Phil Lesh & Grahame Lesh

Jesse Lauter (0:09)

Hello, hello, and welcome back to another edition of the Relix Audio Hour. I am your host, Jesse Lauter. This episode is our second installment in our series with guitarist Eric Krasno that we are affectionately calling Conversations With Kraz. Where Eric interviews noted musicians about their line of work. This installment features Eric talking to a great up and coming musician from the Bay Area named Grahame Lesh. Along with his dad, Phil. Phil plays bass.

Okay, all kidding aside, this is indeed a very special conversation with the Leshs, who frequently play the music of The Grateful Dead, among many others with the Terrapin Family Band. So get ready, we will have that conversation for you shortly. But first, as we do in every episode to tell you more about Phil, Grahame and Krasno's history with Relix, here is Relix's Editor-in-Chief, Dean Budnick.

Dean Budnick (1:12)

Thanks, Jesse. We're thrilled that our good friend, Eric Krasno, the celebrated guitarist and producer, is back with us leading another conversation. Last time, he spoke with John Mayer, and for this go-round, it's the father-son tandem of Phil and Grahame Lesh. The Lesh family has been well represented in the pages of Relix over the course of our 44 years, and I encourage you to stop by relix.com where we have articles and videos from the two of them in multiple settings, highlighting their creative output with The Grateful Dead, Phil Lesh and Friends, The Terrapin Family Band, and Midnight North. You can learn about the latest issue of the magazine, which features Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats on the cover, as well as articles on Bob Weir and Don Was, Hot Rise, Blues Traveler, Edie Braquel, Rayland Baxter, Cat Power, Yorma Kaukinen, Ace of Cups, and plenty more. While you're there, please subscribe. And remember, you can also sign up to receive our monthly newsletter, as well as The Relix daily 7, which compiles the best of jambands.com and relix.com and delivers it to your inbox.

Jesse Lauter (2:30)

Thank you, Dean. I'd like to also remind you that The Relix Audio Hour is a part of the Osiris Podcast Network, and Osiris has partnered recently with one of my all-time favorite providers of nourishment, Ben & Jerry's. Ben & Jerry's has collaborated with Vermont's other finest export, Fish, with a PH, and the Waterwheel Foundation, Fish's Foundation, to create a limited flavor, It's Ice Cream, a caramel malt ice cream with almond toffee pieces, fudge fish, and a caramel swirl. I've had it, and it's delicious. The packaging and a very limited t-shirt were designed by Jim Pollock, and a portion of the proceeds for the ice cream and all of the proceeds for the teas are donated to the Waterwheel Foundation. The ice cream and teas can be ordered at store.benjerry.com.

If you use the promo code OSIRIS, you can get free shipping on all orders over $50 for the rest of 2018 It might be getting cold outside, but ice cream tastes better in the winter anyway. So get to it guys, store.benjerry.com and get some It's Ice Cream. Also, for our regular listeners, you might be wondering what you're hearing. We have some new theme music courtesy of our friend Robert Walter. The name of the theme song is Post Human and it's off of Robert's new album, Space Suit. Robert's keyboard brother Marco Benevento had previously provided our theme music, so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Marco for his service. You're a beautiful man, Marco. All right. Before we get to Phil and Graham, I sat down with Kraz to discuss his personal history with the storied basis of The Grateful Dead and why he wanted to chat with this father-son duo. All right. I am here with Eric Krasno. We're going to kick off our second installment of Conversations With Kraz, and I'm going to have Eric talk to us about our next guest, Phil Lesh, and his longstanding history with Phil. Kraz, when did you first link up with Phil?

Eric Krasno (4:45)

Well, the first time we really linked up, actually I should go further back because Soul Live opened for Phil and friends. But I didn't, and I met him briefly, but we didn't really talk much and I don't know. There wasn't a ton of interaction. That was a long time ago, probably early 2000s when it was the queue. But fast forward to 2013, I believe. Yeah, it was November 2013, I think. Pete Shapiro, I had been talking to Pete about doing a Phil and Friends thing for a little while, and Pete was like, you got to play with Phil. I was always like, man, I would love to.

He connected with Phil about us playing together, and somehow Phil had heard my album reminisce. When I eventually met him, he was like, oh man, I love the version to get back. Let's play that, and he knew some other music. But Pete had the idea to put us in Central Park to do this pop-up gig. They were doing this thing called Jazz in Colors that Pete was involved with in Central Park where there was no real amplification. It was just guys playing upright bass and acoustic guitar, saxophones in the park, and he suggested that we just show up and play.