“That song is a tip of the hat to the ‘Eyes of the World’ vibe not exactly like the song, but just as a feeling, the breezy feeling about ‘Eyes of the World’ that was always an important pillar in their catalog,” Casal explains. Give the occasion, however, Casal and company did want to include some references to the Dead’s history, however - a case in point being “Farewell Franklins” which, at 25:05, is the longest piece Circles Around the Sun created. We just wanted to create a kind of vibe that would be good for people for people to be at a show, though.” “It was pretty inspired, and we just tried to make music that we would want to hear as fans - like, if we were going to a Grateful Dead show, what kind of music would we want to hear when we were walking around? So we just tried to get the vibe, not to mimic anything or be exactly like the Grateful Dead at all because that’s impossible. “That improvisational spirit touched us during these sessions,” Casal affirms. They recorded the album’s six pieces during a two-day session in April, and all four musicians channeled their inner Deadheadness into the process.īillboard Touring Conference Takes on Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well Kreutzmann told Casal he needed several hours of music, for which he grabbed CRB and Black Crowes keyboardist Adam MacDougall (another Lesh & Friends alumnus), Dan Horne (Beachwood Sparks, Jonathan Wilson) and drummer Mark Levy of The Congress. It’s not just restaurant Muzak people are into this!’ It was pretty exciting.”Ĭasal was given the charge to create the Interludes by Jordan Kreutzmann, the son of Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann, who was creating visual content for the shows and also filmed the concerts. Then I realized, ‘Oh man, our cover is blown. “By the end of the set break I checked my phone and had 150 texts and emails - ‘This is you! We know this is you! What is this music?!’ I was blowing up. “It was up at a pretty good volume and everyone could hear it, so that was a nice moment for me,” he recalls. The payoff for Casal came during the first Fare Thee Well show, on June 27 in Santa Clara, Calif., when he found himself again at the back of a stadium when intermission hit and the music he’d created cam over the P.A. It’s the biggest surprise of my musical life, really.”
I had no thought I could even be a million miles from the members of the Grateful Dead, let alone making music that would be involved with one of their shows. “I used to go to Dead shows in the ’80s and ’90s, a scrappy little teenager in New Jersey, standing all the way at the back of the stadium ’cause that was the only ticket I could afford.
“To be a part of it was just unbelievable,” Casal tells Billboard.
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