Russ Lawton

jam band · rock

Russ Lawton is a drummer long associated with the Burlington, Vermont music scene and best known as a member of the Trey Anastasio Band. He studied with Gene Roma and toured early in his career with Zzebra, the Afro-fusion group founded by Nigerian percussionist Lofty Amao of Osibisa. Anastasio assembled the first version of his solo band from local Vermont players for a club date on April 17, 1998, and Lawton has been in it ever since; he and Anastasio are the only remaining members of that original lineup. He appears on the studio and live records the group has issued over the decades since, among them Trey Anastasio (2002), The Horseshoe Curve (2007), Traveler (2012) and Paper Wheels (2015), and carries co-writing credits on Anastasio's solo work and on Phish's Farmhouse. Television appearances with the band include Late Night with David Letterman, the Conan O'Brien show and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. He is also half of Soule Monde, an improvising organ-and-drums duo with his Trey Anastasio Band colleague Ray Paczkowski, who covers Hammond organ, keyboards and bass parts against Lawton's drums; the pair have worked under that name since 2011. The name combines their middle and first names and reads loosely as 'smashed world'. Soule Monde records original material alongside heavily rebuilt standards, with releases including Mimi Digs It, Must Be Nice and a Christmas album grown out of holiday pieces the duo first recorded in 2017. Lawton teaches drums, issues occasional solo singles including Every Generation, produced by Clint Bierman, and has played Gretsch kits exclusively since 1972.

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