San Diego Serenade

Electric Waste Band Keyboard Player Paul Bell

San Diego Serenade: So was last night a typical turnout for a Monday?

Paul Bell: That was the worst turnout all year. We normally get about twice that. Around 150 people is typical. I don’t know if it was because of Valentine’s Day the next day or what.

SDS: Yeah, the streets, the bars, everything seemed unusually empty last night. I heard the story about how Andrew and Bob met up at a Dead show and started the band on Bill Walton’s “One More Saturday Night.” (available for download here.) How did you come to join the band?

PB: That happened in ’95. I moved to OB, and I went to see them every Monday night, and I thought I have to get in on this. Back then they had a sax player, Daniel Neilson, and no keys. They were called the Elastic Waste Band, and when Daniel left, since he was sort of responsible for the name, we decided to change it to the Electric Waste Band. So both the names have nothing to do with the Dead. I went to quite a bit of West Coast shows between ‘90-95, so I was well versed in all the songs. Really all I did for those five years was go to Dead shows.

SDS: How long has the band been playing at Winstons?

PB: Winston’s had Dead Head Mondays as far back as ’92 and it’s never gone away.

SDS: Obviously having a weekly gig is a great advantage for the band. Are there any other advantages you see to being a band in San Diego?

PB: Well, to us the advantage is that we all live here. Why would you want to live anywhere else? We all acknowledge that we are stuck at Winston’s. We don’t invest too many grey hairs in the band. In order for us to get beyond Winston’s, we’d have to get originals and hit the road. We’ve tried things like playing three sets, where the first set would be all originals, but playing in front of nobody doesn’t set a good tone for the whole night. People tend to go outside for cigarettes when you perform the originals.

SDS: So can you elaborate more on the limitations of being a band in San Diego, because having been to LA and New York, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but it sort of is seen as a Minor League sort of town as far as if you’re trying to make it as a band.

PB: Well, cover bands definitely fit better here, and I think that’s just because a lot of the residents of San Diego don’t see music as that important of a thing. All those Van Halen or Steely Dan tribute bands play for tourists. They play at Cane’s on the beach or the Cannibal Bar, or Humphrey’s. They play places where the people on vacation don’t have to leave their hotel to hear the music. Original music is tough to break here unless you’re into punk rock, and then there’s a very strong scene. There are very few places, Winston’s, Belly-Up, that are Dead friendly. 4th and B, but it seems like that’s in danger of being pushed out by the House of Blues. There’s just not a lot of great venues to choose from. The casinos are something we’ve considered, they pay pretty well. But the people doing the booking at those places, they here tribute bands and they assume that you’re dressing up like the bands. The Dead are probably the one band where that’s not something you want to do at all.

SDS: I saw a flyer on the wall of Winston’s last night for a touring Grateful Dead cover band. What’s the difference between you guys and the touring bands? I’ve heard of some bands that do try to keep it more detail oriented, like the positioning of the mic stands…

PB: Yeah, what you’re thinking of is the Dark Star Orchestra. What they do is they pick a certain bootleg show, and they’ll play that particular bootleg of May 5th, 1977, or whenever. They play the good, the bad and the ugly from that tape. They take it like the gospel. If on that tape the kick drum is way low in the mix, they’ll tell the soundman to make it sound that way. I think it really sucks all the deadness out of the dead, to take one show and say it’s the way that it’s got to be. Actually two years ago, the keyboard player for Dark Star passed away, and they considered me for the replacement. Didn’t want to move to Chicago though. The way we see them, they don’t really affect our crowd, they’re not a threat.

SDS: Have you ever taken the band out on tour?

PB: Not really a tour, but we’ve considered maybe going up the coast, playing a few college shows. It’s tough because all the guys are super busy. Our drummer [Ed Fletcher] plays in three other bands. We’ve got a lawyer. [Guitarist] Mark Fisher, he plays music every single night of the week.

Electric Waste Band Guitar Player Mark Fisher

SDS: Are you involved in any other groups?

PB: I played in the Last Exit Band until two years ago. That was an all original project. I do a lot of songwriting. The matter of finding people to come to your show when you do originals is where all the effort comes in. If you do originals you might have 20 people coming to your show and then a year later you’ll have 35. Doing the Grateful Dead music, your fanbase is automatic. It’s a little too easy.

SDS: How does the band pick the songs to play each week?

PB: Well, we have a list of 150 songs, and next to each song, we make a note every time we play the song, so we can see when the last time we played it was. We try to make it as full a rotation as possible, because each song has somebody in the audience who thinks it’s their favorite. There are still a good handful of songs that we never play. The dead had 220 throughout their entire career, and had about 120 active songs at any given time. Some fall out for over a decade and then reappear. Our fans appreciate the song rotation, they know when a song is rare. Before a year or two ago, we’d just play it by ear without any sort of set list. Then you’d be scratching your ass in between songs and arguing what to play next. So now we make a list every week, but don’t adhere to it in stone. Jams just lead someplace naturally sometime.

SDS: So other than that basic set list, you don’t do any other planning during the week?

PB: We don’t even rehearse. It keeps things spontaneous that way. We can all do our homework on our own when we’re planning on doing a song we’re less familiar with. Each song is only played five to ten times a year. That’s not a lot of times to play a song over the course of a year when you’re not rehearsing. But the rough spots are overshadowed by the good moments that you couldn’t even have rehearsed if you tried. To keep things even more spontaneous, we’ve got a deep list of backup musicians to ensure that the music never stops. If you ever take a break, take a month off, people forget about us and it’s like starting all over again. Three of us could die tomorrow and the band would still be back at Winston’s on Monday.

SDS: Was that a backup drummer on Monday night? [Guitarist] Rockin' Bob Harvey kept saying things about him playing with the band tonight….

PB: No, that was our regular drummer. He was complaining about having to set the drum kit up so far back on the riser, he didn’t feel like he was really part of the band. Just a little band inside joke.

SDS: One thing I wonder about everybody who plays in a tribute or cover band, is whether or not you ever get sick of the music you’re playing. What do you do if the music ever comes on the radio, or at a party?

PB: I’m disassociated from the fact that it is Dead music by this point in time. The songs are good enough on their own. They don’t have to be played just like the Dead did for people to enjoy them. As a band, we distance ourselves from the way it “Should” be done. Going to Dead shows, people in the crowd were rooting for them to rock. We were saying, “Don’t take us up the cliff and then lead us back down, take us up and push it over!” They would shy away from what so many people in the crowd wanted them to do. So we don’t play it like the Dead would play it. We’ll do hammer on guitar solos, rock it out…

SDS: I heard the broadcast of Bill Walton’s satellite radio show [One More Saturday Night, on Sirius] and read on your website that [Grateful Dead drummer] Mickey Hart sat in with you guys once. When did recognition from those big guys start to happen?

PB: Well Bill started listening in ’99. He used to come in every week during the summer, so when we found out he had his radio show, we sent him a CD. His show is usually just him playing his favorite tapes, we were the first time he ever had a live band on. We met Mickey Hart when we were recording at Bill’s house. Mickey was storing his drum kit at Bill’s house and we were joking with him that he should sit in with us when we played St. Stephen’s into Drums. Well Mickey’s drum kit is so big, it surrounds him, and he hid out in there and played during St. Stephen. We didn’t even know he was there until we cut the song and he was there expecting us to go into Drums. Bill’s house is great though, it’s like Grateful Dead land. He’s got all the toys and stuff, huge ornately carved Grateful Dead furniture. I’d love to be Kato Kaelin staying in his guest house.

SDS: Do you feel that the Grateful Dead’s gets sort of short shrifted by the music fans because its reputation and culture overshadow its music?

PB: Well I think a major problem for the average music fan is that there’s too much to bite off and chew. You walk into a record store and see thirty cds and wonder, Where do I start?

SDS: Well what advice would you give the casual listeners like my dad, who only own Skeletons in the Closet [a Grateful Dead Greatest Hits compliation]?

PB: Skeletons in the Closet is awful. For an introduction, I would recommend the Europe ’72 live album.

SDS: That’s the album that made me turn the corner with my liking of the band.

PB: Well, Europe ’72 is a live/studio hybrid. They went back in the studio after the tour and recorded some overdubs, so they’re nice, tight renditions of the songs. And many of the live staples that have no studio version are on the album, Tennessee Jed, Jack Straw. There’s no 30 minute Dark Star.

SDS: I still don’t know if I’ve ever made it through an entire Dark Star in my life.

PB: Well, Dark Star is a song for driving on a windy mountain road with two hours to kill. It’s really not a sitting on your couch and just listening kind of song. Blues for Allah is also a great album that not many people own.

Electric Waste Band Bass Guitarist Andrew Lantz

SDS: What are you favorite songs to play?

PB: Being a keyboard player, I’m more interested in the songs with more interesting chord changes. I like Crazy Fingers. Here Comes Sunshine. (Click to download free mp3s from the Internet Live Music Archive.)

SDS: Do you feel that since such a huge part of the Dead’s success came because of their live shows and touring, that their legacy might be diminished as entire generations start to grow up without ever having that be part of their experience?

PB: I feel that there are so many jam bands that siphon off the scene that the Dead created that fans will keep being into the dead. That’s enough to keep the scene alive. They really are two completely different entities though. The bands playing in the so called “Jam Band Scene,” they always play up tempo music, for you to dance, close your eyes, think about sunshine and positive energy. The Dead, on the other hand, sang songs about stabbing your brother and stealing his money. I think that the newer bands feel pressured not to play songs that are more meaningful. Launching into a ballad would just make the fans stop their endless grooving. Dead concerts were like a baseball game, there were different phases, different tempos. It allowed you to recover after particularly intense parts. Endless dancing makes you forget what you just saw.

SDS: That’s interesting, because I was never really able to figure out what about the Grateful Dead endeared themselves to me whereas when my roommates in college would listen to Phish all the time, it would drive me nuts.

PB: Oh, Phish irritated the hell out of me. Their lyrics sounded like they assigned words in a thesaurus a number then rolled dice to come up with the order of the lyrics. They were too whimsical and silly, there was not enough seriousness in the songs. Dead lyrics evoke something in the listener. China Cat Sunflower evokes something in you even if you don’t know what the hell it means. Phish minimizes the importance of lyrics. They take the easy way out, the easy way to get people to dance, to groove.

SDS: So what are you listening to these days that you can recommend?

PB: Pink Floyd is a much bigger influence on me than the Dead at this point in time. Check out the album Obscured by Clouds, it’s a soundtrack that came out right before Dark Side of the Mooon. The songs are concise, like Europe ’72.

SDS: What are the bands plans for the rest of the year? Festivals, more Bill Walton radio?

PB: We’ll play a few festivals, some street fairs, Baja Bash. Probably won’t do Bill’s show for another year or so. You can always see what we’re up to on our website.

Many thanks to Paul Bell for taking the time to talk with me.

The band is currently looking for someone who could tape their shows. If you're interested, please contact the band through The Electric Waste Band's Official Website, which also contains show dates, mp3s and setlists, can be found at: http://electricwasteband.4t.com/

The Electric Waste Band plays every Monday night at 10 PM at Winston's in Ocean Beach. They also play this Friday, February 17th at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach.