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Getting Down with The *Dude* and *Dudette* of Life
by Matt Iarrobino

On October 20th, The Wetlands Preserve in New York City held it's first monthly *Phishcenter*. And, what better person to play at the first *Phishcenter* than Steve Pollak, The Dude of Life. The Dude is on the road again in celebration of his new album. As you all remember, The Dude's first album, *Crimes of the Mind*, came out in 1994 and the featured all songs written by and sung by the Dude and all instrumentation by Phish. So, this tour marks the Dude's triumphant return to action, and he's better than ever!! The Dude and his band played a great show on this night. The setlist included some favorite *Dude* originals including Papapazzi, Dahlia, Come on up to My Room, and Self. He also played some of the songs that he has written for Phish such as Suzie, Fluffhead, and Sanity. The Dude encored with Run Like an Antelope in which his girlfriend, Erica Gruenberg, sang the line that her boyfriend is famous for writing. I had the pleasure of sitting down with The Dude of Life and his girlfriend Erica before the show to talk about the old days and what's to come in the future.

Phishcenter continues in the tradition of Wetlands' weekly *Deadcenter*, but with a band that's still together and in their prime: Phish. At each Phishcenter, a Phish related band will play 2 sets accompanied by a DJ playing high quality live DATs from recent Phish shows between, before, and after sets (Thanks to Paul Komanecky for taping and dubbing!!!) . At the Nov. 17 Phishcenter, The Wetlands will be playing outtakes from The Story of the Ghost recording sessions which includes NICU, as well as tapes of *Space Antelope*, Trey Anastasio's first band with The Dude of Life. On December 28th, The Dude of Life will return to The Wetlands, after the MSG Phish show.

Matt: So, Dude, I think that most people don't realize that Crimes of the Mind was actually recorded back in 1991 and released in 1994.

Dude: Yeah, we recorded that back in 1991 and it was released in 1994.

Matt: Tell me how your collaboration with Phish came about on *Crimes of the Mind*.

Dude: Trey and I have been best buddies for years and I'm so close with the entire band. So, I said to Trey, why don't we just go up to Vermont and rent out a week at Archer Studios, and hang out for ten, eleven, twelve hours. And that's what we did.

Matt: So it took a week to record?

Dude: Yeah, and we rehearsed for like four days and did the whole thing in a week. After that, since the album wasn't coming out for a couple of years, actually three years after that, I took a lot of time for vocal overdubs and mixing and really polished it up in a major way.

Matt: Dan Archer, Producer of Phish's *Lawnboy* as well as projects like Strangefolk's *Weightless in Water* and Blind Man's Sun's *Of the Spheres*, produced *Crimes of the Mind*. How did you like working with Dan?

Dude: Oh, Dan is a great great friend of mine, and he is one of a kind. I mean there's only one Dan Archer in the world and I'll tell yeah, he's a genius in his own way.

Matt: And who is this joining us for the interview?

Dude: This is the Dudette of Life. Not only is she the love of my life, but she's the webmistress for Dude of Life.com. And she's also a phenomenal singer and piano player so, eventually we're going to do some work together. And, she has perfect pitch.

Matt: Have you guys performed together on stage before?

Erica: Well actually, I sang the lyrics to *Antelope* at the Toronto show. Actually, it was in London, Ontario.

Matt: The first band you were in was Space Antelope with Trey Anastasio. Tell me a little bit about that and where things went from there.

Dude: Space Antelope was a band that Trey had founded back at Taft. We sounded like a bunch of high school kids you know, doing Dead covers and smoking too much pot. From there Trey and I went to UVM together and we lived in a house together on Pine St. and that's really where Phish pretty much got started. I remember them putting up signs for a bassist which ended up being Mike, and back in those days I remember Trey working on scales all the time. He had the guitar around his neck and was really trying to hone up on his skills.

Matt: Trey started playing guitar at around age 17, right?

Dude: I was with him when he first started playing in high school and for me, it just boggles the mind to have seen him just learning guitar and now, you know, the level he's at now.

Matt: How often did he practice?

Dude: Constantly. He was very focused. He had the guitar around his neck constantly and he didn't do very much school work and he got by fine. But he played that guitar. He was into it and it shows!!

Matt: So, Dude, how did you get this unique name?

Dude: The name! Dude of Life!! We were having a little party in a room in high school on our floor and I was, well actually, a bunch of the guys on the floor, including myself, had eaten a few mushrooms. We were feeling pretty good and I came into the room clad in a tapestry and goggles and a hat and I started stuttering some nonsense and it seemed to go over pretty damn well. It went over really well because next thing you know, I was knighted *The Dude of Life*!

Matt: Do remember what it was that you said??

Dude: Couldn't tell yeah, and no one has it on tape, so*..it's probably a good thing. Hey you now, I would love to hear it!!! I woke up the next morning to*.*Your the Dude of Life!!!!*, and it stuck. And we had the Space Antelope going then.

Matt: Were you known as The Dude of Life as far back as Space Antelope as well?

Dude: Yes, and we did special appearances at school, and whatever gig, and that was the beginning of the story for The Dude of Life.

Matt: So did people at school, whether is Taft, or S.U.N.Y. Purchase, or UVM, call you by that when they saw you walking around town or at class?

Dude: Not necessarily, not at S.U.N.Y. Purchase, but people that knew me well did.

Erica: The Dude!! The Dude!! (They laugh)

Matt: I know that the current make-up of your current band is different than it was a couple of years ago. How did this new band come about?

Dude: After the album came out, I started touring with Dan Archer and the guys in Pork Tornado that went great, but they were from Vermont and I was from New York, so there was a lot of distance there. So, I had to reorganize and the guys I'm working with now, we get along great. There's great chemistry, and we have a lot of fun, and that's what it comes down to. We've been creating a lot of great stuff together and it's really a fun art form. Were really honing the craft.

Matt: How did all of you guys come together?

Dude: I had met Cliff Mays and Jim Weingast of The Great Red Shark when I was playing Port Chester a few years ago at 7 Willow St. They opened for me. So that really where we met each other and then a few years later, last year, I was manager of the acoustic guitar department at Sam Ash in White plains, and Cliff Mays came in to look at guitars. So, we started shooting the shit, and I wasn't working with the Vermont band at the time because of the distance, and so we said, hey, let's get together and jam a little bit. So we did. We got together a few times and, me and Cliff and then Jim Weingast came in, then Mark and Paul, and we just had so much fun, and it stuck! We we've been together now about a year, and it just keeps getting better and better because we are taking the old stuff to new levels, but we are always creating new songs as well. So, were really having a blast.

,b> Matt: Tell me about your writing process

Dude: There's not one single process

Erica: Can I just answer that for him? He's so creative. (to the dude) Can I tell him the story about the parking ticket?

Dude: Sure

Erica: I lived in this apartment where there were paces to park and we had been parking in front of this hydrant and everything, somebody left a note on the car saying, *I pray no one dies, especially children in a fire because you are blocking this hydrant.* He takes it and says, *I'm going to make this into a song*. And he saved the piece of paper and I guarantee that in a few months you'll see the song somewhere. He can just look at a side of a wall and just write it down. It's amazing.

Dude: But, a song comes out in so many different ways. Sometimes, I'll be strumming my acoustic guitar in my room and something will hit me and I'll lay down the words and I'll male up some chords. Sometimes someone else might be playing something and I'll think of a phrase. The truth is, anything can be a good song if you put some good chords to it and good vocals. Anything can be a good song if you do it right and that's the truth to the matter. There's some songs, I like to do covers to. Maybe some covers that the original song, people didn't really like that much, but you can take that song, do something totally different to it, and turn it into your own song, and make it a millions time better. So, there's so many different variations on how a song is born, any my personal philosophy is each song can have a personal history and what happens to that song is almost like, I don't want to say organic, but it really has a life. Each song does have a life. Sometimes there are songs and I say, "Man this is going to be the most amazing song", then you bring it before the group and you know, a couple people think the song sucks! And suddenly, that song is jaded forever and sometimes, in never gets it back. And other times there's a song you might think has no potential at all and you bring it front of other people and they say, *That's amazing!* and they'll take it to a whole other level. Some songs live on forever, some songs don't even make it out of the shell. So for every song that makes it, there are hundreds of songs that don't make it through the gate. That's a fascinating process in and of itself. But It think that in beginning, when I started writing music, it's so much different when you have your own band and you've got the whole show to yourself and your really trying to create something with the music that will not only entertain, but kind of take people to a higher lever. The object to breath as much fun into other people's lives as possible, in my book. And your really want to create o a good party if you can and get everyone dancing like***..

Erica: Crazy Motha Fuckas!!!

Dude: Like Crazy Motha Fuckas!!!!!!!!

Matt: I spoke to your manager, Jon Dindas earlier, and he said that you guys were recently in the studio. Can we all look forward to a new Dude of Life album?

Dude: Yes. Were finishing up the second album. And, I wrote this album for a lot of different reasons. First of all, there's stuff with Trey Anastasio, John Fishman, and Mike Gordon on it. They came in and helped out when we were up at Archer's. The guys from Pork Tornado were there as well, so we have fabulous tracks from that. But also, we have some great tracks that I have been working on with Great Red Shark, so it's a nice marriage of the two projects on one album and it really shows what I've been doing for the last four years! It's been a long time coming and were all really psyched that it's ready to be hatched. This one has been a tough bird.

Matt: What's the name of the album?

Dude: It's called Under the Sound Umbrella.

Matt: I know you have a long history with The Wetlands. What do think of playing at The Wetlands?

Dude: I love this place. I really do because Wetlands has a phenomenal sound system. The monitors are great. Of all the places we play, Wetlands has the best sound system.

Matt: So what has your tour schedule been like and where can people see you? Are you to come to our town to help us party down?

Dude: . The album is just about ready to come out, and we have a record label behind us so things are really picking up. Recently we've been doing a lot of shows on the weekends, but in the past few weeks, things have really been picking up. The whole tour schedule is being taken to another level. Were going to be touring all across the east coast and we just got back from Toronto and those were our first gigs out of the country, and they went great. Were looking to conquer the world basically.

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Thanks to the Dude of Life and Erica Gruenberg for the interview as well as The Dude's manager, John Dindas and Watchtower Entertainment for his help. Thanks to Paul Komanecky for taping and providing dubs, and Chris Zahn at The Wetlands, for creating *Phishcenter*.

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Matt Iarrobino is a 1997 graduate of Syracuse. He currently lives in New York City where he is Photographer, Concert Lighting Designer and DJ (at The Wetlands Preserve), and Phishhead. Matt would like to throw a shoutout to Ernie Finnizio, and all the Vegas Halloween crew (Phister, Stefan, Chavez, Linda, Scalisi, Dawn, Frankie, Drew, Weiss, Borix, Somar, Becker, and Leanne.)