve been working on the next WOLF! album—what’s the status on that?
Yeah, it exists. It has been birthed. You know, it’s a process making a record because you have to record it and then you have to mix, it which is a very lengthy process, and that’s where we’re at right now. We are in the mixing process. I think it’s the most clearly realized version of what that band does that we have been able to get down on tape so far.
How so?
Well, the band is all over the place. Musically, the band sort of has a perpetual identity crisis. Like sometimes we can focus on country music, sometimes we’ll focus on groove-based music, sometimes it’ll just turn into weird, avant-garde noise stuff, and other times we get into heavy-metal riffage. I think with all the other records, we tried to kind of put it into a box, like, “Oh, it sounds like it’s this kind of a band.” With this one, I just feel like we were pretty good about not judging any of the stuff we were putting down as we were putting it down. It was more, “Did this feel good to us?” as opposed to worrying, “Is this fitting? Is this going to be easy to categorize?”
Any timeline on when that might come out?
No, there’s no timeline right now. We are doing it very casual.
I recently heard from a friend that they spotted you at the Trey Anastasio Band Central Park concert hanging with lyricist Tom Marshall, and it made me curious your current relationship with him after knowing him for years, and also how it is to be with him at a TAB concert.
It was pretty great for me to see Tom. I mean, when I was like 19 or 20, Tom was just putting together Amfibian, and when I was doing a gig in Princeton, NJ, where Tom and Trey are from, at a coffee show called Small World, they came in and heard the band play, and I ended up talking to Trey that night. After the gig, we went outside and we talked for a while, and then we went back inside and Trey sort of looked at Tom and he was like, “I think this is your guy.” I think that Trey was feeling me out—I remember he was asking me about what guitar players I liked and stuff. And that was the first real touring experience that I ever did, with Amfibian around 1999 through 2001 or so.
We haven’t had a lot of time to catch up or to even hang out that often over the years. Again, I’ve been busy. Everybody’s busy. So we hung out for a few hours before the gig, and it was awesome. I hung out with his family, and his daughter, who was a little kid the last time I saw her, is like out of college now. It was just great to be able to catch up with Tom, and we watched the first set together. I’m not super familiar with all the TAB material, so it was super cool to watch it with Tom. The band would start a song, and he’d be like “Oh yeah, this is one of mine. I wrote this.” And he’d be kind of telling me the lyrics in real time. Like Trey is like singing it and Tom’s like leaning over and telling me the words and then kind of giving me a breakdown. It was great. But then we realized that we were talking through the guitar solos, which I don’t approve of at all. [Laughs.] About three songs in I was like, “Oh cool, how’d you come up with those lyrics? What’s the story about that?” He’d be telling me, and then I would start listening again and be like, “Oh, I missed the entire guitar solo.”
That’s great. Is there any other projects you have on your plate that you’d like to shine some light on?
The only thing is that I’m personally very excited to be doing some stuff with Chris Harford [and Band of Changes] at some of these festivals, just because I feel it’s a long time coming. I’ve been playing with Chris since I was a kid, and so have Dave and Joe. We’ve all been playing with those guys for 20 years, so the chance to play his tunes with him at some of these festivals in front of what will hopefully be some festival-sized crowds is very encouraging to me, and I hope people check it out ‘cause it really is worth it. Chris is a very special musician.
