Athens Banner-Herald
March 22, 2007
by Mark R. Pantsari
As a teenager, Weir helped form what would become one of the most influential, legendary and long-lasting bands the world has ever seen.
The Grateful Dead, over the course of a 30-year career, spawned its own genre of music. Incorporating the improvisational nature of jazz and a repertoire of hundreds of popular cover songs, traditional folk songs and original material, each and every Grateful Dead performance was its own entity, its own moment in time. Along with its approach to psychedelic rock 'n' roll, the fan base surrounding the Grateful Dead allowed the band to grow and survive exponentially despite very little support from popular radio and record labels.
Though it's been more than a decade since Jerry Garcia passed away, the Dead's influence is still alive, most notably in the jam band scene where bands subsist on touring, live performance and by cultivating a grass-roots following while staying under the radar of pop culture.
And of course, Bob Weir is still in the thick of it all with his own band RatDog.
"It's all I ever wanted to do since I was about 8 years old," says Weir from his tour bus, which is pretty much a second home for the singer/songwriter/guitarist.
Today, he says, it's a simple way of life: "I've got nothing better to do."
RatDog initially began in the mid-1990s as an outlet for Weir to pursue solo material outside of the Grateful Dead and has evolved from a quartet to the current six-piece line-up that features Jay Lane (drums), Mark Karan (guitar), Jeff Chimenti (keyboards), Kenny Brooks (saxophone) and Robin Sylvester (bass).
"When we first started out it was a vacation from the Dead and we played hardly any of the material that the Dead played," Weir says. "If we did, it was a very different sort of rendition. We were part blues/rock 'n' roll band and part jazz/rock 'n' roll band. The band started creeping more toward the jazz side of the tracks and for the last eight or nine years we've been heading in that direction. And I guess we're still heading in that direction. That being said we still play jazz like rock 'n' roll."
Like the Dead, Weir's repertoire with RatDog is nearly limitless. From Dead classics to new original material to choice covers, RatDog continues on the path that each performance be completely unique unto itself. And after 40 years of touring and performing under his belt, Weir still thrives in the atmosphere of improvisation.
"Sometimes it seems like work," he says, "but our averages are pretty high these days. Even if it is like work, we'll manage to pull together and make something new happen on a real consistent basis to keep us happy and keep us sane. The less I have to lead, the better the show is to me. When the group mind takes over is when it really starts to happen."
Weir also seems to be more focused on what lies ahead for the future of RatDog than pondering the 30 years of music and influence the Grateful Dead created.
"The notion that the Grateful Dead are the godfathers of the jam band ilk is a little misleading," Weir says. "Really the whole soul of that modus operandi dates back to probably Buddy Bolen and early New Orleans jazz and certainly through the big band era. The whole point of playing was to break a song of lyrics and achieve lift off."
