It’s Just Metal, Joey
​by Joe Russo
​What a badass move by Phil! He took a chance on a guy (me) who had never really listened to the Grateful Dead, except begrudgingly at parties or quitting my high-school band ’cause they wanted to play “Fire on the Mountain.” It just wasn’t my thing.
​Our paths crossed in 2006, when Marco Benevento and I were play-ing with Mike Gordon and Trey Anastasio and we did some dates with Phil & Friends.
​We played together at The Jammys and did “Casey Jones” and “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad.” I was yelling out, “Guys, I don’t know this song. How does it end?” These were two of the easiest starter tunes, and I didn’t have a clue. I asked Phil, “Hey man, is there an ending?” He just laughed at me.
​For him to tap me for Furthur three years later was such a badass move. He knew I didn’t know anything about this, and I do think that was his plan. Why are we going to have people just regurgitating what he and Jerry and Bob did? Let’s share these songs that we wrote, that are clearly important songs, and let’s get some new information on them.
​That’s such a punk rock move to hand over something so cherished to a bunch of as*holes who have no idea what they’re getting into. I’m thankful every single day for that opportunity. He brought me into this world, and it changed my life in so many ways.
​When Terrapin Crossroads opened, I was pretty much the house drummer for Phil for months and months. It was me and Phil and whoever else was brought in. I was pretty much on every single gig. I remember Neal Casal coming in, and I believe that’s where we first met. Phil never gave anybody a set list and never gave us tunes to work on in advance.
​One of the first gigs, Phil said, “We’re going to play ‘Terrapin Station.’” Neal was petrified, just petrified. We got to talking and became fast friends. We were both from Jersey, we both realized we like really shitty hair metal. I had no idea how deep that well went for him. I was trying to help him out. We were taking about Terrapin and Keel and all these shitty metal bands that we both love, intermixed.
​The next day we were going to play “Terrapin Station,” and I was on the back patio smoking a cigarette. He came up to me and told me, “Joey, I fu*king got this sh*t.” He put his legs in an A frame and held his guitar metal style and said, “It’s just fuc*king metal, Joey.” He went and played all of “Terrapin.” He adjusted his view on how to approach it. We were laughing our asses off, and he killed it that night. It was such a lovely cool moment of seeing him have this breakthrough and the connectivity of all the stuff we learned up to a certain point that can inform how well we do in the current state.
​I always joke that my life in Furthur was like that movie Slumdog Millionaire. The only reason I was able to play all this Grateful Dead music was because, all through the years, these little tiny moments informed the way I played. I played more country/rock singer-songwriter music with my friend Chris Harford in Band of Changes, and all the crazy jazz shit with Fat Mama and odd-time stuff being a proghead as a kid. That all informed me to be the guy for that time to be in that band.