Bob Weir and RatDog | RatDog.Org

Transcribed by FL Jen....

Ross: We’re about to have a very special moment up here, Planet Roo, and we’re glad you could join us. We’re going to have Bob Weir up here in a minute. Um, couple of announcements. This is the third day we’ve been having these panel discussions and interviews, and musical performances on social change through music. Later today at 3 o’clock, we are going to have John Butler and a panel of other activists uh hanging out up here talking about social change and then at 4:30 we are going to have Dub Conscious.

So, (inaudible) did you have a question? (inaudible) I can’t, I can’t arrange any photographs or autographs, or anything like that I’m sorry. Um, (inaudible) yeah there’s a request that everybody sit down, but you know, stand for now if you like.

Anyway, Bob Weir is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist most recognized as a founding member of The Grateful Dead. He began playing the guitar at the age of thirteen and at sixteen he met Jerry Garcia; a meeting that would forever change his life and the history of Rock N Roll forever. Throughout his career with The Dead, Bob shared the songwriting responsibilities in the band and played rhythm guitar in a style completely unique and ground breaking. As the other primary songwriter in the group, he produced an immense body of the legendary songs; The Other One, Cassidy, Truckin’, Sugar Magnolia, Playin’ in the Band, Mexicali Blues, the list goes on and on, setlist after setlist, show after show. In addition to his work with The Dead, Bob has worked with numerous other performers, just last night with Government Mule but also with the bands Kingfish, Bobby and the Midnites. He’s got a lot of solo work and most recently with his band, Ratdog, which to date has performed approximately 700 shows. (crowd: woo-hoo!) Although his life has been consumed by music, Bob has spent a good deal of time as a social activist. His work on behalf of Seva, and as an environmental activist with Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network among others, have been his primary focus as an individual along with his work with The Dead’s own Rex Foundation. He’s not only performed at numerous benefits but also given deeply of his time, including lobbying congress on various forestry issues. Bob has also turned his love of vegetarian cooking into a fundraiser for various non profits, selling various cooking sauces on their behalf. On the current Ratdog tour, he’s also making sure that Headcount, a voter registration effort is getting special support in the coming election year. Bob Weir is a 1994 inductee into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame for his work with The Grateful Dead. It is my esteemed pleasure and honor, to present to you, Bob Weir.

Crowd: Woo. Bobby!

Ross: All right well thanks for uh getting here, uh for your set and everything like that. See these nice people will start filling in once they get word that you are on the stage. Um, yeah I have, I have to before I get into the background in the interview, I have to say there are so many nonprofits in this village, this is Planet Roo, which is really the heart of Centeroo which is the heart of Bonnaroo, and uh they’ve been so great at Bonnaroo to put multiple non profits…..everywhere you’re looking at now are all non profits working on issues all over this country if not all over this world and um I would dare say that a lot of the people working at those nonprofits and volunteering for those non profits have in some way been way been touched by you or your work, or The Grateful Dead’s work. I know that personally I am and that in speaking with a lot of people over the course of the weekend and they have as well it means a lot to have you on the Solar Stage here.

BW: Thanks for having me. (throat clearing) Pleasures and honor to be here and actually I have a little project that we’ll get into later that’s going to require audience participation.

Ross: Excellent, well I bet this audience is geared to participate.
(laughs) Um before we get into your activism I just wanted to get into a little of your musical background. Um, you started playing guitar at the age of 13...

BW: Right.

Ross: and what prompted you to pick up the guitar? Was there a particular band at the time or artist that inspired you, or how did that come about?

BW: Well no after a bout with the piano after my folks got rid of once I learned the boogie woogie baselines and how to stab with my right hand and did that day and night (throat clearing) We had a borrowed piano and they were happy to give it back to the folks they borrowed from. Then, I moved right smartly to trumpet and um it was suggested by my folks that perhaps I ought to think about practicing outdoors. The neighbors had a little something to say about that. So they uh the trumpet was quietly discouraged and the guitar showed up, it’s portable, I could hammer away and you know close the door in my room hammer away and nobody was bothered. So, it stuck.

Ross: Were any of the people in your family musical as well or were you kind of the first to take up an instrument?

BW: I was adopted I was not raised by a musical family but it’s all I ever wanted to do.

Ross: Yeah. What were some of the first songs you learned to play?

BW: You know the first record I bought was Tutti Fruity by Little Richard. It was back in, you know I was I think nine years old. Um I learned a few Rock N Roll tunes, a couple Everly Brothers’ tunes but pretty much drifted off into Joan Baez land because she was currently hot. (crowd laughs) And she WAS hot too. (more laughter) And uh (throat clearing) then sort of from there my interests spanned out into the folk music the folk-blues particularly. I was in my full blues period when I met Jerry. And so we, we started a jug band which is basically a blues band, a country blues band um you know the jug bands were basically minstrel music, the same bands that would play on the riverboats. When they didn’t have gigs on riverboats, they played on street corners and they called them jug bands. The same guys, the same deal and it’s interesting jug band music was the forerunner of funk music. It happened up and down the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. In all those towns you know New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Cincinnata(audience member: Cincinnati) All these towns have thriving funk scenes particularly Cincinnatta for instance (audience member correction again) But that all developed the same basic rhythms and scales as the jug band music way back when.

Ross: And then of course at sixteen you heard a banjo picker that you got together with and then there was of course Mother MCrrees first then that morphed into the Warlocks and then The Grateful Dead.

BW: Yeah.

Ross: Um how did the other members of the band come together? Briefly. I know each member has a different history but in terms of Phil and Pigpen and Bill.

BW: Well ok when we started you know when I met Jerry it was New Year’s Eve of 1964 I guess we were going into 1964. A couple of friends and I were wandering the back streets of Palo Alto, when we heard banjo music coming from the little shack that they had out behind the music store, Dan (Dean?) Morgan Music and we knew it was Jerry and we knew he was waiting for his students. We also knew that he was probably not altogether mindful of the fact that it was New Years Eve. It was something like 7:30 on New Year’s Eve so we wandered in, invited ourselves in. And uh yeah he was waiting for his students and I quietly apprised him of the fact well hey yeah it’s New Year’s Eve and I don’t think they’re coming, Jerry. So, after a little chatting he had the keys to the front of the store and so “you guys want to play some?” and so we went into the front of the store and grabbed some guitars and hammered away you know for two or three hours. Had a ton of fun and decided you know we had enough quasi-talent there to start a jug band. Jug bands were the current hot thing in the folk music scene. So, we started the next day. Jerry had this friend, Pigpen that he wanted to involve because Pigpen could play the harmonica and had a real good handle on blues music. So, it was me and Jerry and Pigpen for awhile so the other two guys sort of dropped out of the jug band. It was me, Jerry and Pigpen for awhile and a couple of guys that Jerry knew went on washboard 9:41 I think that was it? Actually a friend of mine named Tom Stone on mandolin. That went on for about a year. By that time, I was working at the music store. Jerry had given me his beginning and intermediate students so I was teaching there and the son of the music store owner wanted to be in a Rock N Roll band. The Beatles were out and the Rolling Stones and there was new life in the Rock N Roll scene. And you know the electric instruments hanging there on the shelf, every day they were looking more and more IMPOSSIBLY attractive and so finally we started playing with those and the son of the store owner played bass- a little bit. Jerry knew this guy Bill Kreutzman who he had done some frat parties with you know to make ends meet. Rock N Roll wasn’t his passion but every now and again he’d do a frat party with Billy and whoever he could get on bass. Sometimes HE’D play bass. Anyway, so we brought Billy in and The Warlocks got started. We went for about six months, most of the year actually and The Warlocks were doing fairly well but we couldn’t play weekends because the bass player, the guy who was providing us with all of the instruments, number one he was a little lame on the bass. Secondly, he was in the National Guard. He couldn’t do gigs on weekends because he had to spend his weekends doing National Guard stuff. So, that wasn’t working for us. We and uh Jerry knew this other guy, Phil Lesh. Phil was a trumpet player! But, Jerry was quite sure that he could learn to play the bass. So, we contacted him and in about a month, Phil had picked up the bass, we made the switch. Of course we made the switch and we got booted from that music store, right smartly. But we found another music store that wanted us right in the middle of park. So we continued on teaching and playing whatever gigs we could get. And, you know, that was The Warlocks and The Warlocks became The Grateful Dead when we found out that the name Warlocks was copyrighted by someone else in November that was 1965. Anyway we became The Grateful Dead and I guess the rest is history. So was all that.

Crowd : woo! Applause

Ross: And of course all of this was going on in the San Francisco Bay area which was starting to become a hotbed of activism.

BW: Yeah.

Ross: in the mid 60’s, later 60’s. That’s funny Bonnie Raitt was going to college at the time and she was in this same interview last year at Bonnaroo. She was telling about how it was in college in 1968 on the east coast. What was it like to be in the hotbed, the real center of activism of the country, the really birthplace of Vietnam War

activism, the social rights activism, that was taking place at that time. Did that have an impact on you? Or?

BW: Yeah I grew into that culture, when I left home I stepped directly into that culture. You know, I wasn’t a student. A student of life perhaps, but I wasn’t enrolled in any schools. I was a working musician at that point. I was seventeen or eighteen, but given that was what anybody was talking about, all that I got a chance to talk about if I went outside our immediate family. We kept to ourselves but if you went and talked to anyone on the streets, chances were the subject would be some activist person too. So, it was you know part of the culture that I stepped into, part of what made me what I am sort of informed me. It formed my makeup.

Ross: Um switching back quickly to your guitar playing style, it’s so unique. In Rock N Roll, watching you over the years and close up (laughs) sometimes from the audience your style of playing with The Grateful Dead. You are obviously playing more lead now um how did you develop that style?

BW: Well you know we had Phil coming in on one side winding his way toward a point. Jerry winding his way toward a point and what I figured my job was to intuit where they were headed and to be there when they’re paths crossed with a little surprise for them.

Crowd: Woo! Applause

BW And uh however it was if I was playing lines or chordal development or whatever. I listened to McCoy Tyner because he used to do that same thing with John Coltrane. I was awestruck, mesmerized by the Coltrane Quartet. It just never occurred to me that this is jazz and Rock N Roll is something different because really rock n roll rhythm guitar at that point was just, I couldn’t DO that, you know just play a cord and keep playing a cord maybe doing a different inversion there wasn’t enough motion in that for me. It didn’t seem appropriate. If I were to have done that it would have just held everything else down. I had to be in motion too. Like I said, McCoy Tyner provided plenty of inspiration for me to see how that’s done.

Ross: We were talking a little bit about activism, The Dead were I don’t want to say notorious but form many years were outspoken about their point of view of NOT being outspoken .(laughs) If you know what I mean they weren’t an activist band in the 60’s, they weren’t um they weren’t taking positions, anti-war positions in their songs like Crosby, Stills and Nash were vocal in that respect through the art.

BW: Well you know we always regarded ourselves on stage as you know kind of a sacred place for art. Art informs the spirit. The spirit will make the right choices. (audience woo and applause) To use the stage, you know it’s true, to use the stage as a podium or a pulpit, it just seemed so wrong to us, so against the nature of what we were up to. We’ll make music and people will take that into their hearts and into their minds and if we rang their bells and maybe set them a little more upright, maybe they will make the upright decision when it comes to politics. I have always felt that way.

Ross: Later in The Dead’s years, you did by chance write a pretty political song. Throwing Stones was pretty much in your face political, probably the most political song that The Dead wrote. How did that song come about?

BW: It’s a rant, you know it’s an anti-authoritarian rant. I don’t think it fingers much of anybody. There’s one line in the song that we that I change from time to time to address a certain situation but really there’s nothing specific in the song. It’s just a look at the way things are structured lately.

Ross: There are some other songs, well let me step back. Warren Haynes and I were talking about this yesterday at the Sonic Stage. He’s been very masterful in writing songs with double meaning that allow the listening to take from it what they will. Some are political messages some not. Can you think of some Dead songs I know Eyes of the World is one that comes to my mind that inspires some amount of social consciousness very gently into the listener. I was just wondering if you could think of any other songs in your work or the Dead’s body of work that subtly suggests well maybe we ought to open our hearts, treat each other a little more differently, think about the planet we’re living on the people living on it because I know that feeds a lot of activism. The activism feeds your work.

BW: Well all these songs, they’re characters. The guy in Throwing Stones is character, not exactly me, it’s somebody else telling his story. In each of these songs it’s a character telling a story. I’m trying to think of one, you know each of those characters, if you get the drift of their humanity, if you will, if they’re actually human. I tend to think of songs as well songs ARE living things. I don’t know if you can call them human or sort of quasi-human because they don’t have flesh and blood. They do live and they do grow up and they develop personalities. All of our songs became very different over the years as they matured. It’s just the character in the song maturing, revealing more of himself. I’m trying to think of a character that inspires anything political or political consciousness or an activist nature. And, I can’t really offhand. It’s the whole montage of these guys, it’s the chorus of these guys where you get the sense of the humanity.

Ross: Then, if the songs aren’t political or activists, to what do you attribute that there are so many activists that have come out of the deadhead movement, the deadhead nation over the years.

BW: Well like I say art informs the spirit and I think we’re a collection of informed, well developed spirits. (applause) That’s you. And, more than most any other group capable of making conscious-aware decisions whether it be political or activist or whatever. You know seeing clearly for instance, if the environment is being plundered, something has got to be done. Actually, these people, being informed spirits, are capable of motivating themselves to do something about it. And I thank you for being that way. (applause)

Ross: One of the first things that The Grateful Dead did was caring for others, to allow the fans to have a space for clean and sober people to come to shows. To take care of them, to give them the support they needed at Grateful Dead shows and that has since transcended to other bands; Phish has their group, moe has their group, String Cheese has their group. How did that all come about? Was the band approached by a fan or was there someone in the band that said we really need to do something, was it someone in the organization?

BW: Um, you know, I think for instance, the Wharfrats, I’m not exactly sure how they came into being. I think they were more or less loosely coordinated amongst themselves and they just approached us and said hey listen we’re a bunch of sober deadheads can we have a little corner somewhere? It sounded like a great idea. So, it took nothing for us to help them out all we had to do was say ok we’ll work with out ticket outlet and they will block off a certain area for you all. It worked out real well for them.

Ross: In my mind, it’s a real legacy that bands since then have picked up on that.

BW: (giggling) we probably had the problem first, it probably cropped up at our place first. (audience laughter and woo)

Ross: But other bands may not have taken care of their own like the Dead did.

BW: Uh we were just the first to get around to it, I mean Phish and more and those guys came after us. So did the problems.

Ross: One other thing is that the Dead did was remarkable very early on and this happened about 1984. This was the foundation of The Rex Foundation actually dedicating to give money away from shows. I’m just going to run through a few of the statistics just so people know there are probably some deadheads out there who went to those shows so Madison Square Garden or where ever they were in this country where they would charge $5 extra a ticket for that night. Between 1984 and 1995, over 7.2 million dollars were granted to 900 programs which is absolutely astounding. In 2001 kicked started again 2001 to 2005 I think it was another ¾ million dollars was donated to another 150 programs. Healthy environment, social justice, preservation of indigenous cultures, strong communities, who’s idea was it to form the Rex Foundation and give money away to these great groups?

BW: I think it was one of our managers, Danny Rifkin. You know we had been doing benefits all along. It seemed natural to us you get some you give some back and you know we are PART of a community we damn well better ought to act like that. So I think it was Danny Rifkin who suggested we could be better focused about it if we started our own little charity and brought together basically a board of family members, you know extended family members Bill Walton for instance. He’s an old friend but he’s also another country heard farmer you know, our long time lawyer but a right wing zealot, you’ve got to have that if you want to have a diverse board that’s capable of expansive ideals that’s brought us back to that. So you know we assembled a board of members, all crew, anyone who wanted to be involved from immediate family to a few people we’ve plucked from here and there. It’s long been a really good outfit. The way it runs right now they do so many conference calls, I’ve kind of backed off now just fundraiser. I don’t have the time. These folks are all sort of semi-retired and I’m not. (audience: yeah! applause)

Ross: And we’re GLAD you’re not semi retired. Yeah the Rex Foundation is truly remarkable. We’re grateful Rock the Earth is here, we received their Rex grant a couple of years ago that allowed us to bring our first lawsuit against the National Park Service so I just want to thank you publicly for that. (applause) I know that Headcount is a beneficiary (applause) I know that there are other groups that are here actually that have received Rex grants as well.

BW: mmhmm

Ross: The first outwardly politically social thing that The Dead did outside of the Dead organization, outside of the Wharfrats, outside of Rex in my mind was the Rainforest Action Network collaboration that y’all started working on in 1988 and I think some of the band members may have been friends with people running Rainforest Action at the time but can you tell us a little bit about how that came about I know it led to a big concert at Madison Square Garden

BW: I think it was Randy Hayes who first approached us I had been reading about the rainforest situation fro a number of years and wondering what I could do about it and about the time I was ready to pop on the issue I started reeling in band members you know we got to do something. Then, Randy Hayes showed up. He was, at the time, the director of Rainforest Action Network. He suggested that we work together and do an awareness raising event. We kicked it around a little bit and we brought in Peter Bayhouth who was the director of Greenpeace in America at that time and another guy named Jason Clay who was the director of an outfit called Cultural Survival to the interest of indigenous peoples and various places where they were being steamrolled by the advance of the so called civilization. That was the nucleus of that event. It did serve to sort of put the rainforest issue on the map. It’s been there ever since though it’s time to do more work in that regard because thing have slowed down in that regard but not near enough, we’re still losing. The amount of carbon dioxide that on a yearly basis that goes into the atmosphere from the slashing of the rainforests is more than all the cars and trucks on earth put into the atmosphere. It’s still a major problem in terms of global warming, in terms of loss of species, all of that. It’s a huge problem. It needs to be addressed again.

Ross: One last question on the forestry issue. I know that at some point you and Jerry went to go speak to Congress on the issue?

BW: Uh huh.

Ross: That was on the rainforest issue, wasn’t it?

BW: That was a particular rainforest issue. We were trying to put some pressure on the Malaysian Government to quit clear cutting their jungles. We got a little blowback from the Malaysian folks you know, what are you doing sticking your noses into our business? Well it’s all our business when it’s global warming.

Ross: So then the Dead couldn’t go play in Malaysia I guess.

(applause)

BW: No, we are not welcome in Malaysia right now.

(laughing)

Ross: You know there are so many things you’ve been involved in and we’re running out of time and I definitely want to hit on your current project that will lead to a little audience participation, I guess.

BW: Yeah.

Ross: What did you have in mind.

BW: Now this is a curious situation that’s fallen in my lap the last couple of weeks. A gentleman from Norway who inherited a shipping business. He is one of the worlds wealthiest guys but he is also something of a deadhead. He was educated at Stanford. He wanted us to put together, wanted us to define a project. He has massive funding, this guy is not a billionaire, he’s something else, something that goes beyond that I don’t know what you call him. He has some funding he is capable of generating or giving or providing and he needs, he wants, having followed me for awhile and having sort of kept up with my environmental interests and social justice interests he wants me to be a spokesman for a project. What we need to do is find something we can define and address, something we can actually make a big difference. I’m thinking the major thing we need to address is global warming but what particular aspect of that do we need to address? Are we going to try to develop alternative energy? If we do, if we can come up with a real, plentiful source of alternative energy that didn’t produce carbon dioxide . So, we’re not talking ethanol here. But, you know, solar power, wind power, advancements in those fields. If we can provide, if we can come up with some technology that’s doable, one thing that we could do is have a program that puts the factories that generate these devices or whatever they are in place like Iraq, where there’s been a huge population explosion in the recent years and that’s endemic to that region. A lot of the reason for the unrest in that part of the world is because young men have no future. There’s no money there. There are plenty of guns but no money. There are no economies with jobs in them for them. And, two, you know to make Iraq for instance the capital of food voltaic sensor production. Give them something to feel proud about give them something that make them feel like an integral part in saving the world and also providing them with jobs, all these jobs having future built into them and sustainable jobs. It seems something like we could do but I’m way open to suggestions as to what are basically fundamental issues that we could address and make substantial changes.

Ross: So, in terms of audience participation you are looking for ideas to contribute to that or?

BW: Beat the heat. Once again, energy production would help with that.

Ross: One last question, Bob. In terms of your writing as a musician, in terms of how you come up with ideas for what to write about, what to sing about, even cover tunes to play, what inspires you these days? (laugh at pause)

BW: You never can tell what or where inspiration is. It’s probably more a matter of how open I am at a given moment. I was having a conversation with my friend, Garrett Graham and my drummer, Jay. We were talking, somebody said “are you free tonight?” and the way that rickeshayed around in my head, I was, “are you REALLY free tonight?” Then, I was hearing President Bush was saying, oh I remember what it was, we were talking about the situation in Iraq and that region . That quote from George Bush “They hate us because they hate our freedom” which is what a tall mound of horseshit! (applause) But then I’m hearing “are you free tonight?” , “are you really free tonight” and I’m, so we’re basically working on a love song that’s got a double entendre in it. You know we may get a clip of our President saying “they hate us because they hate our freedom” and you know run that in the background, have it in a sample so we can bring it up when we’re on stage.

Ross: That sounds great. That’s really great. Or course I’d be remissive if I didn’t at least say Bob you’re on the board of Headcount, would encourage every single one of you to go out there and register to vote and make sure you go out there and not just register but go vote. There are some people in the back with clipboards or go see the people in the front with clipboards, people all around with clipboards and over at the Headcount booth right there. Please register to vote, do your part. You can’t complain if you don’t vote.

BW: Well beyond that there are people hard at work at stealing our democracy and it’s being done. You know we have to fight the money we have to fight the people who just want to steal our democracy and make this country a democracy in name only like you know of course they have elections like in Botswana. It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion who is going to win and that’s this far from happening here. Get registered, talk it up, and vote. Don’t just get yourself registered but get everyone registered too. Make yourself aware of the issues. It‘s not my job or my place to tell you how to vote because I think the informed spirit will make the proper choice. So listen to the music enjoy yourselves but be aware that you are involved. You must be involved.

Ross: Bob thanks so much for taking the time on this stage to inspire so many people and for taking the time to inspire so many people on the other stage, tonight.

BW: All right.

Ross: Actually you’re on at 3 o’clock on Main Stage.

BW: Yes see y’all in a little bit.

(applause)