Mike Gordon on Phil Lesh: ‘There’s Never Been More Beautiful Bass Playing’

Phil Lesh is one of Mike Gordon’s biggest heroes. Gordon, the bassist for Phish, became aware of the Grateful Dead in high school and soon zoned in on Lesh. The two briefly met at a show in 1993, but it wasn’t until 1999 that they began a friendship that continued until Lesh’s death in October. Here, in a tribute in his own words that’s set to appear in our December print issue, Gordon talks about what he learned from Lesh, their frequent onstage collaborations, and that heartbreaking version of “Box of Rain” Phish played right after Lesh died. 

I thought Phil was the most unique part of the Grateful Dead. It didn’t surprise me that Bob Dylan said that in his book Philosophy of Modern Song, when he was talking about [“Truckin’”]. Usually there are all these expectations about the bass: a lot of repeating patterns, having an allegiance to “the one” and to the root note. Phil didn’t have any of those allegiances. He avoided them all.

Do you ever gush a little too hard? At one point, when I first met Phil, I sent an email that said something like: “From my humble perspective, the Grateful Dead have integrated all of the human art forms to a new level, and in a way that push my buttons more than anything else — an incredible culmination of all the creativity and resonance that came before. And at the pinnacle of what makes the Dead unique is your playing, and therefore from what I can tell, you are the apex of all Western civilization.”

The first time I really met him was in ’99, when Trey [Anastasio] and Page [McConnell] did the shows with him at the Warfield [in San Francisco]. I was there for all three [shows]. For one of them, I sat behind his bass, up onstage, practically leaning against his bass. It was pretty thunderous. 

I asked if he would have lunch with me. This is a big hero of mine, and he came to my hotel, and they had made special menus that said “Bass Players Luncheon” on them. He said, “I’m going to keep this forever.” It was only four years after Jerry passed. I remember him talking a lot about that and having some anger that Jerry seemed to choose drugs over his friends. With people that know about addiction, it’s more complicated than that. [But the lunch] was special. I had rented a scooter, which I was zooming around San Francisco on, and after lunch, I asked if he wanted a ride. He was like, “Nope, I’ll walk.” Which is probably a good thing.

Phil invited me to do these really special things over the years. For his 60th birthday, he invited me to come play bass on “Box of Rain” and a few other songs. Guys from Little Feat were playing. He also invited me to play at this gig he called the Bass Summit. It was one of the times I played his bass. He asked me to help figure out what songs I wanted to play. We played “The Maker,” the Daniel Lanois song, because it has two bass lines. I suggested doing “All About That Bass.” He threw that one right out.

This was a huge gig. Often when I would sit in with Phil, I’d play the electric banjo, but [this time] the electric banjo didn’t work. So Trey [Anastasio] gave me his guitar. And I was raging on the guitar. What was shocking to me, even being a fan all those years, was how powerful Phil’s bass rig was. It was just bigger than life. The only thing I really cared about was being up there and hearing Phil’s tone. After a couple of songs, Trey was like, “OK, maybe I should take [my guitar] back.”

The day he passed away, [Phish] opened our concert with “Box of Rain.” We didn’t have much time between learning the news and the show, and there was all kinds of stuff going on. I had some guests who I wanted to meet, catering, and warm-ups, and all of a sudden the news comes down the pipe.

So all of a sudden I’ve got 30 minutes till the band is going to go into our little rehearsal room and then put on the show.  Phil liked to write these songs that didn’t repeat their forms. Never mind the bass notes; each verse is an unbroken chain, each verse is different. I know the other band members were sometimes frustrated: “Why couldn’t it be easier to remember?” I’ve got 10 or 12 pages of “Box of Rain” spread out on a coffee table.

[Phish] jumped into our room and decided we were just going to do three-part harmony the whole way through [“Box of Rain”], and we couldn’t work it out. We just had to go for it and see if we could iron out a couple of kinks. Other than our first couple of years, it’s been taboo to play Grateful Dead songs — not just Grateful Dead songs, but grooves that they would use — because early on we were compared to them too much. So it’s only every couple of decades that we play a Grateful Dead song. I have this picture of all of these people in the front row just crying from “Box of Rain” that night.

It just comes back to the sense of vision and from having all these influences that assimilate into what you believe, but also having a spiritual base. Phil always talked about the music coming from God. When I made my movie Rising Low with 25 notable bass players, he said that many times as we were filming him: that the notes, the actual notes, come from God.

He had a passion for the [Grateful Dead] repertoire, and he said that it could live on for centuries. I think Phil just wanted to see where it could go. Even recently, he was doing projects where he would try to find new permutations for the same repertoire with different people and with different approaches. As people go through longer periods of their career, there are different ways to handle it. There’s something extra special about people that keep doing the same sort of thing, because they keep getting better in some ways at it.

I was also thinking about the most recent visit, which was in March [at a Phil Lesh & Friends show], where I got to give him his cake for his 84th birthday before the encore. He asked if there were any songs I wanted to do. I picked a few I had not played before, and I sang one of them. 

Sometimes it works with two bass players, and sometimes it doesn’t. But what was really interesting for me that night is how what we were doing on the bass and [our] tones were so different, despite how influenced I’ve been. And the bass lines, the approach was so different that they actually complimented rather than stepping on each other’s toes. It was a really good blend. Phil was smiling the whole time, and his bass tech, Brian, later said that he doesn’t usually smile that much. Afterward Phil said, “We have to do this again.” 

[After the Amazon documentary Long Strange Trip came out in 2017] I asked him, “Is the legacy important to you?” He said, “I think it’s the music itself that just can keep lasting and people can keep handling it in new ways. I think it’ll last for a long time.” I think if people can allow themselves to get into the Dead’s music, they’ll find that there’s never been more beautiful bass playing. Beautiful and powerful. There’s this quality that can’t be put into words, that just blossoms like a little bud turning into a flower, and then a forest of flowers in front of your soul all in a few minutes, period. It’s that ability to conjure, to be able to say that magic is going to happen. It’s going to happen because the universal spirit is going to come through me and allow it to happen. 

It all sounds idealistic and kind of heady, but if people can get past that wall of “Oh, this is weird” and allow themselves to experience it, what they’ll see is this big, huge, beautiful playing style and approach to music that is just unprecedented. And it will never be like that again.