Phil, you’ve had a really busy year so far. The show with Vinyl to benefit the Novato Charter School, the big Birthday Benefit and of course this fabulous Spring Tour. How does it all feel?

It’s feeling great! I’m having more fun than I’ve ever had. I’m really looking forward to our next tour and working with yet another set of great musicians.

You’re so busy having completed a successful Spring Tour and with a month and a half long Summer Tour in the works - do you ever get a moment to enjoy it and take it in?

Well the enjoyment is doing it. Sure, it’s neat to be able to reflect on it after it’s done, and say, "that worked well." But that doesn’t take very long, and besides, if you spend too much time doing that you can get lazy. You can get caught up in that space and just keep patting yourself on the back (laughs) and it just slows you down. The moment of doing it, that’s where the real payoff is.

When you get settled in at home, do you ever listen to some of the tapes from the tour?

Sometimes I do. I haven’t listened to any from the last tour yet. I will eventually listen just to see if there’s anything that we might want to put up on the net or release in some way.

How about in general though, when you do listen back to some of the shows, how is it different listening to that final product versus being up there on stage and being a part of it?

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I’m generally more blown away by it because I can’t always hear everything that’s going on when I’m on stage. We try to set it up so that everything is balanced just exactly right, but it’s a question of concentration and of what you’re actually listening to. It’s really not that easy to listen to everybody at the same time at the same intensity so you can really understand what everybody is doing. The tendency is to shift and trade off ­ listen to one or two people and then listen to another ­ pick and choose, but it’s all kind of a subconscious thing because it’s happening so fast. When you’re listening back to it you’re not worried about what you’re going to be doing so then you can really open up and listen to the whole thing, and generally my jaw just drops to hear what’s really going on. I’m thinking, "Geez, I wish I could be out in front - listening to this stuff while its going down."

Yeah, clone yourself or something!

(laughs) Yeah, I really do.

People were really blown away by the last ensemble. What are your general thoughts on this Spring Tour and this specific band [John Molo, Rob Barracco, Jimmy Herring and Jeff Pevar]?

The chemistry was great even from the very beginning. It sounded like a band the first day of rehearsal and it just got better and better and better! And I gotta say, John Molo is a dream drummer for me - I mean, his flexibility and knowledge of all kinds of exotic rhythms and his imagination - Duke Ellington says, "The drummer is the bandleader," and that’s surely true of John.

So, this is one of the few bands that I’ve ever been in that there weren’t any fall-offs. There were some plateaus where it might’ve been just as good from one night to the next but generally it just kept going up and getting better and better and better every night. It was just blowing our minds. When Branford came to sit in, he hung out and listened for about a half an hour before he even walked on stage. Later on he was saying, "Man, this band is hot!" and he really had a good time playing with those guys too.

It almost looked as if the band was surprised when Branford walked out on stage. Did you know exactly when he was coming out?

We knew he was coming but we didn’t know exactly when. He walked off a plane and came right on over. (laughs) It’s always cool the way those things evolve. You know, it would’ve been cool to have him out there for the whole show, but then on the other hand, the way it worked out was just great.

It was fantastic and it was a surprise for everyone. It was even more of a surprise like that! (laughs)

(laughs) And the way he was interacting with everybody was just great!

At one point he and Jimmy Herring had a few nice trade-offs…

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Yes, and Rob Barraco too. One time Branford played this line and Rob played it back to him in harmony ­ you know, with harmony underneath it - at the same speed! (laughs) I looked over at that and said, "OHHH YEAH!" Here we go... (laughter)

How difficult is it to have someone added to the set recipe? I know someone like Branford is very familiar with the material...

Well, Branford, for instance, is just such a great musician that he doesn’t even really need to know the material. His ears are so large that he knows when to play and when not to play. He knows when to check out what the pattern is and then come in on it the second time and stuff like that. He’s just that great. Greg Osby, the guy who sat in with us in Philly, is another one of those kinds of musicians where you really don’t have to teach him the material. You know, their ears are just big enough that they can just play.

I take it Greg isn’t really familiar with any of the material?

No he isn’t, well he wasn’t, but he says he’s a convert now. (laughter)

So there weren’t any rehearsals in either of those cases?

No, actually Greg showed up and he listened to the sound-check. He didn’t participate, he just hung out and listened to get an idea of what we played.

It’s quite a pleasure as an audience member to have them up there on stage too! (laughter) So, was it a bit intimidating jumping into a fourteen-show tour with two sets per show?

No, not really. My only concern was not repeating too many songs, and in the end, I don’t think we did.

I heard somewhere that you have about seventy songs in your repertoire?

Actually we have seventy-eight or seventy-nine and there will be more GD songs and some new material this summer .

Wow! That’s something! So, how was it to play some of the smaller venues that you haven’t played in years?

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Oh it was fabulous! God, I’ve gotta say it was really neat to go back to those places. It’d been at twenty-five years since we'd been to these places. The energy is so much more concentrated when you’ve got such an enthusiastic audience like we had! Man! - it was so beautiful - I had to go out and tell them every night, "You guys, you people are pulling it out of us!" ­ you know? Man, was that something!

[Editor's note: The last time Phil & the Grateful Dead played the Tower Theatre and the Beacon Theatre was in June 1976.]

So I take it that you can neither confirm nor deny that you’ll be coming back out to the East Coast next year to do it all again? (laughter)

Oh you know, no, I can’t either confirm or deny that it. But I sure would love to do it again.

As far as rehearsals prior to coming out on tour, approximately how many hours went into rehearsal time?

We had seven days, and we went through every song plus (thinks)... we pulled out a couple: Why Don’t We Do It In The Road ­ that one was real easy and New Speedway Boogie. That was your idea (laughs and points at Bret).

Thank you! Thank you! (lots of laughter)

Thank you for putting that in my head man!

That was absolutely fantastic!

Especially the second time because we changed it. I liked it better that way.

[Editor’s note: First time New Speedway was played on Spring Tour 2000 was April 14th at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia with guest Greg Osby. The second and last time New Speedway was played on this tour was at the Beacon Theater, NYC on April 19th.]

Were the only rehearsals at the soundchecks each day or did you rehearse more on off days as well?

The guitar players tended to hang together and go over stuff - you know, arrangement stuff. Sometimes Jeff and Rob would do some singing, but mostly we would just go through the critical parts at the soundchecks, and sometimes with transitions that are tricky, we would go through them and stuff between songs, or the interior of the songs where there are genuine musical changes. We would go over that stuff. We would go over the vocals at the sound-check and then we’d just do the show.

You’ve played with Rob Barraco a number of times ­ it must have been a real asset having him assist in familiarizing the "new" Friends with the material?

Oh yes, exactly. Well, he knows the material backwards and forwards, plus his playing is so elegant and funky at the same time; he can really be the backbone of the band. Not only that, he sometimes remembers the tunes better than I do.

We see all of you up there with music stands. How much do you rely on those versus improvisation? I mean you’re not looking at actual notes for the whole song obviously.

No, no. For me it’s just lyric references. I do need to make sure that the lyrics are there and even then I sometimes blow it. (laughs) I need to wear bifocals so sometimes I can’t see the part that I need and still be on the microphone (imitates himself and peers downward through his glasses with a confused look)

(laughter) ...and then you have Candace [Brightman] shooting lights all over... (imitates swirling light formations)

(laughs) Yeah, yeah and all of the lights. It’s great to have Candace as part of the team.

How about Jimmy Herring? He’s done a lot of improvising on Grateful Dead songs with Jazz Is Dead. Did you give him a lot of free rein or did he have to adjust to the way you wanted to do it?

I got really excited hearing Jimmy play at rehearsals, I knew he had the magic. We’ll be playing along, you know, and Jimmy will just pull off some astounding musical idea, and it will be so interesting and so full of implications; it’s as if he were so open to the moment and the context.

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My approach is that everybody is improvising all the time. It’s like a tapestry where there’s an infinite number of threads that are simultaneously weaving together. I try to describe it to the musicians as, "When you’re taking a lead it’s not really a solo and the rest of us are accompanying you. It’s like you’re the first among equals and we are all making this weave - this tapestry together. We are all equally important and I want you guys ­ Jimmy and Jeff specifically ­ to be weaving in and out and trading off and listening very hard to each other." I told them, "If you can’t hear everybody in the whole band then you’re either playing too loud or you’re too deep into your own thing."

When we talked to Rob Barraco he mentioned that you kind of picked keys as milestones throughout the show?

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Yes ­ landmarks you might say. That’s how we start it. I'll call a key and a feeling or a groove, and then we’ll just take it to whatever suggests itself and it will evolve to a point where we can take it into a song that we have on the list. My goal is to be able to go up there and just call the songs as they occur to us. You know, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea. Let’s do that!" and we can just sing the song ­ whatever it happens to be ­ without any pre-conceived setlist at all. Or maybe just a list of possibilities ­ a list that’s say twice as long as the set could be, and we could just pick and chose out of this list as it occurs - with no particular order. We might try that this summer.

Wow, that sounds like it would be especially exciting for you guys?

Yeah, that to me would be a real journey.

Some of the songs you sing, you adapt and play them in new keys than originally performed with the Grateful Dead?

Yes. Well, my voice is a baritone voice.

Is that something that you find difficult to do?

No, it’s not a problem at all. Except some songs I find my fingers on the bass go into the old key while I’m trying to sing it in the new key. (laughter) It’s just one of those things, you know? Just one of those things.

So you’ve played with Jeff Pevar a couple of times back a few years at some of the SEVA benefits.

Yeah, with [David] Crosby. Jeff is one of the most inventive and fluid musicians I’ve had the pleasure to play with.

Was there ever a moment on this Spring Tour where you considered doing some of those songs like "Laughing," or is that something that you’d only play with David Crosby?

Yeah, I’d rather have Croz around for that. To me those songs are him. He’ll be up at Mountain Aire...

Oh really?!?

Yeah, I’m definitely gonna drag him up on the stage.

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