April 1972: Bob Weir Interview

THE DEAD COME ALIVE

It's taken a long time for the Dead to get themselves back over here. They probably made it more by good luck than good judgment. Their camp is as diverse and unpredictable as any under the sun – but there must be some sort of magical karma guarding them for they always seem to pull through.
The Dead have brought a large family of 43 friends with them on this visit.
And so it was hard to find a private comer at their hotel to speak to guitarist Bob Weir, writes Danny Holloway. But after settling down, we talked of Keith Godchaux, the new member, as well as the music and life of the Grateful Dead.
Reports of their London Wembley concerts have been very favourable. It would be a good
idea, feels Holloway, if you could catch a performance while they're here.

HOLLOWAY: What was the reason for Keith coming in on keyboards?

WEIR: I think it happened like this. Pigpen got sick and we were about to do a tour, so we needed somebody. And just about that time, Garcia had met, and I think worked, with Keith in San Francisco.
We've always been looking for somebody, really. Pigpen's not really a virtuoso keyboard player – that's not exactly what he does with us. So Garcia suggested we give Keith a listen, and he sounded good to everybody, so we just worked him in.
It was a short notice, but he was incredibly adept. He picked up on everything fast. That was one indication of how it worked good, and another was how well he could pick up on feelings that we played.
I mean, he picked up on really minute subtle differences. Every one of us was mind blown by how well he fitted into the whole musical scene we've conglomerated over the years.

When you first started you seemed to have a hard time putting down on record what you were all about. Are you more satisfied now?

It's getting better. As we learn what we can do in a studio, we start working with the studios in mind – rather than simply playing our music. And we're finding that we play different kinds of music for different situations. At first, we didn't know that you can gear to a studio. We're learning to do that a lot more now.

Looking back, do you consider yourself involved with the San Francisco scene any more?

Well, I more or less consider myself involved with the world, musically. There's a lot of cross-fertilisation among musicians in Marin County where we live. And I guess you could call it the San Francisco scene, because the nearest big city is San Francisco and we do most of our recording there. But there's no specifically localised thing that I consider myself a part of. Just music in general, really.

How do you feel about your name being mentioned synonymously with the 1967 San Francisco scene? That's what I meant really.

Well, it's history, it's blown over. It's not a reality to me. It used to be fun. I used to feel like a part of it. It was a flash – a good scene – but it went away. We're all a lot more mature now. We're all the same people and we're still all great friends, but we were kids having a party back then. Now, we're older kids doing something that older kids do. It's different.

There's a feeling among some people that the Grateful Dead are a social phenomenon. Do you think this detracts from your music?

If they start overlooking the music and delve into the social phenomenon we seem to be, then they're off on the wrong trip. As far as our social situation is concerned, we live in a straightforward way.
We like to get a lot of people involved in what we're doing and it seems to work out. So we have a lot of people working with us who we're responsible for feeding. But at the same time, they're responsible for helping us to push forward.
As far as any philosophy is concerned, any one of us can rap for hours about the way we feel. (Garcia's particularly apt at it.). But apparently, the more you talk, the more people consider you philosophic. Then you start getting into being a social phenomenon more than a musical one. It's just that people listen to whatever they hear, and if Garcia doesn't have a guitar in his hands, he'll rap. Any one of us does that.

Do you think music's going to remain the prime factor in so many people's lives? There is so much intensity and competition.

It's getting competitive. That means you must be either original or really good to survive. It's sure Darwinism I guess. Throughout history, there has never been an excess of really top musicians at any one time. But people have got to have music. Most everybody has to have it, and here we are to give it to them.
Rather than asking: is there life after death? I think a real good question is: Is there music after death? I think a lot of people feel that way. Music represents a whole side of the human manifestation that we just can't live without. Nobody can live without it. Not even the Chinese.

Do you play many dates in a year?

Well, I'll tell you somethin'. When we got here, all the people in that big country show (the C and W festival at Wembley) were here at the hotel. And I was talking to a lot of those guys and we were talking about how many nights a year they work. I was telling them we work 50 nights a year, and they were amazed because they work 150 to 200 nights a year and more. I got the hint that they thought we were really lazy and just laying back and making money off a big name.
Then it occurred to me to ask them how long they play every night... 45 minutes. Well, we play about three hours a night, so it works out to about the same. You can't carry on to 150 or 200 nights a year while playing three or four hours a night and expect to survive.

(by Danny Holloway, from the New Musical Express, April 15, 1972)