Musician talks about falling in love with Grateful Dead
JRAD'S JOE RUSSO ON FALLING IN LOVE WITH THE GRATEFUL DEAD
The term “Grateful Dead cover band” may conjure images of a couple of dads playing “Uncle John’s Band” or “Touch of Grey” on acoustic guitars on a bar patio.
While tribute bands to the Dead have poured in since bandleader Jerry Garcia’s passing in 1995, none have done more to differentiate themselves than Joe Russo’s Almost Dead.
Formed in 2013, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, or JRAD for short, have taken the Grateful Dead songbook and turned it on its head with fresh interpretations of the decades-old songs.
“It was a Grateful Dead cover band that was formed by accident,” Joe Russo, drummer and bandleader for JRAD, joked. “We’re not bound to the way that someone else did it. You take the DNA and information that is offered to you, and then you manipulate it, deconstruct it and rebuild it. You add stuff to it.”
Russo has been ingrained in the Grateful Dead mythos for over a decade, having served as the drummer for Grateful Dead-offshoot Furthur, which was fronted by Phil Lesh and Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. However, the connection to the music of the Dead was not made immediately.
“My entrance into the Grateful Dead is fairly nontraditional as well,” Russo said. “In high school, all my friends were into it [and] wearing tie-dye. I was wearing my black t-shirt and listening to ‘Ride the Lightning,’ and was like ‘wait, what’s going on?’”
“The thing that really happened was getting the call to play with Bob Weir and Phil Lesh as they were putting together a new incarnation of the Dead, which eventually became Furthur,” Russo added.
The accomplished drummer said he was familiar with main cuts when growing up but the music clicked for him when he began to explore the intricacies of the deeper cuts in the Dead’s songbook.
WHILE TRIBUTE BANDS TO THE DEAD HAVE POURED IN SINCE BANDLEADER JERRY GARCIA’S PASSING IN 1995, NONE HAVE DONE MORE TO DIFFERENTIATE THEMSELVES THAN JOE RUSSO’S ALMOST DEAD.
“When I went to audition with those, which at the time I didn’t know was an audition, I was hearing stuff like ‘Estimated Prophet’ and ‘King Solomon’s Marbles,’ and these very intricate musical compositions,” Russo said. “Just that turn-on-dime precision of reading a moment and engaging with it is something that speaks to me. Hearing Billy [Kreutzmann of Grateful Dead] occupy that space blew my mind.”
“I think that perfect timing allowed me to understand and fall in love with the Grateful Dead,” Russo added.
Four years after joining Furthur, Russo brought his Bustle In Your Hedgerow bandmates Scott Metzger Dave Dreiwitz and Marco Benevento, and American Babies’ Tom Hamilton, to form JRAD.
In the past eight years that the band has operated, the quintet has played hundreds of live shows and introduced new fans to the music of the Grateful Dead.
While you’ll still hear Dead staples like “Bertha” and “Sugar Magnolia,” JRAD has been known to surprise audiences with renditions of songs like Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” and Spacehog’s “In the Meantime.”
“I think it carries on the spirit of us and the idea that we can speak our own voice into this world,” Russo said regarding playing non-traditional cover songs. “In the simplest terms, we get to speak out our voice in the Grateful Dead songbook but then if you zoom out a little bit, over the course of a concert, we can also add macroinfluence.”
“Sometimes you just want to play a Radiohead tune,” Russo added.
In May, JRAD played its first shows since the start of the pandemic at New Haven’s newly-opened Westville Music
Bowl. The shows are part of the group’s ongoing “residency” at the venue which sees JRAD playing its seventh and eighth shows on July 30 and 31.
The Westville residency will conclude with a ninth and final show on Sept. 4.
“Thinking back to that first show especially, the catharsis that was going on. Like we hadn’t played a show since February of 2020,” Russo said. “All that build-up for us. All that build-up for the fans. It was just such a beautiful release in getting back to this feeling that we forgot.”
“The simple humanity of it was overwhelming at points,” Russo added. “It feels so novel again right now.”
In the meantime, Russo said he looks forward to getting back to live music with a packed fall tour that will see the band “stamp some information on a tried-and-true songbook.”