Scott Metzger is a busy man. Just a quick look at his website reveals a host of projects including Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, Phil Lesh & Friends, Chris Harford & The Band of Changes, The Complete Last Waltz and more of a homebase for Metzger, WOLF!, who return with their latest record 1-800-WOLF!.
Catching up with Metzger fresh off Almost Dead’s triumphant run at the Brooklyn Bowl which included a collaboration with Dead & Company’s John Mayer, he digs into just about every one of his projects including WOLF!, who will take their new album out on the road for a series of shows, including some backing Metzger’s Roadies co-star, Nicole Atkins.
You played in a cool Allman Brothers Tribute show last night in New York City.
Yeah, last night was led by kind of a pick-up band with some real New York City heavy hitters, led by Scott Sharrard who is Gregg Allman’s guitarist and he did songs in that vein. It was a whole night of songs that Duane Allman has played on or Allman Brothers stuff and it was super cool. It was super cool to play with those guys and a lot of guys on that gig aren’t big improvisers necessarily. They’re not like jamband guys all of them so it was cool, it was a totally different approach than what one might expect. It was refreshing I think we did something different with it, which is always cool.
Jackie Greene was in that lineup as well. You two have played a couple acoustic shows together. How did that come about?
We’re just two guys that hung out a bunch. I’ve always respected his overall songwriting and overall musicality so much that it was just one of those things for a long time we were talking about—it was years that we were going around with that idea and then finally last year we were able to nail it down and—I’m super busy, Jackie’s super busy so it’s hard to line up schedules. I love his songs, he’s a cool dude.
So how’d you two end up on Roadies ?
That was all Nicole. Nicole knew Cameron Crowe and Cameron was a fan and he had been telling her for years that one of these days I’m going to get you involved in one of my projects. We went out there and shot the thing in July. He reached out and he wanted her on the season finale and he wanted the scene to be a duo, just Nicole and someone else.
She called and I was available and it was as Hollywood as Hollywood gets. They sent out two first class tickets for us and flew us out there and I think we were out there for a total of 48 hours or something. It was real fast, it was the whole thing—it was wardrobe and make up and we got to hang with Eddie Vedder. He did a scene for the same episode so he was there for his shot. Robyn Hitchcock was there for the same episode. It was a really cool experience.
Tell me you have a good Vedder story from that day.
Nothing that’s legendary. He and Cameron go way back so they got a lot of history and not only was it the last day they were shooting for that season but it was also Cameron’s birthday so they brought out a birthday cake for him and I have these great pictures on my iPhone of Eddie Vedder stuffing cake into Cameron Crowe’s face and then Cameron pushing Eddie’s face into the cake.
And you’ve also gotten in on some Phil Lesh gigs over the year too. What have you enjoyed about playing with Phil?
First of all, it’s such an honor to be asked by somebody who’s really one of the most important rock bass players ever to share the stage with him and I’m always psyched because we always have a stage left situation going on. And nobody plays music like that guy so you always come away learning something.
It sounds dramatic but you really do walk away feeling like you were part of something special. More than anybody, his whole thing is he really walks the walk. The courage that he brings to it is pretty amazing because there are times up there where I really have no idea what’s going on. Completely off the form, completely off the harmonic thing and it forces you to really listen and you look back at him and he’s just leading the charge right into it, it’s amazing.
We should all be so lucky. Like mid-70’s and playing 3 ½ hours a night and I swear to God the last note you play with that guy every night he’s hitting it and means it just as much as the first note of the night. The intensity is jaw dropping really.
I’ll leave you with this: It feels like 2016 has been a really transformative year for Almost Dead. Can you reflect on it thus far?
I was just talking to somebody about this last night—I just feel really lucky to be a part of it. Me personally to be able to go and play music with some of my best friends and have people get so much out of it is such a rewarding feeling. JRAD’s just one of those things that if we had tried to plan it it never would’ve worked. It was just a happy accident and to me we’re still on the upswing and we’re still getting better and we’re getting tighter as a band and it’s really a privilege to be traveling around the country and playing this music for people who enjoy it so much and I don’t see any end in sight.
Let’s get into the WOLF! record a little bit. How did it all come together? With all of your busy schedules I imagine finding time was tough.
I think that the tunes were a mixture of coming together slowly and just banging it out. The tunes and the vision came slowly over the course of maybe a year and a half or a year. But the actual recordings we did, I think we recorded and mixed it in the matter of five days, which is super quick by most people’s standards. We did three days in the studio down here in Brooklyn called The Creamery, we did one day up at Marco Benevento’s studio and he engineered and mixed three of the tunes that are on the record. We kept it in the family as much as we could.
And how are these tunes shaping up on stage?
It’s always cool to see how far you can push new stuff off the grid. Now we’ve recorded it and now there’s “the definitive version” down on vinyl. But the beautiful thing about improvising and having freedom, as a musician is that there is no definitive version of anything ever. I guess I’m most looking forward to the direction that some of these songs can go in.
You guys are also having Nicole Atkins out for a couple of shows.
The Nicole gigs will be great. The band really started with the goal in mind of backing singers and it kind’ve became an instrumental thing just by accident. A lot of the first recording sessions that we ever did were backing different singers that we’ve played on a number of records together backing as an artist.
I’ve known Nicole for like a decade now and I’ve always enjoyed doing gigs with her when I could, when schedules lined up. To get the other guys in on it and have her invite us to open the night and back her is pretty cool. I think it’s going to work. It’s a very Jersey strong kind of night.
So just how did the John Mayer sit-in come about at the Brooklyn Bowl?
I don’t think any of us had any idea that he was coming to the Bowl that night, we didn’t know until set break. We were really just hanging until set break when Pete Shapiro was there and he told us so we went upstairs and we were hanging and the idea came up to come and play the set with us and he was game for it so none of us knew that was going to happen until 15 minutes before it happened. He did great, he jumped right in. We can be tough to keep up with. Musically speaking we’re all over the place and it can turn on a dime but he fit right in.
It was interesting to hear him play with Almost Dead considering how much slower Dead & Company can play some of those tunes.
Totally, I mean he’s our age. We’re all pretty much the same age and he was great he was up there right in it.
Being a guitar player yourself, what did you notice about how he approached the music and the different lines and his style?
I always appreciate a guy that you can hear their comfort zone and they really know that it sounds good but the thing that really gets my attention are the people who are willing to step outside of that and go for some stuff that’s maybe a little bit out of their reach. Maybe they’re not going to get it but they’re going to go for it anyway. He certainly put that on display and as a musician that gives you total respect.
Slowly transitioning to Wolf!, Almost Dead substituted Jon Shaw for a few gigs while Dave Dreiwitz reunited with Ween. How do you think he fared in that environment.
He’s great. He takes a totally different approach to the stuff than Dave had. I know Jon grew up a big Deadhead and he really brought that Phil Lesh influence in a huge way. He just jumped right in and I think we did like five nights and we have one more coming up with him and it’s great. Jon Shaw is one of the most musical dudes that I’ve ever met, which is saying something. He can play the perfect part on guitar or piano or bass, he’s just one of those guys you can hand him anything and he can make music out of it.
I interviewed him shortly after getting the call and his honest reaction was that he was just excited Ween was getting back together.
Exactly. He’s also one of the most humble dudes that you’ll ever meet. That’s a good example of that.
