In 2009, Grateful Dead alums Bob Weir and Phil Lesh recruited drummer Joe Russo for their new band, Furthur.
Russo made an excellent choice, but he would have been equally at home behind the kit for New Orleans funk masters Galactic, avant garde jazz icon Sun Ra or any great ’70s stoner metal band. Russo got the gig not because he’s a Deadhead — he never even saw the band — but because he can play.
On a whim (and with some arm-twisting), Joe Russo’s Almost Dead — Russo, with guitarists Tom Hamilton and Scott Metzger, keyboardist Marco Benevento and bassist Dave Dreiwitz — came together for a one-off set in 2013 at the Brooklyn Bowl. The group played Dead covers, had a good time, and that was that. Until fans and promoters started pushing for more shows from JRAD, as they are often called.
“At our 100th show (last year), we made T-shirts that said, ‘99 More Than We Thought,’ ” Russo said ahead of tonight’s JRAD gig at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion. “The beautiful thing is we still all consider this a side project, a strangely successful side project, but one that affords us time with our families and our other projects.
“We’ll do about 40 shows this year and might do fewer in the future,” he continued. “If we were doing this 200 nights a year, if we saw that it was successful and just did it all the time, it would be really detrimental to how we sounded.”
Beyond Furthur and JRAD, Russo is best known for the Benevento/Russo Duo — an experimental jazz outfit that grew out of a residency at New York’s outsider music club Knitting Factory. Between his adolescence playing metal and classic rock and his 20s playing weirdo jazz, he never had room for the Grateful Dead.
“I grew up on Zeppelin, Sabbath, Iron Maiden and KISS, then later, as every young drummer from New Jersey had to, Rush,” Russo said. “Then, in Colorado (in the ’90s), I played with this band Fat Mama, stupid, stupid name, but a great band, and the older guys in the band were well ahead of the curve and taught me about John Zorn, Joey Baron, Miles Davis’ stuff in the ’70s, all these people that have become my musical heroes.
“I didn’t even listen to the Grateful Dead until I got the job in Furthur,” he added.
Some might consider this a hindrance to being in a Dead cover band. With Russo, it’s an asset. Dead tribute acts often try to perfect the sound of their idols in their ’70s heyday. Alumni projects, while often sublime in their own way, like Dead & Company, can be bound to tradition. Russo and his mates have a freedom most involved in the catalog lack.
“I get to play every bit of music that I want, I get to tap every one of my influences every night, in this project,” Russo said. “This is some of the best American music ever written, and we get to play it our way, with our aggressive approach. We are not trying to re-create anything. We are trying to be ourselves.”
This is something no tribute band would ever say. And it bodes well for tonight’s show and future tours.
Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, tonight. Tickets: $29-$49; ticketmaster.com.
