New Fall Tour Dates

Eric Krasno Band is getting ready to hit the road on its Fall Tour and has added a new stop October 26 at The Rex Theatre in Pittsburgh, PA. The tour, which spans October through November features dates with Phil Lesh, Marco Benevento, The London Souls, Doyle Bramhall II and Dumpstaphunk. Tickets for all shows are on sale now!

2016 Fall Tour
October 7 • Brick & Mortar • San Francisco, CA | Tickets
October 8 • Terrapin Crossroads • San Rafael, CA | Tickets*
October 9 • Terrapin Crossroads • San Rafael, CA | Tickets*
October 18 • The Broadberry • Richmond, VA | Tickets**
October 19 • Lincoln Theatre • Raleigh, NC | Tickets**
October 20 • Terminal West • Atlanta, GA | Tickets**
October 21 • New Mountain • Asheville, NC | Tickets**
October 22 • Pour House • Charleston, SC | Tickets**
October 26 • Rex Theatre • Pittsburgh, PA | Tickets
October 27 • Live from the Ludlow • Cincinnati, OH | Tickets
October 28 • Woodlands • Columbus, OH | Tickets
October 29 • Martyrs • Chicago, IL w/ The London Souls | Tickets+
November 1 • Rams Head • Annapolis, MD | Tickets++
November 2 • Hamilton • Washington, DC | Tickets++
November 3 • Stone Pony • Asbury Park, NJ | Tickets++
November 4 • Ardmore Music Hall • Ardmore, PA | Tickets++
November 5 • Arch Street Tavern • Hartford, CT | Tickets
November 18 • Antone’s • Austin, TX | Tickets^
November 19 • Anotone’s • Austin, TX | Tickets^
November 20 • Warehouse Live • Houston, TX | Tickets^

* featuring Phil Lesh
** with Marco Benevento
+ with The London Souls
++ with Doyle Bramhall II
^ with Dumpstaphunk

Eric Krasno on the New, Jerry Garcia-Inspired and John Mayer-Designed Guitar Making Its Debut with Phil Lesh & Friends

via Relix.com

Tonight, Phil Lesh will assemble an unusually eclectic group of musicians for the first of two shows at Coney Island's Ford Amphitheatre. Joining the bassist will be bandmates Eric Krasno, Alan Evans and Neal Evans, who are known together as Soulive, along with Jackie Greene, Karl Denson, Jason Crosby and The Shady Horns. 

In what is sure to be an exciting run as these skilled musicians put their unique spin on Grateful Dead classics and beyond, the run will also find Krasno debuting a brand new guitar sent to him by another new guitarist in the Dead world--John Mayer. 

As Krasno explains, the new Paul Reed Smith he'll be playing on stage tonight is the second of two guitars Mayer had designed for him prior to Dead & Company's tour. Mayer delved into the musical mind of Jerry Garcia with the people at PRS and created a truly Garcia guitar that enables him to reach some of those signature sounds. "He said to me, 'You need to play this guitar, you need to try this,'" Krasno explains of his initial conversations with Mayer about the guitar, which stemmed from a compliment passed onto the guitarist (and fellow Berklee alum) from Oteil Burbridge. 

Krasno also dishes on his early days as a Deadhead, Mayer's performance thus far in Dead & Company, how playing in projects like Phil Lesh & Friends and Billy & The Kids has opened his eyes to a whole new aspect of a band he's loved for many years. 

There’s an interesting story behind the guitar you’ll be using this week at Coney Island. Can you give some background on how this all came together? 

Since playing with Phil and Billy, beyond just like digging into the music, digging into the tones and the sounds of the Dead has been its own journey. Just to give the full picture of it, I started diving into it after playing and just seeing the different guitars and the different sounds that Jerry had used over the years. 

Part of the thing about the Grateful Dead is that they were not only at the forefront of creating this whole community and also creating a new sound musically, they were also technically pushing boundaries. They were building the Wall of Sound and helping design guitars and new effects equipment and creating this new style of production by bringing these shows all over the country and bringing bigger productions. 

Anyway, Jerry was always trying to find these sounds with the guitar whether it was with pedals or MIDIs or pick-ups and different sounds that he could get out of the guitar so Doug Irwin built various guitars for him utilizing three pick ups and all these different switches which you could get many different timbres and tones with it. 

I got to play Tiger at Central Park and I was blown away by how it felt and when I saw Dead & Company, I mentioned to Oteil [Burbridge] that John Mayer was really getting a lot of these signature sounds out of his equipment and his guitar and he passed along that message to John and then John texted me like, ‘Hey man we should talk about this.’ I called him and he’s really into it it turns out. 

He spent a good amount of time digging into it even further. Spent a lot of time digging into the music, the different airs and the different songs and getting the sounds so he developed a guitar with Paul Reed Smith that has a bunch of the switches that Jerry used and also a longer neck which was a bigger thing than I knew because it’s not just about having more notes it’s also about the sound that it creates with a longer neck. I hope I’m not getting too technical for the Relix readers (Laughs). 

I bet many will appreciate the technical side for sure. 

So, he explained to me the different configurations. He said to me, ‘You need to play this guitar, you need to try this.’ There’s two of them, one he used on the previous tour and one he used on the current tour, and the one he calls ‘Number Two’ he sent to me and that’s the guitar I’m going to use this week. 

I’ve been playing it a little bit trying to prep for it, it’s pretty amazing and mind-blowing what they’ve created and Paul Reed Smith, they’re beautiful guitars and a very high level consumer guitar and this one, along with a team of people, was him hands on building it for John for Dead & Company. I’m looking to now build one in the same vein. I don’t know if it’s going to be a Paul Reed Smith or who’s going to build it yet but I definitely want to build a custom guitar with a lot of these configurations. 

I’m using this one for now until I have one for me. But that’s very generous of him to send out to use. It’s a truly beautiful guitar and it has some amazing tones. It’s all about not just emulating what Jerry did but adding our own thing to it and giving our sound with respect to what he did. And that was one of the things John mentioned too, he said ‘This is an open source thing.’ We’re all adding something that he started and we’re all giving our own take on it and there’s such a huge library of music form the Dead and its all been interpreted in so many different ways now and I think that’s the beauty of it is that now it’s becoming something beyond just a band--it’s music that people are going to listen to forever. It’s becoming traditional and these songs have a life of many generations to come.

Both you and John came into the Dead world around the same time, albeit with different projects. How was it to talk to him and compare notes as the guitar players? 

Well it’s interesting, I’ve known him for a while. He brought Soulive on tour when he made the Continuum album, which is my favorite album of his. We got to know each other a little bit then and we discovered we’re from like the same area and the same age and he went to Berklee so there’s a lot of common thread there but I’ve always respected him as a player and a songwriter too, that record specifically. 

I was intrigued when he was about to be in Dead & Company because I wasn’t aware of him being a Dead fan at that point but I think in recent years he got into it and I think it’s the same allure as me, but I was a Deadhead early on. My brother got me into shows and in a way they were the portal to a lot of other music for me. 

I came full circle when I didn’t listen to the Dead for a while, I was just doing other things--I was in Soulive and Lettuce and coming back around, learning the songs again, I’m even more of a fan than I was in the beginning. Now, also being in a band seeing what they did and how they paved the way for everything that this scene is. 

Beyond music there’s the way they produced their shows and created an experience for their fans and I think that’s something a lot of musicians discover over time like the way that they changed their set lists so their touring fan base could always new shows and new experience and the way that they would change the way they played the songs and arranged the songs. 

It’s a constant challenge and it still continues. Phil is one of the busiest people I know and every time he plays a show he has different members of the band and he has to rehearse the songs and revamp the songs that he’s played so many times. But he likes to give it a fresh take every time. He likes to stretch out and take chances. I think that sense of challenging ourselves and being a part of this amazing community, I know he was touched by that, I know that I have been. 

It’s been pretty amazing. Just being at the shows when the first note of the song hits and everyone gets so excited, you feel that excitement and you feel them sing those first words, it’s cool to be a part of that whether it’s on stage or being in the audience. I feel like it’s been a blessing to experience that.

And for this Coney Island run, you’re definitely around some familiar faces. 

[Phil] was like, ‘Yeah bring your guys in’ and now it’s pretty much Soulive, and Shady Horns and Jackie and Jason [and Karl Denson]. We’re all really good friends and we all hang out anyway so it’s cool to get to do it with such good friends and great musicians. 

Going back to the guitar briefly—what about it stylistically is different that makes it closer to the line of guitars Jerry used over the years? 

One thing is that he played with such dynamics and that’s been something really cool for me to open up that side where it’s not just like putting everything into each note like Stevie Ray Vaughan or Hendrix where it’s just like everything into each note. 

He really has that nuance and I think he wanted to create a guitar that really showcased that. I don’t want to say what he was thinking but I know with the way he developed those guitars with Doug Irwin that there’s so much dynamic to them and so much sensitivity and that’s what Jerry really envisioned is that sensitive style, all those little twists and turns that he played. You want to hear all that stuff so that’s one thing we’re trying to achieve. 

And again, the scale length and having access to higher notes easier and then also in turn the long neck created a certain twang when he’s playing those chords like on “Deal.” When I played “Deal” on this guitar it never sounded like that before because of that certain twang. I call it the spank, it has a certain spank to it. The rest of it is very technical. 

This guitar does not have this but on Tiger they have an effects loop, which allows you to kick in what we call the quacker or the low filter which is that sound on “Shakedown.” The “Shakedown sound.” He had a switch on his guitar that enabled him to flip that on just from his guitar, which was pretty cool. 

Since most of this is because of John Mayer, what do you think about how the community has embraced him and accepted him over the course of Dead & Company? 

When I saw him do the Grateful Dead gig, I thought he did a great job. John put a lot of work into it and did a great job on the playing side of it. He sounded really good. I think over time he fell into the role more and more and I’m sure in the beginning there was a lot of hesitation for people to embrace him as a member of the Dead Co. but I think he proved himself. 

It’s definitely interesting to hear his playing in the Dead’s world. What do you notice about your playing when you step into this music? 

A lot of the style of playing of the Grateful Dead is laying over the change of song and being able to stay with the song form. That was something that Jerry did so well. I don’t want to say on his behalf but he was a jazz player in terms of he was always playing and flowing over these chord changes. 

A lot of the stuff that we do is one or two chord changes or we just play over a vamp but with the Dead dudes it’s all about playing over these flowing song forms and he was so good at that--playing lyrically. Knowing the song you could hear the lyrics in his playing. That to me is something I’ve learned so much from in terms of playing with Phil and Billy and being true to that song and stretching that song but always having that in you. Having those lyrics and that melody in what you’re playing and staying true to that.

Watch Aaron Neville, Eric Krasno, & The Shady Horns Perform On The Today Show

This morning, beloved New Orleans soul icon Aaron Neville performed on the fourth hour of The Today Show, and he brought some very special guests to play with him. Performing Neville’s new track “Hard to Believe”, album producer Eric Krasno joined the singer on guitar, while Eric “Benny” Bloom and Ryan Zoidis–aka the Shady Horns–also tagged along to make up the singer’s horn section.

Neville showcased his smooth-as-butter vocals against the funky, bouncing music created by his ace band. The track was a selection from Neville’s recently released Apache album (read the review here), easily one of the most soulful records of 2016. At age 75, Aaron Neville is just unstoppable!

The performance itself is a memorable one, as Krasno takes a slick solo towards the end, and the Shady Horns look as cool as ever under the television studio lights. Watch the magic yourself, and enjoy this soulful music by some of our favorite artists!

Eric Krasno Band To Play With Phil Lesh, Marco Benevento & More Throughout Fall Tour

via Live For Live Music

The Eric Krasno Band has announced a healthy dose of Fall tour dates, which will see the Soulive/Lettuce guitarist take his solo act out on the road in support of his latest effort Blood From A Stone. The line-up features bassist Alex Chakour, drummer Eric Kalb, keyboardist DeShawn Alexander, rhythm guitarist Danny Mayer and backing vocalist Mary Corso.

The group will play this evening at NYC’s SummerStage with Vulfpeck and Lawrence, and the Fall tour will begin proper on October 7th at San Francisco’s Brick & Mortar, followed by a pair of performances at Terrapin Crossroads with special guest Phil Lesh. Throughout the tour, on select dates, Krasno will be joined by Marco Benevento, Doyle Bramhall II, Dumpstaphunk, and The London Souls. For a complete list of dates, check below.

Listen to Eric Krasno croon on the first single off Blood From A Stone, “Waiting On Your Love”:

Eric Krasno Band Fall Tour Dates

September 7 – New York, NY – SummerStage #
October 7 – San Francisco, CA – Brick & Mortar
October 8 – San Rafael, CA – Terrapin Crossroads ##
October 9 – San Rafael, CA – Terrapin Crossroads ##
October 18 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry *
October 19 – Raleigh, NC – Lincoln Theatre *
October 20 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West *
October 21 – Asheville, NC – New Mountain *
October 22 – Charleston, SC – Pour House *
October 27 – Cincinnati, OH – Live from the Ludlow
October 28 – Columbus, OH – Woodlands Tavern
October 29 – Chicago, IL – Martyrs **
November 1 – Annapolis, MD – Rams Head ^
November 2 – Washington, DC – Hamilton ^
November 3 – Asbury Park, NJ – Stone Pony
November 4 – Ardmore, PA – Ardmore Music Hall ^
November 5 – Hartford, CT – Arch Street Tavern
November 18 – Austin, TX – Antone’s +
November 19 – Austin, TX – Antone’s +
November 20 – Houston, TX – Warehouse Live +

# w/ Vulfpeck, Lawrence
## w/ Phil Lesh
*with Marco Benevento
**with The London Souls
^with Doyle Bramhall II
+with Dumpstaphunk

Eric Krasno Makes ‘Blood From a Stone’ Look Easy on His Inspired Solo Debut

via Observer.com

For nearly 25 years now, Eric Krasno has built a repertoire as one of the most talented and in-demand guitarists in professional music, be it as a session man or as a member of such influential groups as Soulive and Lettuce. But in 2016, this most unique and innovative guitar hero aims to put his official stamp on the world as a pop artist himself with the release of his stellar solo debut Blood From A Stone.

Produced in Maine with Dave Gutter, onetime frontman for the massively overlooked Portland funk-rock group Rustic Overtones, the album finds Krasno not only playing some of the best guitar he’s ever displayed on record, but revealing major skills as a singer/songwriter as well. It’s funny, for a guy who has played with some of the best vocalists in the world including Susan Tedeschi and Norah Jones, earning Grammys for his roles on Tedeschi Trucks Band‘s Revelator and Derek Trucks Band‘s Already Free, it’s a sin to think he’s been hiding this great voice all these years. But better late than never.

The soulful husk he possesses definitely gives the music on Blood a vibe on par with such Clapton solo classics as There’s One In Every Crowd  and No Reason To Cry as well as Stevie Ray Vaughan, especially circa In Step, albeit with a more contemporary R&B flavor. And there’s guests to speak of as well, namely fellow six-string samurai Derek Trucks who appears on the Santana-esque instrumental “Curse Lifter” as well as his homeboys from Lettuce, Soulive, and The London Souls, a promising group signed to Krasno’s label Feel Records (who released singer Nigel Hall’s amazing soul manifesto Ladies and Gentlemen…Nigel Hall! last year).

Additionally, Krasno has a new album with Lettuce called Crush, played a bunch of shows with the Grateful Dead spinoff group Billy and the Kids (led by percussionist Bill Kreutzmann) earlier this year and continued to espouse his production prowess through the release of New Orleans legend Aaron Neville’s incredible new album Apache.

The Observer recently caught up with Krasno to talk about what inspired him to release his first-ever solo album, what it was like working with Aaron Neville and how it feels to celebrate Lettuce’s 25th anniversary this year.

What took you so long to start singing?

I was always kinda singing demos and writing songs all along. When I started with Soulive, that wasn’t really the direction I was headed in. Alan and Neal [Evans, both formerly of Moon Boot Lover] had a concept of this real futuristic soul jazz trio. And I had been in the studio making songs and producing. My roommate at the time, Jeff Basker who is now a huge producer, he and I were always making tracks and writing songs and doing Lettuce.

It was just one of those things where I jumped on the train with Soulive and rode that where really my focus before that was very different. But it was a blessing, because I got to go out and play and focus on becoming a guitar player for 20 years. I met so many people, so many amazing musicians, along the way that I got to work with and all of this fed into what I am doing now. I’m very thankful for those experiences.

How was the transition for you?

Well, for me I’m kinda finding all these new things that I can do. I’ve always done singing in the studio doing background but never singing lead. So now being on tour with the solo band and stuff, it’s been fun seeing what I can do. I have a great singer in the band named Mary Corso, who is a badass at doing really high harmonies. I made the record on my own and not really with a band, per se. Now I’m going out with a band and it’s really cool watching it evolve and take on a shape of its own.

Listening to the record, I hear a heavy solo Eric Clapton vibe on it.

Yeah, yeah, totally. I love that shit. Actually, part of the inspiration was—and it’s really random—that I read the Clapton book when I was in Japan and about his transition from being in bands to going solo. It was cool to read about that. He wasn’t really a singer before that. He did sing a bit, but it just became a thing for him, and he worked on it and he got really good at it. Just like anything else, really.

Some people just have this natural voice that just turns on instantly, like Nigel Hall, who has always been a great singer. For me, I had to work on it a little bit. I’m not trying to be an acrobatic singer. I’m just trying to sing my songs and play the guitar. I’m always writing songs, but prior to this record I would try to place these songs with other people. It’s great.

I’ve written for Aaron Neville and the Tedeschi-Trucks Band and a lot of other people. But the thing is you always have to wait for that moment, which is what I did with this album. I mean, I already have half of a new album written in the can, plus a bunch of songs that didn’t make this one. I’m just excited to be putting stuff out more frequently.

I’ve actually been revisiting some of Clapton’s ’80s albums like Behind the Sun and August, both of which were produced by Phil Collins. It’s interesting to hear, now, the R&B vibe they were trying to go for with those records.

Maybe I need to revisit those. Literally the ’80s Clapton stuff I’d know it because it was in the background as a kid, but I never had those records. I knew Journeyman because it had such massive hits on it. That might be his biggest record. I went to see Clapton about four years ago. Doyle Bramhall II is a good friend of mine, and he played with him on that tour and got me passes to the show and whatever.

I was blown away, man. I thought he sang his ass off. His guitar playing was really great, but I was really impressed by his vocals at this point. His vocals seemed to have gotten better and better and better. And the band he had for that tour, Willie Weeks on bass, Steve Jordan on drums and Doyle on second guitar, they were killing.

Willie Weeks is the man! He’s on all those underrated George Harrison solo albums on Dark Horse, David Bowie’s Young Americans, Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys…

Oh yeah, man. Willie Weeks played with a ton of people. He was in the Doobie Brothers for a while. He is on my favorite soul album of all time, which is Donny Hathaway Live, and he was like 18 during that recording. I got to work with him a few times; he’s just the coolest guy ever. He plays his butt off, man. And he played on everything.

I also hear a little Stevie Ray Vaughan in your sound on this record as well. Are you a big fan?

Oh yeah, huge huge Stevie Ray fan. His singing is amazing. When I first saw that video Live at the El Mocambo, it changed my life, man; the intensity by which he plays was like nothing else I’ve ever seen. I remember I was supposed to go see him on the In Step tour with Jeff Beck, but I got in trouble and was grounded. I had tickets and me and my dad were going to go, but I got in trouble in school.

Another interesting thing I get from Blood from a Stone is that it feels separate from the other stuff you’ve done in the past. Was that a conscious decision?

I jump around, man. It’s funny, I was talking about that to someone the other day. The jam scene and the fans of that scene, they want to see us do different things and evolve and change. They want to come see a different show every time, which is kind of a challenge to us in both Lettuce and Soulive.

I think, genre-wise, it’s kind of blown in every direction. It’s kinda to the point where you don’t have to sound like The Grateful Dead to be a jam band. There’s hip-hop and then there’s reggae and there’s EDM now. It’s really just an alternative to radio in a lot of ways.

But what makes Blood from the Stone, in my opinion, stand out is because it’s a more song-oriented collection than much of what is available in that jam-band scene.

This is a huge thing for me. And I think that’s honestly what is lacking with the modern jam bands. It’s too much noodling and not enough songwriting. For example, I started playing with Phil Lesh and some of the Grateful Dead guys in the last few years and going through that songbook and learning those songs made me really love The Dead again; and mostly because of the songwriting. They have so many great songs and really interesting songs.

They’re not just 1-4-5. There are all sorts of amazing changes and Robert Hunter was such a great lyricist. I’ve really become such a huge Dead fan again through this experience. I loved them when I was really young, they opened my mind to a lot of new music. And now I’ve come full circle.

How did you connect with Aaron Neville to produce his new album Apache?

That was a real blessing to be able to do that. I got the job through his manager. I’ve been friends with the Neville family for a while, through Ivan Neville and Dumpstaphunk. His manager knew me through producing some other stuff that he heard and thought I would be a good match.

When I met up with Aaron, I gave him my spiel and told him, “Man, I’d love to make a real gritty, soulful, funky album that really showcases what you do best.”

And he says, “Well, I got all these poems I’m trying to turn into songs.” So once he decided to work with me, he gave me like 50 poems and myself and Dave Gutter went up to Vermont and sat up there with these poems to try and make them into songs so we could begin recording them. And I got some of the Lettuce guys and some of the Dap-Kings guys to be on it. It really turned into an awesome project.

Was it a little intimidating considering the last Aaron Neville album was produced by Keith Richards and Don Was?

Yeah, that was a pretty big seat to fill. He didn’t talk to me really about those sessions. However, a lot of his previous records he wasn’t really that involved, whereas this one he had a hand in the songwriting, he stuck around for the mixes, he was there when the band was tracking. It’s funny, someone who has been in the business for 55, 60 years or whatever, he’d never been so involved. And he was really excited about that.

It stirred something in him. That was a really cool part to that process is seeing his excitement about being so directly involved in this album.

Next year is going to be the 25th anniversary of Lettuce, is that correct?

Yeah, wow. Well, we met in 1992, but we didn’t start playing shows until 1994. But we were a band, at least in the loose sense of the term. We were rehearsing and stuff. It’s pretty amazing, man. I don’t tour with them consistently anymore because I’ve got a lot of stuff going on and they book a lot of shows now, but I’m still part of the band. I’m in the studio with them and I will do the bigger shows they put together.

You guys were really young when you started Lettuce, yeah?

We were I think sophomores in high school, and we went to this summer program kinda thing at Berklee College of Music. We all were into funk music and improvisation so we were all like, “O.K., when we’re in college we’re all going to come here and start a band.” And we actually did. We’re all best friends. We all make music together in various other ways outside of Lettuce. It’s just kind of this band of brothers and we have a blast, you know?

Eric Krasno plays Central Park Summerstage on September 7. Blood From A Stone is available on iTunes and at better record stores in your neighborhood.

Soulive’s Eric Krasno Unleashes Solo Album

via Hollandude.com

As it always is with that most exciting of trios, it was my pleasure to take in the Soulive show a few weeks as part of the Louis Armstrong Wonderful World Festival at Flushing Meadows Park.  At that time, Eric Krasno revealed in an interview that he has a Central Park show billed as the Eric Krasno Band this Wednesday the 7th.  Note: in the video, I say “tomorrow night” as its television air date is Tuesday.  The immensely talented guitar player/songwriter/producer has a new album, Blood From A Stone, and the Summerstage gig will be our first chance to hear songs from it in New York City.