Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, y'all, it's justin Richmond here. I just want
Speaker 1: to let everyone know that this episode of Broken Record
Speaker 1: is recorded and produced long before the coronavirus outbreak. It's
Speaker 1: with Bob Weir from The Grateful Dead, and since we
Speaker 1: record of this episode, his Wolf Bros. Tour has been postponed.
Speaker 1: Hopefully it doesn't also wind up effecting the summer's Dead
Speaker 1: and Company dates. We'll have to wait and see, but
Speaker 1: we do plan to keep putting out episodes of the
Speaker 1: podcast that will hopefully be a bit of a reprieve
Speaker 1: for everyone who's either continuing to work or practicing social distancing.
Speaker 1: We hope everyone out there stays safe and stays healthy,
Speaker 1: and we hope you enjoy Rick's conversation with The Grateful
Speaker 1: Dead's Bob Weir. Out of all the original members of
Speaker 1: The Grateful Dead, Bob Weir has had the longest and
Speaker 1: most productive trip of all the Dead. Formed in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area in the mid sixties, touring relentlessly until Jerry
Speaker 1: garcia Is death in ninety five, they were able to
Speaker 1: keep the audience on their toes throughout their thirty year
Speaker 1: career with experimental improvised live sets that stretched on for
Speaker 1: hours at a time. Every show was designed to be
Speaker 1: a once in a lifetime experience. As we're hearing Bob's
Speaker 1: conversation with Rick Rubin, the band was never focused on
Speaker 1: making studio albums or writing perfect songs. It was always
Speaker 1: about playing live and seeing where the music would take them.
Speaker 1: It's an objective that has served them well. There's a
Speaker 1: rabid selection of Deadheads who trade recordings of live shows
Speaker 1: to this day, a tradition the band started fostering decades ago.
Speaker 1: As a result, Bob credits the band with creating viral
Speaker 1: marketing long before the Internet. In addition to the Grateful Dead,
Speaker 1: Bob is also toured with a number of offshoot bands,
Speaker 1: including Dead and Company with John Mayer and his latest project,
Speaker 1: Wolf Brows with Don Was who were on tour Now.
Speaker 1: If there's anyone keeping the Dead alive, it's Bob Weir,
Speaker 1: and after all these years, he's still just playing in
Speaker 1: the band. Bob starts off by Italian Rick about a
Speaker 1: recent dream whereas oldfer and Jerry visits him with this
Speaker 1: song that materializes into a giant, playful sheep dog. It's
Speaker 1: super trippy, but what else would you expect? This is
Speaker 1: broken record line of notes for the digital Age. I'm
Speaker 1: justin Mitchman. Here's Bob. We are in conversation with Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin from Shangola. Do you write songs all the time?
Speaker 1: What's your process? Like, there's stuff going on, stuff going
Speaker 1: on in my head all the time, and right now
Speaker 1: I'm kind of writing all the time, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's nice. You know it comes out very very slowly,
Speaker 1: slower than a slug in a trance. But but you know,
Speaker 1: I keep at it. Yeah. In the past, he worked
Speaker 1: a lot with a lyricist, and I understand he passed away.
Speaker 1: Is that how do you fill that gap or how
Speaker 1: do you imagine it working going forward? Well, I've always
Speaker 1: you know, I was working with John Barlow, the lyricistist,
Speaker 1: but I always wrote like half of the lyrics, or
Speaker 1: usually wrote half alerts and would your half come first
Speaker 1: and he would finish them. Generally speaking, Yeah, generally speaking,
Speaker 1: I would come up with whatever it was that married
Speaker 1: that lyric to that music understood and uh, and you
Speaker 1: would have already the framework melodically of yeah, the phrasing yeah,
Speaker 1: or you know, some big notion of that. Yes, would
Speaker 1: would how often would a song change from the initial
Speaker 1: spirit when writing it. Sometimes not at all, and sometimes
Speaker 1: you get way different. You know, A song is I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna die right in here. A song is
Speaker 1: a life form. It's a you know, an alien life form.
Speaker 1: It's organic. Um. I actually I had a dream, um
Speaker 1: a few weeks back, my old pal Jerry came to
Speaker 1: me in the dream and introduced to me a song,
Speaker 1: you know, and the song came in and it was
Speaker 1: like it was kind of it looked kind of like
Speaker 1: a great, big room sized etherial sheep dog, you know,
Speaker 1: it was big and friendly and you know, came up
Speaker 1: and sniffed me and I batted a little bit, and
Speaker 1: it came back at me, and it was it was
Speaker 1: interactive and and and then we you know, then we
Speaker 1: started playing and singing the song, and then we we
Speaker 1: were in it. We were in the song part of it.
Speaker 1: We were part of that functioning organism. Yes, And then
Speaker 1: the dream sort of trailed off into whatever, into wherever
Speaker 1: dreams go. But um, that just confirmed my notion that
Speaker 1: I've held for the longest time that there a song
Speaker 1: as a live form, and it comes and visits us,
Speaker 1: and it comes through certain people for whatever its reasons.
Speaker 1: Are yes and or whatever its attractions are and yes
Speaker 1: and uh. And when it's time for it to come,
Speaker 1: it's going to come, when it comes through you or
Speaker 1: through someone else, it's coming. Yeah, it's coming to this
Speaker 1: world and it's coming to a sniff around and visit
Speaker 1: and uh and and hang. Yes. And you know those
Speaker 1: those characters and those songs, you know, they come and
Speaker 1: they tell their stories and they're they're you know, they
Speaker 1: just want to be heard. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. When
Speaker 1: you woke up, did you remember the song? Uh? Not
Speaker 1: very well. It was a jazz ballad. Um, we were singing.
Speaker 1: We were doing a duet on it. When you don't
Speaker 1: hear many of those, but but in this particular case,
Speaker 1: you know, jazz ballad. Yeah. Do songs often come to
Speaker 1: you in dreams? A lot of them? Yeah, that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know the good ones. Yeah, it's what a gift.
Speaker 1: I Sometimes I'll have a song come into dream, but
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to keep them, you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard for them to hang around, right. Yeah, you gotta
Speaker 1: get right on it. Yeah. And what I what I've
Speaker 1: found is I've sort of made a deal with my
Speaker 1: a little deal with with my muse. Yes, where you know,
Speaker 1: no matter what time it day, no matter what I'm
Speaker 1: getting up, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pick up my guitar. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, uh
Speaker 1: get enough of it down so that you know, otherwise
Speaker 1: I'm afraidile's taught visiting. Yeah. And with the way you
Speaker 1: would get it down be to record something or might
Speaker 1: it meet generally phone makes it really easy these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you'll sing it into the phone, yeah, or sing
Speaker 1: and play it into the phone. How did um, how
Speaker 1: would set lists work in the band? Well, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: The way the Dead the Grateful Dead used to do
Speaker 1: it is uh, Um, Jerry and I, you know, I'd
Speaker 1: be his journ to start or my turn to start,
Speaker 1: and and take turns back and forth. Yeah, we'd take place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then well you know, and we'd figure out the
Speaker 1: first couple of tunes that we were going to do,
Speaker 1: maybe first three, and then we'd generally come up with
Speaker 1: what we were going to wrap the set up with,
Speaker 1: uh says right here on paper. And then and then
Speaker 1: while Jerry was singing, I had all the time on
Speaker 1: earth to to figure out what I wanted to do next,
Speaker 1: And often as not, I'd try to coax that tune
Speaker 1: out of the one we were playing when when it
Speaker 1: was done, to route that one up, And then he'd
Speaker 1: be doing the same thing when I was singing. And
Speaker 1: would they always come or did you did you have
Speaker 1: a list of things to draw from or you just
Speaker 1: always have him in that toward the end, you know,
Speaker 1: toward the end, it was handy to have a list
Speaker 1: because there were so many. Yeah, the repertoire got pretty
Speaker 1: expansive and uh, and we tried to stay up on
Speaker 1: all the two we brought around, so you know, we
Speaker 1: have you know, the way we did things. We you know,
Speaker 1: we never we got around to a tune maybe once
Speaker 1: a week. Yes, How would cover songs work their way
Speaker 1: into the set? Uh? Sometimes they just came up, you know,
Speaker 1: and a signature, a look or something like that would
Speaker 1: oh we're playing that, Okay, here goes nothing. I noted
Speaker 1: that there are some covers that would work their way
Speaker 1: into this, work their way around often, you know, for
Speaker 1: a long period of time. Are there any that that
Speaker 1: just didn't work? Oh? Plenty, plenty of them. We try
Speaker 1: on one who I think we tried Pigpin tried to
Speaker 1: sing and this is a man's world. Yeah. I think
Speaker 1: we actually did that twice, just to make sure that
Speaker 1: it was that bad, because in theory that sounds like
Speaker 1: that could have been good. Yeah. Yeah, you know, we
Speaker 1: have no control over those. Can't never tell. You never tell.
Speaker 1: How different were the members of the band, would you
Speaker 1: say from each other? Like music wise, taste wise, Well,
Speaker 1: we had pig Pen who was very, very funky. He
Speaker 1: was all about blues and not much hells. And then
Speaker 1: we had Phil who was into classically. He was classically
Speaker 1: trained and uh and and sort of sort of moonlighted
Speaker 1: in the jazz world. Mickey was a martial drummer. He uh,
Speaker 1: he played martial music. He was a national champion rudimentary
Speaker 1: snarre drummer. So he played one of those big field
Speaker 1: drums and uh. While emerging Billy's I finally figured out
Speaker 1: who Billy's a major influence was and he never he
Speaker 1: I pointed it out to him. He allowed, as I
Speaker 1: was spot on, was there was a certain era of
Speaker 1: Ray Charles that that drummer. Yeah, and Billy Billy captured
Speaker 1: that lilt. And I don't think he I don't think
Speaker 1: he even knew he did it. I don't think he
Speaker 1: was thinking consciously doing or consciously attempting to do that.
Speaker 1: It just happened, yes, And then Jerry was Jerry was
Speaker 1: all over the place. He loved, he loved, but his
Speaker 1: I think his deepest love was probably a string band music,
Speaker 1: country music, acoustic based like like Appalachian would you say
Speaker 1: or not necessarily? I think Appalachian music, though he was
Speaker 1: a huge fan of George Jones, Hank Williams, um, Jerry
Speaker 1: Lee Lewis for that matter. And what would you say?
Speaker 1: You're where were your how would you describe your foundational taste?
Speaker 1: A little bit of all of it up. I grew
Speaker 1: up with the rock and roll radio station on most
Speaker 1: of the term. But if there wasn't any there were
Speaker 1: two rock and roll stations, and if if I didn't
Speaker 1: like what was on either of them, I'd I'd go
Speaker 1: fishing and christ you know, back in back in the sixties, Um,
Speaker 1: if you went to a classical station, they played they
Speaker 1: played modern classical music. They don't anymore. They all played
Speaker 1: baroque music these days pretty much. I guess that's what
Speaker 1: they figure the audiences want to hear, and so I
Speaker 1: don't much tune into those stations anymore. But and then
Speaker 1: and then there were the jazz stations or the or
Speaker 1: the country stations, and so I, you know, I I
Speaker 1: shopped around it all. You know. It was the coolest
Speaker 1: stuff my brother turned me onto. It was was on
Speaker 1: Sundays and sometimes on a given evening, you get the uh,
Speaker 1: the black preachers, and they they got cranked. I think
Speaker 1: they really got cranked up. And uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: I found that that that's music to me absolutely And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they'd find a theme and they'd work it
Speaker 1: and uh and and they have another theme and they'd
Speaker 1: worked out and they'd work them together, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: so I fell in love with that stut too beautiful.
Speaker 1: And then the full boom happened, which are used to
Speaker 1: call but the big folks here, and uh and a
Speaker 1: guitar was portable and uh you could you could use
Speaker 1: it to accompany yourself singing, and you could you could
Speaker 1: just tell story after story after story with your with
Speaker 1: your voice, with your hands. And I found my home.
Speaker 1: How how would you say your relationship to music has
Speaker 1: changed over the course of your life. He's gotten deeper,
Speaker 1: you know, I wish I say that I say that
Speaker 1: pretty easily. Though. Let me think about that, because you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't all that deep when I was a kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or I don't think of myself as having been all
Speaker 1: that deep when I was a kid. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, when I was a kid, well, what mattered
Speaker 1: to me mattered a lot, and so I guess I
Speaker 1: was kind of deep. And so I won't I can't
Speaker 1: say that the music the music has always been. I'll
Speaker 1: just say that the music has always been where I live, Yes,
Speaker 1: and you know the rest of the rest of this world,
Speaker 1: I'm just visiting, yes, completely interested. Do you remember the
Speaker 1: thing that made you want to start playing? I think
Speaker 1: it might have been seeing Elbows on TV where I
Speaker 1: was seven or eight or nine, something like that. You know,
Speaker 1: and look at that guy. He's Wow, he's into it,
Speaker 1: he's having fun and he's doing well. Yes, he's making
Speaker 1: real music, and I can relate to that, and uh,
Speaker 1: I gotta do that. Yeah, imagine seeing that as a
Speaker 1: kid for the first time. It was so outside of
Speaker 1: anything else going on in culture. It must have just
Speaker 1: been like a real revelation. Yeah, it was, well, it
Speaker 1: was you know, I couldn't I couldn't feature anything else.
Speaker 1: You know, I was seven years old maybe eight, um,
Speaker 1: you know, so there's as strong as strong desire to
Speaker 1: be a cowboy at that at that age. But I
Speaker 1: figured I could at least work two together. Yeah, kind of,
Speaker 1: you kind of did. When the when the band started,
Speaker 1: I think of the early days of the band that's
Speaker 1: primarily electric, which was which was sort of what was
Speaker 1: going on at the time. Is that? Is that not accurate? Actually?
Speaker 1: You know, the band that turned into The Grateful Dead
Speaker 1: was Mother mccree's Uptown Jug Champions. And we were a
Speaker 1: jug man. We were a damn good one. Wow. Um
Speaker 1: we you know, a pig then made us authentic, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, because he was nothing but authentic. Yes, he
Speaker 1: was just born a couple of decades too late and
Speaker 1: in a white body, but the rest of it was
Speaker 1: authentic and uh and and Jerry was an apt student
Speaker 1: of the of of whatever musical vein he was he
Speaker 1: was diving into. And I applied myself. And so the
Speaker 1: three of us were the core of that of that
Speaker 1: drug band. And we had a sort of a uh
Speaker 1: we had folks come and go in the rest of
Speaker 1: the band. And then that band turned into uh, turned
Speaker 1: into the Grateful Dead after about a year. But we
Speaker 1: that first year we were playing. You know, what we
Speaker 1: excelled at was the old jug band music. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if you play stuff on play music on,
Speaker 1: but we could play, Yes, should I pull something up now?
Speaker 1: We could listen and talk? Sure? How about new Minglewood blues.
Speaker 1: Well there's a hundred Grateful Dead versions. See if there's it,
Speaker 1: there's Noah Lewis jug band. Yeah, that's it, that's it. Magnificent,
Speaker 1: that's glorious, that's perfect. It's interesting that jug band music.
Speaker 1: Those those musicians were, they were the guys. The river
Speaker 1: boats had the minstrel musicians. They were the minstrel musicians.
Speaker 1: And they do that stuff on the deck of a
Speaker 1: boat for tips and stuff like that, and I guess
Speaker 1: it's basically busting and uh. And then when they come
Speaker 1: to a town, they'd hop off the boat and everything
Speaker 1: was portable. They just they just go hit a street
Speaker 1: corner and h and play in the dark count and
Speaker 1: they'd be like a washboard and a jug washboard a
Speaker 1: tin jug because a tin jug, yeah, people think of
Speaker 1: the porcelain jugs, but those those only make one note.
Speaker 1: A tin jug. It sounds like a tuba. I see,
Speaker 1: and I see, I know. I think I just learned
Speaker 1: something hearing that that that I never made the connection before.
Speaker 1: But in old country music kind of umpah baselines, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's maybe it came from the nature of the
Speaker 1: jug because you can only kind of you can only
Speaker 1: get you know, the rhythm of it, Yeah, to be
Speaker 1: kind of umpah. Yeah, yeah, that's true. There's not a
Speaker 1: lot of not a lot of percussion on and you
Speaker 1: don't have so many choices of notes. Even you could
Speaker 1: get more than one note. It probably wasn't a wide range. No,
Speaker 1: you kind of you were you know, you had to yeah, narrow,
Speaker 1: narrow range. Yeah, how would you change if you were
Speaker 1: playing a jug? How would you change nutes? I see,
Speaker 1: just the sound the sound you made as well? What
Speaker 1: changed it? I played the jug. I also played the
Speaker 1: washtubool occasional guitar. Yeah, yeah, and that out amazing. And
Speaker 1: then how did it? How did that band morph into
Speaker 1: the Dead? Um? So, after about six months of playing
Speaker 1: in that band, um Jerry wanted to take a sabbatical
Speaker 1: that summer, and so he left. He had to find
Speaker 1: somebody to take his beginning in intermediate intermediate students. So
Speaker 1: he got me to do it. And uh and so
Speaker 1: I had a job at the at the at the
Speaker 1: music store, doing the Morgan music and um. And then
Speaker 1: when he came back, I kept a bunch of those
Speaker 1: students and he just concentrated on his advanced students and uh.
Speaker 1: And so we were both working there and pig Pen
Speaker 1: would come in and uh, Pigin would sweep the floor
Speaker 1: is uh. We were all working at the at the
Speaker 1: music store by you know, by the end of the summer.
Speaker 1: And uh and the son of the owner of the
Speaker 1: music store wanted to be in a rock and roll band.
Speaker 1: So so uh when made a little deal with him,
Speaker 1: you can play the bass, um, and we'll uh, well,
Speaker 1: we'll go be a rock and roll band. And that
Speaker 1: lasted for four or five months. And then the guy
Speaker 1: he really wasn't going to be He wasn't cut out
Speaker 1: for it. And uh, Jerry knew this guy Phil from
Speaker 1: I don't know where, from from a party I think
Speaker 1: they met at and uh and you figured the guy's
Speaker 1: a trumpet player. But the bass, if you're going to
Speaker 1: pick up an instrument, the one you're gonna be quick
Speaker 1: as to pick up is going to be base and
Speaker 1: so um, he just sort of conscripted him. Yeah and
Speaker 1: uh and uh went to work. Yeah, he's an unusually
Speaker 1: great bass player. I wonder if it's because he started
Speaker 1: as a trumpet player. Well, he you know, he um,
Speaker 1: when he's playing, he's visualizing the he can read music
Speaker 1: and he's visualizing the music that we're all playing, and
Speaker 1: you know, in notes and staffs and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and in color. You know, when I'm when I'm playing,
Speaker 1: I also visualize the music. Um, but it's more an
Speaker 1: ethereal kind of deal. I just see lions and and
Speaker 1: uh and colors and stuff like that. Pre um pre acid.
Speaker 1: Did you see music that way? Yeah? I wasn't aware
Speaker 1: of it. Yes, but you know, you know, I think
Speaker 1: maybe the first time I took ASID, you know, I realized, okay,
Speaker 1: well you're hallucinating. But you always do that, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just oh yeah, okay, well that's what hallucinating hallucination is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I've been doing that for since I can remember. Yes,
Speaker 1: it just it just allowed you to recognize it was
Speaker 1: already happening. Yeah, we'll be right back. After this quick break.
Speaker 1: We're back with Rick Rubin's conversation with Bob Weir. When
Speaker 1: you think of the Dead, do you think of the
Speaker 1: music over the years in phases or do you think
Speaker 1: of it as one thing? Well? Both, How would you
Speaker 1: define the phases as you were experiencing it? Well, there
Speaker 1: was there was pret acid test, and then on Jerry's
Speaker 1: birthday in August first of nineteen sixty five, we all
Speaker 1: took it ausid except Pig Benny to read you never did,
Speaker 1: and right right about them, we fell into the acid
Speaker 1: test and things got way different real fast. And so
Speaker 1: there was that phase. And that phase lasted through our
Speaker 1: first record, which was I guess sixty seven. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so that was a couple of years there, sixty five
Speaker 1: to sixty seven, and we were well, actually that phase
Speaker 1: lasted a little longer, lasted through the late sixties where
Speaker 1: we were pretty pretty committed to experimentation that that was
Speaker 1: probably our focus. Then after that in the early seventies,
Speaker 1: and I guess it was right around the time that
Speaker 1: Crosby Stills in nash moved into northern California to Marine
Speaker 1: County and we started, you know, it just sort of
Speaker 1: rubbed off that those guys, those guys were song oriented.
Speaker 1: They thought you know, they weren't about planned they were
Speaker 1: about songs and the overall sound of it and uh
Speaker 1: and how it fell together. And um, particularly Jerry and
Speaker 1: I became enamored of that approach. So like Uncle John's
Speaker 1: band might have been around that time, Yeah, yeah, speak
Speaker 1: to that. Yeah and uh, and we started thinking in
Speaker 1: terms of songs. And I'm not sure that everybody in
Speaker 1: the band even to this day thinks of the material
Speaker 1: in terms of songs. You know, a song, you know
Speaker 1: all hailed the song and in capital in gold gold
Speaker 1: capital letters. Um, I'm not sure everybody is on that
Speaker 1: same page. And you know some of the guys are still,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, what's what's a song? A song as a
Speaker 1: set of Corey change isn't a melody that you play?
Speaker 1: You play through and uh and I'm I I started
Speaker 1: leaving that behind the song plays me around that time. Um,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting. The idea that not everybody in the
Speaker 1: band might be on the same page could lead to
Speaker 1: very interesting results. Well, yeah, that's that's that's you know,
Speaker 1: it keeps sayings interesting. Absolutely, you get different perspectives. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I don't know even had to asked this question. Was
Speaker 1: the band democratic, Like was it a democratic process. There was,
Speaker 1: so everybody had to say pure and simple and was
Speaker 1: it majority rules or would you know there was would
Speaker 1: there ever be a case where everybody likes something and
Speaker 1: one person really didn't like it and you would decide
Speaker 1: not to do it because they didn't like it. Every
Speaker 1: now and again, there was one gun I won't go
Speaker 1: into names. One one guy who was histed on on
Speaker 1: veto privilege. Yes, and I think that's a privilege. I
Speaker 1: don't think that's right. Yeah, um, but nonetheless we granted
Speaker 1: it to him. Yes. Um, I'm not sure that that
Speaker 1: was the best way to have gone about that. Yes,
Speaker 1: But aside from that, everything was democratic. The best idea
Speaker 1: usually went out. Jerry was real. I won't say forceful.
Speaker 1: It wasn't forceful at all, but he had a way
Speaker 1: of getting his ideas across so that people understood them.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I I like to think that I
Speaker 1: was also pretty good at that, you know, presenting a
Speaker 1: vision very quickly and uh and uh and succinctly and
Speaker 1: uh you know, you know, in a way that was
Speaker 1: palatable for the guys to pick it up. Yes. How
Speaker 1: did the audience taping start where the audience would tape
Speaker 1: the shows. Well, I started sample because Japanese started miniaturizing
Speaker 1: quality recording uh units. You know, I guess you were
Speaker 1: started with it. But but then you know, Sony and
Speaker 1: Panasonic and all those guys were making and um NACAMICI
Speaker 1: we're making really high quality recording units, and people just
Speaker 1: started bringing them to the h to h the gigs
Speaker 1: and recording the gigs. You know. At first, you know,
Speaker 1: they they'd have their you know, their microphone trees, you know,
Speaker 1: and they were, uh, they were causing a little bit
Speaker 1: of friction out in the audience because people didn't want
Speaker 1: to have to look peer around. Those things block people's views.
Speaker 1: So we we had to hurt them together into one place.
Speaker 1: And at that point our record company at the time,
Speaker 1: Wash was hammering us. You know, you got to shut
Speaker 1: this down. These guys are these they're recording your music
Speaker 1: and then they're not going to buy your records. And
Speaker 1: this came up. I remember one time in a you know,
Speaker 1: we had a board meeting. You know, we have to
Speaker 1: get together and in and decide all kinds of stuff,
Speaker 1: and one of the one of the issues was the
Speaker 1: record company Wash was insisting that we do something about
Speaker 1: this this taping phenomenon, and we kicked it around and
Speaker 1: decided we're, hey, we're not cops. Uh. And we wouldn't
Speaker 1: feel good about that because we know they wouldn't feel
Speaker 1: the audience wouldn't feel good about being shut down like that.
Speaker 1: So let's let's get them at least all in one
Speaker 1: place and so that they don't obstruct the view of
Speaker 1: the folks who weren't recording, and and just leave well
Speaker 1: enough alone. The was the record company was displeased about this,
Speaker 1: but it turned out real well because you know, they
Speaker 1: they made their tapes, they'd make one or two generations
Speaker 1: of duplicates and uh and pass them around all hand
Speaker 1: to hand, direct eye contact and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And uh. And we're credited with inventing viral marketing, yes,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're backed into it. Yes. And the fact that,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, it also most places to
Speaker 1: the strength of the band, the fact that it's so
Speaker 1: different from night Tonight that a recording that's made once
Speaker 1: every two years in a recording studio is only going
Speaker 1: to be that one day in the recording studio, whereas
Speaker 1: if it's different every day, And if you're a fan,
Speaker 1: I want to hear all that right, you can you
Speaker 1: can indulge all the sophist where you can summons to
Speaker 1: debate this dark star as opposed to this dark star.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating. It's also fascinating how the reality of the
Speaker 1: moods of the people playing it could so impact how
Speaker 1: the song, how the song is interpreted. Yeah, and um,
Speaker 1: and the audience gets that experience too, you know, really
Speaker 1: does change the car to changes wildly. Yeah, it feels
Speaker 1: like the the your contemporary bands slowly morphed into the
Speaker 1: ones that that continued into more traditional structured three minute songs,
Speaker 1: and their record sounded like what they made a record,
Speaker 1: and then they performed that record live and whereas your band,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, never really did that. It feels like
Speaker 1: it was always free and always open. It's just due
Speaker 1: to the personalities, you think. Yeah, it was our approach. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, if we were to if we if we
Speaker 1: were to try to do stuff, you know, out of road,
Speaker 1: just the way it was the way it was on
Speaker 1: the record tonight again for the four hundredth time. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd be up in a bill tower with a sniper's
Speaker 1: rival no time at all. Yeah, Um, I just I
Speaker 1: can't do that. I'm not gonna out for that. Um.
Speaker 1: And some folks too, some folks are more technicians. Um.
Speaker 1: But and that's where they get, you know, they you know,
Speaker 1: and they can bring a bunch of expert technique to
Speaker 1: to a song and this song will live just fun
Speaker 1: that way. But but that's not how we did it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that would be like the difference between classical
Speaker 1: and jazz, Like classical was more about playing the part
Speaker 1: as well as you could, and jazz was about, well,
Speaker 1: we have this theme that we're starting with and we're
Speaker 1: going to see where it goes and can go somewhere
Speaker 1: else every night, Yeah we we Ours was the jazzmo yeah,
Speaker 1: which is again maybe when you started, people were doing that,
Speaker 1: but that seemed to be a lost start, like like
Speaker 1: it if other than your band, there's not a lot
Speaker 1: of bands that continue doing that. Yeah. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: you have to be pretty gifted in that particular approach
Speaker 1: to pull it off. Not everybody was. They'd have their moments,
Speaker 1: but the safe thing to do was to uh, to
Speaker 1: practice and the only thing we practice was our approach. Yes,
Speaker 1: whereas other people practice the song, Yes, we can't do that,
Speaker 1: Yes we would like give it away. It has to
Speaker 1: happen in the moment. Yeah, amazing, it's an amazing stories.
Speaker 1: There's um it's so the trip is so unlike anything else.
Speaker 1: It's it's interesting to talk about it because it's just
Speaker 1: such a unique it's such a unique thing from the outside.
Speaker 1: I started as very much of a song person in
Speaker 1: my life, so it took me a long time to
Speaker 1: get into the band because it seemed more about playing
Speaker 1: than it seemed about songs. Until until later, until I
Speaker 1: understood more. Yeah, like I say, some of the guys
Speaker 1: in the band, and some of the louder ones in
Speaker 1: the band were about the playing and not about the song. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was How did it work out that you had
Speaker 1: two drummers? Long complicated story. I'm not sure anybody understands.
Speaker 1: Somebody went and heard I wasn't there that evening, but
Speaker 1: somebody went and heard Mickey playing at the Straight Theater
Speaker 1: on Haye Street. I think that's how it happened. Billy
Speaker 1: and they dragged Billy and Billy gott met him and
Speaker 1: they got to talking and let's try kicking kicking around
Speaker 1: with two drummers. Were there any other bands that had
Speaker 1: two drummers at that time. No, and I think well,
Speaker 1: at that point also we were listening to a bunch
Speaker 1: of Indian classical music, North Indian classical music, and and
Speaker 1: that's classical music, but it's h there's you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of improv that goes on in yes, and
Speaker 1: the rhythms are really complicated, and the rhythms are complicated,
Speaker 1: and so we you know, the rhythms were so complicated
Speaker 1: that it sort of expanded our awareness of what you
Speaker 1: can do with a rhythm. You know, how you can
Speaker 1: adjust this part, adjust that part, and then put an
Speaker 1: underlay it under this part. And it looked it just
Speaker 1: seemed to us that there was room for another drummer
Speaker 1: to go into some of those places. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I was ever really all all together sold on on
Speaker 1: the two drummers two drummers business, because it started to
Speaker 1: take it more in the direction of playing and less
Speaker 1: in the direction of songs. Yes from me, Yes, um,
Speaker 1: it definitely complicates things. Yeah, yeah, I remember in the
Speaker 1: there's the the Wrightful Dead movie, right, yeah, that and
Speaker 1: there's only one drummer in that. Yeah, and that seemed
Speaker 1: really good, you know, that was we were hot that
Speaker 1: was a good phase. Yeah, was it an interesting experience
Speaker 1: when like the touch of gray thing happened and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden you're have music on the radio and
Speaker 1: on MTV, and yeah that, you know, the predictable thing
Speaker 1: happened too. It took one of us out. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it took Brent out, you know, too much too soon.
Speaker 1: It's invariably doesn't work out. Yeah. Now we so so
Speaker 1: gradually and so slowly became famous that um, we were
Speaker 1: able to you know, remain yourselves, Yeah, remain ourselves, but
Speaker 1: were too much too soon. Phenomenon hit hit Brent because
Speaker 1: he hadn't he hadn't been through all that developmental face
Speaker 1: and it took him out. Wow, you'd been a banded
Speaker 1: twenty years at that point, more thirty thirty. It's it's
Speaker 1: really must have been a wild Yeah, just just so unusual.
Speaker 1: And I can't even say good or bad, just like
Speaker 1: what a new mention, It's like what a new direction,
Speaker 1: unplanned seemed like. But songs were good, well, the song
Speaker 1: as We're good And also we'd had them on stage
Speaker 1: for a while, so they'd they'd matured, they'd grown faces,
Speaker 1: I see, and they matured before you recorded them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh that we've been playing some of those songs for like,
Speaker 1: you know, five or six years. It was getting long
Speaker 1: about time to make a record. Yeah, we'll be right
Speaker 1: back with more from Bob Weir. After the break, we're
Speaker 1: back with Bob Weir. I think the thing that first
Speaker 1: pulled me, the thing that first made made me understand
Speaker 1: the band more interestingly, was more that that second folk phase.
Speaker 1: And I think it was the reckoning. When I heard that,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I I see my way in and
Speaker 1: through that. It allowed me to expand through the whole
Speaker 1: the whole world of the music. Well. Interestingly, while on
Speaker 1: the subject of the song as opposed to the playing
Speaker 1: um in Debtco, now the drummers are getting are going
Speaker 1: to get teleprompters so that right in front of them,
Speaker 1: right under their noses, they're going to be the lyrics
Speaker 1: of all the songs, because you know, your average your
Speaker 1: average seventeen year old in our audience probably knows more
Speaker 1: lyrics than world our songs than Yes, I think that's
Speaker 1: going to change our focus, could change, could change it dramatically. Yes,
Speaker 1: is John Mayer always in that band or sometimes well,
Speaker 1: when that band's playing, he's gonna. That's interesting. How did
Speaker 1: that work out? He's a great guitar player. He's an
Speaker 1: interesting combination. He went through his dead phase about I
Speaker 1: guess he hit that about five years ago. But he's
Speaker 1: John Mayer, so he can do something about that. Yes,
Speaker 1: and uh and uh I remember talking to him about it.
Speaker 1: We he was we we both kind of got into
Speaker 1: our dead phase at a similar time and we were
Speaker 1: sharing notes and so uh and a friend of a
Speaker 1: mutual friend of ours, Don was We got together in
Speaker 1: Don's office. Uh and uh John was downstairs working in
Speaker 1: the studio there and uh, I was visiting Donna. He said, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm going to go down and get to John John
Speaker 1: Mayer and uh he was real interested in what I
Speaker 1: what I was up to at that point. And uh,
Speaker 1: he had a TV show, the Late Late Show, I
Speaker 1: think it was a late night TV show that he
Speaker 1: was guest hosting, and he invited me to, uh to
Speaker 1: come and play on that and so I figured that
Speaker 1: was uh, you know, Keltner was on drums, So I figured, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna miss that opportunity. We uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we got there for the sound check and
Speaker 1: plugged in and they gave us two songs slots, and
Speaker 1: we plugged in and we started started playing. In a
Speaker 1: couple hours later, they said, okay, you guys are done
Speaker 1: with sound check. We're unplugging you now because because we
Speaker 1: just we started playing, we didn't stop. Yes, And so
Speaker 1: I figured, okay, well let's do something about this. Yes,
Speaker 1: and uh and he he was thinking the same thing.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, so cool, what a cool combination, and
Speaker 1: so great that the band it found a way to
Speaker 1: carry on. Yeah, well, the music music, you know, there's
Speaker 1: life there there. Yes, you know, there's absolutely, yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's a reason them and I can't
Speaker 1: think of another example of a band who have had
Speaker 1: so much impact, so much success, so much importance, so
Speaker 1: much love, yet never really connected as well on the
Speaker 1: record side as on the live side, is it. Do
Speaker 1: you think there's a reason for that. I've pondered this
Speaker 1: and was it ever a frustration or was it not
Speaker 1: an issue? Well? I like I like recording is um,
Speaker 1: but the recordings that we're kind of famous for, our
Speaker 1: live recordings, Yes, and those are you know, like the
Speaker 1: difference between a painting and a photograph. Yes, the photograph
Speaker 1: captures captures the moment, and if it's really, if it's
Speaker 1: really a spectacular moment, then you've got you got something
Speaker 1: you can hang on your all a painting, it's something
Speaker 1: you you go into, layer by a layer and and
Speaker 1: tell the story. And I've always enjoyed, always enjoyed, you know,
Speaker 1: studio recording. But some of the other guys didn't, you know,
Speaker 1: they you know, they get frustrated, you know, while going
Speaker 1: over this again, trying to get it perfect. It almost
Speaker 1: to me, it almost feels like a missed opportunity because
Speaker 1: I think there could have been there could have been
Speaker 1: really great records. But maybe maybe in the same way
Speaker 1: that the other bands gotten more strict in their performances
Speaker 1: to imitate the record the recordings, maybe your bands records
Speaker 1: could have been more like you were live, like jazz albums. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's what I'm thinking. I really want to get
Speaker 1: into the studio with jedko Um and that it feels
Speaker 1: like playing that's placed to the strength of what you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just get relaxed and in the studio and get
Speaker 1: into a studio groove and and and then just crank
Speaker 1: some stuff out. Yeah, I bet it's not going to
Speaker 1: be good. Yeah, I would think so. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: pretty much virtually any night that we play there's we're
Speaker 1: gonna we're gonna have some moments we've never had before. Yes,
Speaker 1: and uh and I've got a stack of a stack
Speaker 1: of those moments that I'm about to wade into and
Speaker 1: see if i can make some songs out of them.
Speaker 1: And uh, and you know, it could it could be.
Speaker 1: It could come to pass that we end up making
Speaker 1: our first record at our sound checks in uh on
Speaker 1: this on a summer tour. That would that'd be fantastic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, we've got all the facility there. Ye, what's
Speaker 1: this summer's tour looking like? Looking like? Is it a
Speaker 1: US tour? Yeah? Great, we're starting to talk about going
Speaker 1: to Europe. Has Dead co played Europe yet? No? Not yet.
Speaker 1: That's going to be good. Yeah. How many times did
Speaker 1: the Dead go to Europe for tours? Only? Like three
Speaker 1: or four? Maybe five? Which in the in the length
Speaker 1: of time that you were doing what you were doing,
Speaker 1: that's barely scratching the surface. It was such an enormous undertaking.
Speaker 1: And and and there was also the drug issue. The guys,
Speaker 1: some of the guys didn't want to go without bringing Mama. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, and that was that presented its challenges. Were
Speaker 1: there other bands in the scene at the time that
Speaker 1: you lacked as as the band was happening in the
Speaker 1: early days? Yeah, what what was the music that spoke
Speaker 1: into we were big at I was big into the band. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the guys who built this place. Yes. Um. Then we'd
Speaker 1: go through phases. I mean we had our Saturday night
Speaker 1: fever phase. Marley was always a big popular but reggae
Speaker 1: in general. Um, and we had our country phase kind
Speaker 1: of early on. You know. Then I discover a composer,
Speaker 1: for instance, that would influence my writing. You know, Bartalk
Speaker 1: got got under my got into my head for a
Speaker 1: little while. How many solo albums have you made? It depends,
Speaker 1: first off, if you consider Bobby in the Midnights of
Speaker 1: solo album. I never thought about that. Yeah, but if
Speaker 1: that's the case, then I went to three, four, five, yeah,
Speaker 1: eight or ten. Yeah, it's a lot. I can't wait
Speaker 1: for this next one. The little trio Wolf Roses Is
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. Tell me about it. Well,
Speaker 1: it's just me and and my drummer from Rhett on
Speaker 1: jay Lynn and Don was one of the things I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about is U You were talking about writing,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty much writing all the time. I've got this,
Speaker 1: I can maybe play a little bit of it, I
Speaker 1: can't real ball and I'm so that's a tune I'm
Speaker 1: working on for an opera I'm writing, Beautiful. What struck
Speaker 1: me when you played that is it's not uncommon when
Speaker 1: someone is playing a song on the piano to play
Speaker 1: the rhythm part with their left hand and the top
Speaker 1: line or the melody with their right hand. But rarely
Speaker 1: would rarely would a guitar player who sings play what
Speaker 1: you just played, because you played both the rhythm guitar
Speaker 1: part and so more like you played it more like
Speaker 1: a piano where you're playing the melody along with the
Speaker 1: and most songwriters I know who would play that song
Speaker 1: would just be playing the chords and would be even
Speaker 1: humming the melody if they didn't have the words, humming
Speaker 1: the mild. But it's very interesting that you chose to
Speaker 1: do it that way because it it First of all,
Speaker 1: it's really satisfying to listen to and I just don't
Speaker 1: hear people play that way, right Beautiful. Um working with
Speaker 1: some folks in Nashville on this and kind of kind
Speaker 1: of cracked up about this. It's uh, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a big project. I've been recording some of the music
Speaker 1: in Nashville and uh had got a producer about the
Speaker 1: name of Dave Cobb, who's really good, good guy like
Speaker 1: him a lot, wonderful guard. Yes and U and we're
Speaker 1: working on this, and he's of course very interested in
Speaker 1: me getting this, uh, getting the lyrics, getting lyrics to
Speaker 1: all the U all the music that we've written. And
Speaker 1: I was we had some wonderful sessions there. He gambled
Speaker 1: a little crew in the studio that that we we
Speaker 1: just just popped out a bunch of great tunes. He
Speaker 1: had no notion I was going to be writing an
Speaker 1: opera until reasonably. Yeah. Amazing. How it works, amazing and
Speaker 1: so much fun. Doesn't matter how long you've been doing it.
Speaker 1: The the discovery process remains like this epiphany moment where
Speaker 1: that sense of almost I can't believe it's happening, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, doesn't get old. I know, you know it
Speaker 1: when it's there. Yeah, And it's such a great feeling.
Speaker 1: It's such a I don't know, I feel it in
Speaker 1: my whole body. When it happen, it's exciting. The spine
Speaker 1: becomes electric, absolutely become weightless. Absolutely. Yeah, same can happen
Speaker 1: with the performance. Like even a song he played one
Speaker 1: hundred times one night, he just hap, well that's where
Speaker 1: I'm at. I was meaning in the writing process. But
Speaker 1: say it's it's the same. Yeah, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: When those when when the ordinary elevates to the extraordinary,
Speaker 1: it's unbelievable and so beautiful. The music just pass you
Speaker 1: on the head and says, Okay, now's your time, and
Speaker 1: how's your little movement here? So great, I'm going to
Speaker 1: show you a little something cool man. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: for talking. Well, I'm not pleasure, pleasure, thank you for
Speaker 1: playing all right. Thanks to Bob Weird for opening up
Speaker 1: about his creative process and sharing everything he's working on
Speaker 1: with Rick. You can check out Bob Weird dot com
Speaker 1: to stay update on everything he's working on. We put
Speaker 1: together a playlist of our favorite Bob were songs. You
Speaker 1: can find it by visiting broken record podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is produced with the help from Jason Gambrel,
Speaker 1: me LaBelle, and Leah Rose for Pushkin Industries, our the
Speaker 1: Music Boat, Kenny beats. I'm justin Richmond. Thanks for listening.