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As the saying goes, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” and while BERTHA: Grateful Drag does look pretty different from the group they’re paying tribute to, you can judge this band by the covers they perform (if you can use that term when it comes to the Grateful Dead’s music).
The seven-piece outfit out of Nashville, billed as the “world’s first Grateful Dead drag band,” brings together queer and allied artists to play the music of the Grateful Dead. BERTHA comes to The Guild Theatre on June 11.
One of BERTHA’s members is returning home to the Peninsula — and to the area where the Grateful Dead got their start. Alex Jordan grew up in San Mateo County, where his father was a music teacher and he was raised in a household where he was always listening to music.
“So it just seemed very natural, and pretty much like exactly what I wanted to do from the get-go,” he recalled.
These days, the multi-instrumentalist splits his time between Nashville and the Bay Area, coming back here for one or two weeks at a time for residencies, such as at Club Fox, including a show on June 18.
“The way I describe it to people is, my car is in Tennessee,” he said.
His latest work as a solo artist is the roots album “Queen Kerosene,” produced by Grammy-winning producer and Los Lobos member Steve Berlin and released in 2024. When he’s not touring with BERTHA or performing other solo gigs, he’s at work on several new live releases and an EP of original songs that he describes as a ’70s homage.
Jordan already knew some of BERTHA’s members from his Nashville work and said he bonded with band member Melody Walker as a fellow Trekkie, but he became part of the band through his work with Grateful Guitars, a nonprofit organization that helps musicians with gear and supports music in schools, he said.
BERTHA reached out to Grateful Guitars, looking for support for a show in Berkeley. After Jordan set up the gear for the band, they asked him if he wanted to sit in for a song — with the condition that he would get outfitted in drag first.
“It was just so much fun, and it was at the UC Theater, and there were like 900 people there, and everyone was really having a great time,” Jordan said of the show. “So they caught wind a month or two later that I was moving to Nashville, and asked if I could cover some gigs on the keys, and covering some gigs turned into a full-time gig with them.”
BERTHA takes its moniker from the Grateful Dead song of the same name. Each member uses a variation on “Bertha” for their drag names that gives a true family vibe to the outfit, including “Mommy Bertha,” “Daddy Bertha” and “Big Sissy Bertha.” Jordan said that he and drummer Justin Vorp, who are “the twins in the back” are still settling on whether their drag names will include “twins” or “cousins.”
Jordan plays guitar, piano and Hammond B3 organ. With BERTHA, his focus is on the keyboard.
“I’ve historically been a guitar player in Grateful Dead music, and so I’ve had to learn a lot of things I didn’t already know, but on music I was fairly comfortable with. So it’s been really, really fun,” Jordan said.
In fact, he had a chance to get to know the Grateful Dead’s music and their unique performance styles pretty well, playing with band members Phil Lesh and Bob Weir.
“I would say that most Deadheads listen to Grateful Dead music, and most of us frame things from the perspective of (Jerry) Garcia’s playing, and it was not really what I thought it was. As soon as I was playing with those guys, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s so much more going on. I gotta re-listen to this stuff.’ And, of course, I was playing with them in their later years, but they were still them,” he said.
“My first time playing with Phil, we were just warming up before the show on a little jam, and I played a little figure, and he played a little figure back at me, and I played one back at him, and after a second, I went, ‘I don’t know who’s leading who,’ and I realized that he just (had) an endless capability of hearing things and resequencing things,” Jordan said. “So you have to put ideas out there, and he was going to challenge what was going on at all times — as soon as something felt comfortable, he was ready to maybe make it a little different than it was.”
He described a similar experience while playing with Bob Weir.
“It was really interesting, because I couldn’t tell if he was listening and responding to what we were doing, or if he was so far ahead of us in terms of where the idea was going, that I just wasn’t caught up yet,” he recalled.
“I don’t know to this day, but it was really informative, because I realized that the music has this constant feeling of ‘anything can happen,’ and it’s not that anything will happen, it’s just that it has to feel like there’s an endless possibility, and that was a really cool thing to experience in my mid-20s.”
It’s that free-wheeling sense of openness and creativity that drag and the Grateful Dead’s music have in common, despite their differences on the surface, Jordan noted. Drag might be famous for an abundance of sequins and colorful makeup, while the Grateful Dead’s members — as well as most of the bands that play their music – are better known for sporting T-shirts and jeans. But whether glammed-up or casual, it’s all part of creative expression.
“The Grateful Dead’s music is always about self-expression and independence within community, so on a musical level, like I said about playing with Phil and Bob, they weren’t going to change anything for the sake of playing with anyone else, they’re just going to play how they play, and it’s a collective of individuals making something that they couldn’t make as an individual,” Jordan said.
“But they’re not trying to homogenize, they’re trying to be unique, and that is an important quality in a community to think about people not trying to be like someone else but really just embracing who you are, how you are, what you do, and do it in a way that is not affecting other people in a negative way, but is allowing other people to be inspired to be themselves.”
Daddy Bertha helped Jordan put together his first drag look, and now that he knows what to do, he said he enjoys coming up with a different eyeshadow look every night. His favorite drag look is a red sequined jumpsuit with winged sleeves and makeup to complement it, with winged eyeliner and what he calls “phoenix” eyeshadow, in reds and oranges.
BERTHA’s setlist changes with every show and the band doesn’t really have any go-to songs – not even the one that gave the band its name.
“It’s always fun when we break out ‘Bertha,’ which is not every show, and it’s fun to sing the title song, if you will, but that’s probably the closest we ever get to a signature song,” he said.
Jordan said that the band is always tweaking and perfecting its music and that more than anything, audiences can expect “just carefree fun.”
“It’s rare to see someone not smiling, and you can expect really high-quality singing, really high-quality musicianship. A lot of people show up thinking that we’re going to be a karaoke band, which is absolutely hilarious to us, because we rehearse more than any Grateful Dead band I’ve ever been in. It’s the LGBT community — it’s really this supportive, free group, and everyone’s really lovely and respectful, and just having fun.”
The band raises funds for area organizations, and the beneficiary of the June 11 show will be The Billy DeFrank Center LGBTQ+ Center. Bay Area-based drag queen Empress Astara will also be featured in the performance.
BERTHA: Grateful Drag performs June 11, doors at 7 p.m., at The Guild Theatre, 949 El Camino Real, Menlo Park; Tickets are $59-$82; guildtheatre.com.
