Behind The Scene: Jake Sherman on Phish, the Grateful Dead and Covering 535 Class Presidents at Punchbowl News
Political reporter Jake Sherman laughs as he describes the quandary he often faces after he’s invited backstage at a concert. The inveterate music enthusiast recently launched Punchbowl News with fellow Politico Playbook alum Anna Palmer, his co-author of The Hill to Die On: The Battle for Congress and the Future of Trump’s America. Given his status as one of the leading journalists chronicling the day[1]to-day operations of Congress, perhaps it’s not so surprising that he acknowledges, “When I go to shows and talk to musicians, I want to talk about music but they want to talk about politics.”
Sherman is an unabashed fan of the Grateful Dead and Phish, emphasizing his fealty via his Twitter feed as well as his Punchbowl News bio. While it may be difficult to imagine his predecessors on the Congressional beat openly sharing such zeal, Sherman says, “That’s probably a product of the time. The nature of political reporting has changed a little bit. I think people, in general, are a little bit less straight-laced.”
The 35-year-old journalist recalls a memorable encounter with Bob Weir, when RatDog appeared at Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Theatre in 2014: “This was a huge moment for me. I’d never met him before. And he said, ‘So let me get this straight: You get paid to tweet about politics and the Grateful Dead?’ I thought about it and then I told him: ‘There’s a little more to it than that but it’s something in that realm…’”
Even when you are in the thick of some serious political discourse on Twitter, you’ll make a point to drop in some musical tidbits about the Dead or Phish. Did it ever give you pause that, in sharing your passion for these bands, people might not take you seriously?
No, never. Sometimes people will tweet at me: “This guy has seriously bad taste in music, so we can’t trust him on politics.” [Laughs.] People know that I am a massive music fan. I mean, this is going to sound hokey, but I think that defines me even more than what I do. The Grateful Dead are the wallpaper to my life. My dad is a massive Deadhead and music has been a part of my life since I was a toddler. It’s already a huge part of my son and my daughter’s lives. They are growing up in a house that has music on all the time.
I also think that it has helped me build connections. I can’t tell you how many people in the political scene are huge Deadheads and Phish fans.
When Bob Weir accepted the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2002 Jammys on behalf of the Grateful Dead, Senator Patrick Leahy sent us a special video message and was quite enthusiastic about doing so.
There’s a photo from a long time ago of him sitting onstage at a Dead show in D.C. When I first started covering Congress, I said to him: “You know, sir, I’m a big Grateful Dead fan.” And every time he sees me now, he’ll remind me: “You know, I took Jerry Garcia into the Senate dining room.”
And it’s not just the politicians who are Phish fans and Dead fans; there are tons of operatives, aids and chiefs of staff who are huge Phish fans and Dead fans. Something else that people might find surprising is that there may be more Republicans who are Deadheads and Phish fans than Democrats. Some of the most conservative Republicans I know are huge Deadheads and Phish fans—for instance, Stephen Castor, the Republican on the judiciary committee. At the first impeachment, he was the guy who brought in a supermarket bag [in lieu of a briefcase]. He’s a massive Deadhead and works for Jim Jordan, so he’s clearly not a liberal by any means. He knows I’m a big Deadhead, and when we first met, he said, “We have this connection.”
Ann Coulter once sat behind me at a RatDog show at the Beacon, and I’ve also known people who worked for Eric Cantor who are big Panic, Dead and Phish fans. There are a lot of Southerners working in Republican politics who grew up listening to Panic and listening to the Dead and Phish and stuff like that. So the conservative Dead movement is alive and well.
Can you recall the first live show you attended that set you down your current path as a music fan?
I grew up in Stamford, Conn., right outside of New York. Starting when I was 11 or 12, every year my dad would take me to the Allman Brothers’ Beacon shows. That was my introduction to modern-day jamband live music. I also saw a ton of Phil Lesh & Friends and RatDog shows as a kid.
My introduction to live music as an independent person was Dave Matthews Band on Dec. 20, 2002, at MSG, the night before the show where James Brown sat in. We’d gotten floor seats from Ticketmaster, which is like winning the lottery. That was my first solo music memory.
My first Phish show was in 2004—the opening show in Coney Island—right before they broke up. And I always tell my Phish friends that if Phish had been together when I was in college from ‘04-‘08, I would have been sunk. They broke up right before I went to college and then they got back together right after I left, which is lucky for me.
Did you aspire to become a political reporter while you were growing up?
I thought I was going to be a sports writer. I was a sports writer in college but I was never able to get a job doing that out of school. Even my sophomore year of college, when I interned at the Journal News in White Plains, N.Y., I was put on the Metro desk instead of the sports desk. Then I just kept getting political reporting jobs.
I was always interested in politics, though, and what I do today is fulfilling. It’s not public service but it’s pretty close. I think it’s a different form of public service.
In January, you launched Punchbowl News with Anna Palmer as well as John Bresnahan. What prompted you to do that?
Our theory of the case is that we’re focused on the most important people in Washington every day. We have a laser focus on Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer—that is our universe. Our focus is power, people and politics. We view the Capitol as the most important institution in the country—all power emanates from there. So our Super Bowl every single day is the leadership of Congress, and we try to view the world through that lens. There are a lot of people who cover policy, and a lot of people who cover politics, but we’re trying to cover the politics of policymaking.
So what prompted us to do it? We wanted to try to execute our own vision. The era of the individual content creator is upon us. We see this in music, we see this in art, we see this in culture.
The fact is that you don’t need a big news organization to cover the news. There are a lot of news organizations that will be big and strong for a long time, but there’s also room for individuals and for smaller news organizations to break into this space.
You’ve worked closely with Anna Palmer on Politico Playbook, Hill to Die On, and now Punchbowl News. Is she is a big music fan?
No, although I took her to a Phish show once and she understands my obsession and helps feed it, just like my wife does. My wife went to a lot of Phish shows when we were engaged and dating, but now her one show of the year is New Year’s Eve, which she loves because of the pageantry of it. We’ve been to a couple of them with Katy Tur and her husband. Neither my wife nor her husband are big Phish fans but we’ve done a couple of them together, which is a blessing.
In The Hill to Die On, you make the point that Congress is essentially comprised of 535 class presidents. Is it challenging to negotiate that terrain?
It’s great for me but it’s a challenge for the leadership to negotiate because 535 people come to D.C. every year and think that they’re the smartest, sharpest person on planet earth. They’ve all negotiated these elections and gotten through their primaries, and they’re all hot to trot in their towns. But then they’re all put in a room with a bunch of other people who have all just done the same thing. And, at the end of the day, they’re all trying to get things done and gain power. Early on in my life, my dad told me a maxim that has stuck with me: “Politicians are looking to get power, keep power and increase power.” That’s what these people are trying to do every day. So that’s kind of the lens through which I view politics.
You’re out there regularly reporting news that could upset the equilibrium of someone looking to maintain or increase power. Yet you also need to maintain relationships with all of these folks. How does that play out?
I think that, for the most part, politicians are pretty cognizant of their shortcomings. So if you write something about their shortcomings, as long as you give them a chance to weigh in on the matter and give their side of the story, it’s not going to be dispositive toward your relationship with them.
When I first got into the business, I covered John Boehner’s speakership at the beginning of this Republican revolution, of sorts. He was a very weak Speaker at times, and we wrote that. But I would say, as long as you’re upfront about what you’re going to write about people, they’re generally fine.
Anna Palmer, John Bresnahan and I have all been doing this a long time. So, when we write something, people know that we’re putting thought into what we are saying and that we are writing from experience.
People respect you when you’re honest and upfront about what you’re going to do. If you’re going to write negative, or write something critical about someone, just give them a chance to weigh in.
You’re also an NBC News contributor. On Jan. 6, you were an embedded reporter sharing live accounts from that windowless room where you often do remotes.
Yes, the Periodical Press Gallery. It’s on the third floor of the Capitol. There are different galleries for different kinds of reporters. The Periodical Gallery is traditionally where Time and Newsweek used to sit, while the Daily Gallery, is for the big newspapers. I’ve been in the Periodical Gallery since 2009, initially with Politico. We’re still members, although, presumably, we should be in the Daily Gallery. It’s a very strange room with no windows, as you note.
It’s also a couple hundred feet from the House floor so, during the insurrection on Jan. 6, it was a scary experience. We were thinking, “How the hell do we take the big press sign off the door?” The door was closed and we could hear banging. All the reporters were saying to each other, “What do we do?” My response was, “We just need to be quiet and turn the lights out.”
The famous photo that you see of the glass breaking—I was on my way to the bathroom and I was like, “Oh my God, people are coming into the building.” I have a video that I posted at some point of people breaking in. My initial thought was, “Oh, my God, we gotta get out of here.” The Capitol has always felt like the safest place in the world. But we weren’t taken out of there until like 5 or 6 p.m. We were so close to everything that it wasn’t safe to get us out. It was very scary and it was just three days into our new company. So it was an awful experience.
In mid-February, while you were caught up in the Impeachment trial, you also made time to check out the Wolf Bros stream. Did that provide a release for you given the stress of delivering all that exhaustive coverage?
While I am working out at about 6 a.m., I’ll watch live music videos on YouTube. Luckily, sometimes when I wake up early enough, many of the feeds are still up there before they’re taken down. [Laughs.]
But it’s such a massive presence in my life that I don’t necessarily think of it as a release. One of the ways that I bonded with my dad as a kid was through seeing live music with him. I’ve told my wife a million times that my son is getting to a Phish show in the next year. He’s three.
I don’t think I could accurately or adequately encapsulate how much live music is a constant presence in my life. It drives my wife absolutely crazy that all I want to do is watch old YouTubes of ‘97-‘98 Phish shows, instead of the Netflix shows that she wants to watch. But it’s a huge release and a relief.
I just can’t wait to get back to a concert. I’ve been reliving moments in my concert history. Every day I go to the Relisten app and see what shows took place on that day in history; it’s my own way of experiencing live music now. There are very few days in history where you can’t find a show that corresponds with that date and I’ll listen to that show on my run.
I tell my wife that I will never take another show for granted. She probably won’t like to hear this, but I’m going to be so much more eager and willing to go to shows—even if that means taking a late flight or an early flight. I can’t wait to live those experiences again and have my kids experience them with me.
