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Trevor Garrod of Tea Leaf Green in the Butter Room (part 1)
I caught up with Trevor Garrod of Tea Leaf Green yesterday as the band was traveling to their next tour stop, Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Here is part one of the interview. You can listen to it by clicking the play button above or read the transcript below.
The Butter Room thanks Trevor, the band and their management for the opportunity to have Trevor in the butter room.First of all, looking forward to catching you guys at the Gravity Lounge this Sunday in Charlottesville. (Editorial insert: Buy your tickets now!)You just finished up the Jam Cruise. How was that?Trevor Garrod: Jam Cruise was awesome. I count it as kind of a vacation. I just had to play two sets and the rest of the time I was free to do whatever I wanted. It was a lot of fun, a lot of good opportunities to hang with people I don’t always get a chance to hang out with. It’s all those characters from festivals in the like where you are always passing in the night, like two ships in the night if you will. We were all seated on this boat with no place to go for 4 to 5 days. It was a good time. It’s all about cementing friendships. Also got to see a lot of funk on that Jam Cruise.Any particular favorites?Trevor: My favorite thing that I saw on the boat, it’s kind of fleeting was Jackie Greene had an hour long set and he’s the character that’s been playing with Phil Lesh the last couple of years or so, doing all the singing, but he was playing all of his own stuff. That guy has got some shit going on. He also brought with him, Tim Bluhm who is the singer from the Mother Hips because they have a thing going on, the play some music. That was actually my favorite thing. I got down and got funky with the Dumpstaphunk at one point. But all around it was a pretty pleasing musical adventure.
Photo by Rich AndersonYea, I saw Jackie Greene with Phil & Friends last summer here in Charlottesville and I was extremely impressed.
I haven’t been on Jam Cruise, but I went on the first moe. cruise about 5 years ago now and I felt the fans gave the band proper space to enjoy their own time. I know the people I went with did not go up to any band members and we probably saw them every day either on the ship or off. Is that the same kind of vibe on Jam Cruise?Trevor: Yea. It’s definitely a more mature, successful group. You have to have some money to get on it. So, there’s a wookie count that’s pretty low as far as that’s concerned so everyone is pretty respectful. I didn’t really have a problem with anyone bothering me too much. If you have been in this business long enough you know you develop some good skills of deflecting people without seeming like an asshole. So, it’s like “oh man, I got to do this thing”. I’m always a big fan of “I really have to go pee”.Looking at your tour schedule, it appears you are making your way North. How are the crowds in the South considering you guys are from the west coast?Trevor: We’ve done pretty well. We haven’t been down to Florida too much, but places like Atlanta have been strong for us. Charlottesville, or Virginia in general, has been a strong market for us. Really when you get down to it, we’ve probably spent more time on the east coast than the west coast the last five years. There’s just more people to play for out here. It is a different thing. We have our thing going on in San Francisco where we play at the Fillmore two nights once every 3 or 4 months. So we do smaller places on the east coast, but it’ always has to do the time and the place. You know if you hit up a college town on winter break on a Monday night, you are probably not going to do as well as Atlanta on Saturday night.Do you have any favorite venues that you guys like to play?Trevor: Well there are places that I like to play more than others, that’s for sure. I’ve gotta say my favorite for hometown pride is the Fillmore. Park West in Chicago is really awesome, but they don’t let people back in after they leave so for a long time I could never figure why the second set was always so much thinner than the first and people would go out for a cigarette and they can’t get back in. Makes so much sense! I’m really looking forward to checking out the Gravity Lounge cause I hear that’s a really cool place. We’ve always played at Starr Hill, which is not really happening as it was in the past.Your schedule just seems insane, the amount of shows you do per year. Are you going to continue to do the same amount of shows in 2009 and are there any different or special places that you are thinking about playing this year?Trevor: Not specifically. We just continue to go on as we have in the past. We’re hoping to record more music and focus on the band’s music. After a year of being in a holding pattern and getting our people up to speed on everything, we are finally in a spot where we are ready to start focusing on the future of our music and that’s where all our minds are at, so we let the guys wearing the suits figure out where to put us. We figure they will put us somewhere. We just try to figure out what we are going to play when we get there.You guys seem to get a lot of play like satellite radio like Sirius. Do you feel that mediums like satellite radio have helped to build your following substantially over the years?
Photo by Sam FriedmanTrevor: I would never discount the amount that that’s help. I often say “God Bless the Sirius radio” because in this age the commercial radio … as long as we’ve been a band, it’s never really been a reality to even have a goal to get songs on the radio or even wanted to have happen. None of us even listened to the radio. No one even liked any of that. It’s still nice that there is still some broadcasting out there. There’s these niche markets where they can broadcast out and people can hear it and not have to listen to the radio. People come up to me all the time and say, “yea man, I heard you on Sirius radio, right on”. So, Yes. I guess the answer is yes. It has helped a lot.Do you guys play off a set list every night or is it fly by the seat of your pants as the set evolves?Trevor: We write the set list before the show. Back in the old days, we would try to do that by the seat of our pants. It would degenerate every now and then to an argument on stage, which is never good. You gotta look like a unified front. It’s nice to have some kind of plan. Between soundcheck and actual show, you have a few hours to kill. It’s a nice way to kill time to figure out what you are going to play.Do you often deviate from the set list when you are on stage?Trevor: Yea. I guess we use a baseball term, call an audible? Some kind of sporting term. I don’t do sports, but you know what I mean. We call an audible every now and then. Something that doesn’t look right on the set list when you get up there on the stage when it comes up, and you’re like “no”. Maybe you needed something for the next song, like a harmonica which you realized you’ve lost. You’re like, “No, let’s not do that one”. We have the freedom to do whatever we want up there, but usually we stay with the plan.
Top photo of Trevor by barnable
Part Two is here. Trevor provides us with some recommended listening, including a show of their own to download, and gives his opinion on the upcoming Dead and Phish tours. -
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