PHIL LESH
Out of all the surviving members of the San Francisco based psychedelic rock group The Grateful Dead, bassist Phil Lesh has proven that there is certainly life after the 1995 death of Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia.
After surviving the rigors of an almost unending cycle of recording and then touring for thirty years, Lesh initially took time off from the Dead when Garcia passed away. He later went on to form his own group simply titled Phil Lesh and Friends, which is comprised of various musicians and Lesh in the lead. And Lesh and his various lineups of musicians, has gradually grown in popularity from a San Francisco local group to an international musical forum for Lesh to express himself musically.
The music did stop for a season in 1998. Due to the worsening disease of the liver, which was the result of Lesh’s contact with the hepatitis C virus some thirty years previously. Lesh’s health condition eventually worsened to the point where he required a liver transplant in 1998. After the successful operation, Phil Lesh’s recovery was viewed by many as nothing short of miraculous. Only four months after his transplant, he returned to the concert stage with an all star band and Phil Lesh and friends regained momentum. Thus Phil Lesh has embarked on yet another chapter in the musical journey of his life. The Dead Head community along with new fans interested in progressive jazz rock music, have been attending Lesh’s North American concerts in increasing numbers.
At sixty-one years of age, Lesh says he is enjoying the resurgence in his musical career and he now appreciates life, as in, “a completely different world”, since his successful transplant.
(Q) What is your age and place of birth please?
Phil Lesh- I was born in Berkley, California and I am 61 years old.
(Q)- How is your health and how do you feel since your liver transplant?
Phil Lesh – It’s a completely different world. The pettiness falls away. It’s like being purified by fire in a sense. All of the pettiness is burned away and the backbone, the core is what remains. The core of what is important (in life) is what remains. The core becomes the focus of your life. My family, my kids, music. I have Hepatitis C and it won’t allow me to be stressed, because when you’re stressed the virus flares up and eats your liver. So, I’m not involved in business anymore.
(Q)- You have written some songs with long time Grateful Dead lyric writer Robert Hunter. Why now and what has the songwriting experience been like for you?
Phil Lesh- Well, it’s not like I haven’t worked with him before. But I recently was writing some material, about five or six songs of material, over the last year and some of the songs I’ve written the lyrics myself and I’ve been very pleased with the way those lyrics turned out. In January of this year, I had a flurry of compositions and one of them as I was working it out, it immediately sat up and said to me, ‘This is a Robert Hunter song.’ Which to me was kind of a surprise because Bob had been semi-retired for quite some time. So it was with a little hesitation that I gave him a call. I said, ‘Bob, I’ve written this song and it appears to me to really be a Robert Hunter song, so I’d really like to come over and play it for you. And he said, ‘Come on over.’ So I went over and I brought that song and then just on a whim I ended up playing the other two for him and he ended up writing on the other three songs in less then two days.
(Q)- How have the new songs you and Hunter have recently written been received whenever you’re performing live in front of an audience?
Phil Lesh- The funny thing about Dead Heads is that whenever they hear a new song, they don’t respond in any way particularly to new material. They just sort of stand there. It’s sort of a feeling of, ‘Oh. This isn’t something that we have heard before.’ What is it?’ it’s something that is really kind of strange. So I can’t really describe what their response is because I don’t know.
(Q)-The live show is very free flowing musically, from one song to the next.
Phil Lesh- It is and it isn’t. The way I like to think about it is we’re following the current of the spirit of the music as it comes through group mind. We’re just pretty much tacking with the wind as it were and every so often we’ll come upon an island and that island will be a song. Sometimes that island will have a lagoon gun or a river running through it and we’ll explore or sort of flow through that river and then come back and navigate back to the songs. At the end of the song, we’ll continue to surf the current as it were. But, it’s a stream of consciousness kind of thing. Where new music and the music just takes us places and even though the islands are decided in advance, well that’s the fun part of the journey.
(Q)- Much of your live show has no stops in-between the songs or extended improvisations during long, free flowing musical numbers. How do you know when or how, to cue the band members when the next song is ready to begin during a long extended free form musical jam?
Phil Lesh- That’s the goal, that is the ideal to have it be like a seamless piece of fabric. And actually with this band it’s gotten better and it is even smoother, although sometime sit is right to make a jump cut. It depends on the situation. With this band I’ve got to say, it’s getting pretty exciting.
(Q)- How do you view your musical career Phil? To you is your musical career a ‘journeyman’s walk’ which will never end until you decide it to do so?
Phil Lesh- You never get to the bottom, you ca never get to the end. Music, like any at, is infinite. It’s infinite, that means you can never ever grasp it all. No matter how long you live. No matter how hard you work. So what that means there’s always more, depth, range, meaning to it. And that’s the journey.
(Q)- Where does the inspiration for music come from to you Phil? Are you, or do you, at times feel like a conduit for a spirit which enters into your being along with the band’s and brings forth that spirit’s musical message through yourself and the band?
Phil Lesh- Yes. All the greatest artists will tell you the same thing. They’ll say, ‘I’m the vessel.’ The creative spirit speaks through me, the music doesn’t come from us, it comes through you or from a higher plain. And, that’s why it’s so powerful. Because it is not of this earth.
(Q)- is that one of the reasons the fans continue to keep coming out for the music?
Phil Lesh- Yes. There is a hunger for the transcendental, something that is not global corporate pop video culture. Something that is deeper then that and longer lasting then that. That’s more meaningful then that.
(Q)- What is making and performing music like for you? Is it like a fine wood worker who makes beautiful masterpieces of furniture?
Phil Lesh- It’s a skill. Any skill if it’s carving wood or gardening, all off those things are crafts and you never ever master them. And, that is why they’re so important and so powerful.
(Q)- Do the fans provide you with a feedback that there is a hunger for your continuation via Phil Lesh And friends concerts and the music you, song with your band are creating?
Phil Lesh- In various ways yes. Yes. A lot of the people I talk to they call it in terms of, ‘The Community’. A sense of belonging to something that is bigger then them but where everyone shares the same ideals. It all comes from the music as far as I’m concerned and the music comes from that other dimension and the group mind that we grow together that helps us open that door.
(Q)- You have done some shows with Bob Weir (former Grateful Dead singer and rhythm guitarist) performing together. How did that experience feel?
Phil Lesh- It was kind of important that Bob and I reestablish our relationship on a higher plane then we left it off. We still disagree, I’m still absolutely opposed to the way the Grateful Dead is handling the business of running everything that they do. And, I’m not involved with them anymore on a business level. So, even though I’m assuming we still disagree on a business level, it is important to me and I think to the community that we reestablish our relationship on our original level, which was making music. And, since we’re playing together in seven shows o this tour, it would be weird if our bands were together and we didn’t play together. When we’ve played together it was really good, clean fun. It was pretty much how I thought it would be. It was delightful to play with Bob once again.
(Q)- Is there a central theory about your craft of creating and performing music live which you adhere to?
Phil Lesh- There’s a theory which says that art is supposed to be dangerous. It’s supposed to scare you, it’s supposed to surprise you, it’s supposed to confound your expectations. It’s supposed to be dangerous. And this is a replacement for the hunter, gather experience as it were. It is built into the human makeup, it’s built into our genes, we need this, it’s built into our reptile brain or whatever. We need this to be scared, with this kind of experience. We need to be pushed and pulled along dragged along, kicking and screaming if necessary, into new spaces. It’s a human thing. I subscribe to that wholeheartedly. Even if we’re dragged into new (musical) experiences kicking and screaming, it’s vital. That’s what has aways turned me on about arts. It’s what I don’t know and that’s what I ask my musicians to do. It’s not about play what you already know, it’s more like I ask them, ‘Play up and beyound what you don’t know.’
(Q)- In addition, is there a central theme throughout the music of the Grateful Dead which has a common thread in the music you are performing? Is there a central theme that has been throughout the classic grateful dead material?
Phil Leash- One of the things that I want to express is that you, in cooperation with others, can make a difference in your life and in the world. It’s not so much about abstract hope, everything is going to be alright. But, you can do something. I mean with my band it’s, ‘Look at these five guys up there on-stage. Look what happens (musically) when the cooperate.’ And my response to that is, “What can happen when you cooperate on a high level.’ That’s the basic message of rock music.