An American rock band formed and led by Phil Lesh, bassist of the Grateful Dead.

Phil & Friends is not a traditional group in that several different lineups of musicians have played under the name, including groups featuring members of Phish, Little Feat and the Zen Tricksters.

The Phil & Friends concept takes the music of the Grateful Dead (and an ever-increasing number of other influences, including Bob Dylan, Traffic, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Gov't Mule, the Allman Brothers, etc.) and explores and interprets it in new ways. Through the period known as the Quintet years (see below), a Phil & Friends show was often focussed on harder, faster rock than that which the Grateful Dead played, thanks in large part to Warren Haynes' and Jimmy Herring's Southern rock style. However, all of the incarnations of Phil & Friends have followed a trend of reinterpreting the Grateful Dead's massive body of work and all have been extremely adept at the long, exploratory jams that were a trademark of the Dead. Phil & Friends has been acclaimed for giving new life to the Grateful Dead's material, bringing in new styles and innovations, while at the same time remaining loyal to the original music and the original fans. It is this melding of musical influences that has given them extremely wide appeal not only among old Deadheads, but the modern-day fans of other jam bands as well. Phil & Friends has continued the Grateful Dead's tradition of allowing fans to record concerts and trade these recordings freely and has also provided free soundboard recordings of many concerts through their website.

The most permanent of the Phil Lesh & Friends lineups, known as the Phil Lesh Quintet, played on a mostly-regular basis from September 2000 until December 2003. The members of this incarnation were Lesh, Warren Haynes (guitar & vocals), Jimmy Herring (guitar), Rob Barraco (keyboards) and John Molo (drums). This unit released an album, There and Back Again, on Columbia Records in 2002.

The latest formation of Phil & Friends, including Lesh, Larry Campbell (guitar, mandolin, fiddle), Jackie Greene (vocals and guitar), Steve Molitz (keyboards) and John Molo (drums), debuted in September 2007 in Santa Barbara, California.

On 4 February 2008, Phil & Friends joined Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, along with Barry Sless and Ratdog guitarist Mark Karan, for a concert called 'Deadheads for Obama', in support of Barack Obama's presidential campaign. The show was the first time that Weir, Hart and Lesh had played together since 2004. Even more recently, the band performed the final shows at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, California, with Weir sitting in for a run of 5 nights that included sets of the Grateful Dead's first few albums.