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Jerry Garcia: The Complete 1985 Interview

   By Jas Obrecht  September 1 2010

   I spent the morning of Saturday, January 12, 1985, at a hotel in San
   Francisco, interviewing Yngwie Malmsteen, the extraordinary Swedish
   metal guitarist, for his first English-language cover story. As soon as
   that meeting was over, I switched cassettes in my tape recorder and
   headed over the Golden Gate Bridge to meet Grateful Dead spokesman
   Dennis McNally at a restaurant in San Rafael. Dennis led me to the home
   of a Grateful Dead supporter who, it turned out, was letting Jerry
   Garcia live in her basement. My mission: Interview Garcia for a cover
   story in Frets, a magazine devoted to acoustic music.

   I've never been a Deadhead, but friends who are tell me that my meeting
   with Jerry took place during one of the lowest points of his life.
   Garcia, unwashed and disheveled, shuffled slowly into the living room,
   his black T-shirt sprinkled with white powder. His fingertips were
   blackened in a manner consistent with "chasing the dragon," as smoking
   heroin was commonly referred to in the Bay Area. Ten minutes into our
   interview, Garcia nonchalantly chopped a large rock of cocaine into
   about twenty lines and consumed all of it during the next hour.

   My pal Jon Sievert, who showed up midway through the interview to shoot
   photos, observes, "Jerry was probably at his absolute nadir at the time
   of the interview, as witnessed by his bust in Golden Gate Park six days
   later on January 18. In between the interview and the bust, the band
   and Mountain Girl staged an intervention, in which Jerry was told he
   had to choose between drugs and the band. In the few times I was around
   Garcia in a private setting, that was the only time I saw him openly
   snort coke. What I remember most, however, was how articulate he
   remained when talking about music. As you can tell by listening to the
   tapes, his enthusiasm never waned."

   I have to agree with Jon: Garcia was bright and articulate throughout
   the interview. In fact, he was fun to talk to. He laughed often and
   revealed far more about his creative process than most musicians could.
   Portions of our conversation were presented as the July '85 Frets cover
   story, but the vast majority of this 10,000-word interview remained
   untranscribed until this blog. As he made his way across the living
   room and settled into a chair, Jerry smiled and began the conversation.

   ###

   Have we met before?

   Yes, probably at the Tribal Stomp in 1978.

   Oh, yeah. I recognize ya. You're familiar.

   Do you know about Frets magazine?

   Yes, I do.

   So this is for the cover story on the 20th anniversary of the Grateful
   Dead.

   Say! [Laughs.]

   What's the appeal, for you, of acoustic music?

   What is the appeal? Hmm. First of all, my appeal is just music, you
   know. And I don't really distinguish. It's not like one kind of music
   is more appealing to me than others. For me, the acoustic guitar is a
   different instrument. I don't think I would do it, really, if it
   weren't for the technological advance of the successful
   electric-acoustic guitar, like the Takamine that I play onstage. I've
   never had any luck at all with the acoustic guitar and microphone.

   Too much squeal?

   Too much everything. Too much boom. It really has to do with the kind
   of microphones that you use, and the kind of guitar. Most acoustic
   guitars are built to project in a room, just acoustically. And most
   microphones are designed to hear a small source, like the bell of a
   horn or a voice, and a guitar is something you hear all over it - I
   mean, in order for it to really sound like an acoustic guitar where you
   hold a microphone up to the soundhole. For example, if it's a big
   guitar, like a D-28, it woofs and booms and does all these things that
   are non-musical in nature. There's stuff you don't intend to be heard.
   They are part of the sound of the guitar, for sure, but they are not
   what you mean when you're playing. It's the Frankenstein nature of the
   microphone as an electric ear that makes it so I haven't had much luck
   with just acoustic guitar. Also, the difference in touch is too
   radical. The way you have to dig in with an acoustic guitar and a
   microphone, as opposed to the way you play an electric guitar, if I
   were to try to do both, my electric guitar chops go way downhill.

   Do you tend to pick up an acoustic less frequently than an electric?

   Well, electric is my instrument. But I like playing acoustic,
   especially now with this advance, because it means I don't have to
   radically change my touch so much, but I get the nice qualities of the
   tone and, you know, the pretty features of an acoustic guitar. But only
   really because I take that line in and get a nice clear signal that
   sounds to my ears like an acoustic, so the behavior of the instrument
   and the idioms that I find myself pulling out of it are what I
   associate with acoustic guitar. For me, they're very different. It's
   like they're very different instruments.

   Does your way of visualizing the fingerboard or your playing approach
   change?

   Uh, yeah. Very much so. For me, on the electric guitar I have a
   holistic approach to the fingerboard. On acoustic guitar, I have a
   preference for the first position and the open sounds, the open
   quality. I don't use a capo on acoustic guitar, but I would. But I
   would never do that on an electric guitar. On electric guitar, I deal
   with the whole neck as a harmonic medium. I don't see it in patterns or
   groupings. All those have become continuous for me.

   In the last Guitar Player interview, you spoke about finally making
   that breakthrough.

   Yeah, I'm through that. Yeah.

   What have you found on the other side?

   What it is is that there are really endless numbers of overlapping
   patterns [laughs], that's all. That's what it really boils down to.
   Depending on what half-step or whole-step, what partial you want to
   start on, you have all series of fingerings. You can either play them
   across the fingerboard or up the fingerboard or up the strings or
   across the fingerboard or any combination thereof, and really that's
   just a matter of fluidity and a matter of breaking out of position
   playing. For me, it's become a matter of now I play for a preference in
   the tone that I get, like playing high notes on low strings. For me,
   it's much more a matter of what sounds nice - not where I play it, but
   where the lick sounds. So I can play the same lick in any of, say,
   three or four positions on the neck - the same lick in the same octave
   - and the tone is very different depending on the thickness of the
   strings you're playing on. So that's the kind of stuff. For me, it's a
   matter of having much more choice over harmonic series, harmonic range,
   and tonal quality.

   Do you know what you're doing in theoretical terms?

   Yeah, yeah, yeah. I couldn't not. There was a time when I could get by
   with not knowing, you know, but not anymore, not with the caliber of
   musicians I play with. Besides, for me it isn't satisfying to not know.
   It's not satisfying to bluff. I like to know because for one thing, it
   makes it a lot easier to communicate what you're doing. Just that alone
   is a good reason to know.

   How has your approach to soloing changed?

   It keeps on changing, but I don't have an approach. I still basically
   revolve around the melody. I think I come more from the point of view
   of the melody and the way it's broken up into phrases as I perceive
   them. With most solos, I tend to play something that phrases the way
   the melody does. The phrase is maybe more dense or have different value
   and so forth, but they'll occur in the same places in the song as they
   do in the melody. Basically, most of the time there's some abstraction
   of the melody in there - at least that's what I'm thinking. I'm not
   necessarily meaning to communicate that, but that's what my mind does.
   Jerry and Jas during the interview. Photo by Jon Sievert.



   When you're onstage, what influences the types of notes you choose?

   Anything and everything! [Laughs.] Nothing in particular. I don't watch
   my decision-making process that carefully. But usually the reason I
   start on a course of action is because I have a kind of a loose plan in
   mind going into a chorus. I take a chorus as a unit, generally
   speaking. I have sort of a loose plan there. Or something else that
   happens elsewhere in the music gets me going, like some rhythmic figure
   or that kind of stuff - detail.

   Can improvisation be learned or is it inherent?

   No, I think it can be learned.

   What advice would you give someone who had lessons and theoretical
   knowledge, but wanted to find more freedom on the instrument?

   Mostly, the best possible thing, really, is to have somebody else to
   play with. One other person to play with. If you have one other person
   who plays the guitar, then you just trade of choruses or you play,
   like, five choruses against each other. You know what I mean? Like one
   guy backs up for five choruses or four choruses, and the other guy
   backs up for four choruses. That's really the best way to do it, I
   think, to get a handle on it. I don't know. It's not the sort of thing
   that advice helps. It's really one of the things where time spent is
   more profitable.

   Do you do much practicing?

   I don't do as much as I'd like to, but I go in and out of that. I go in
   and out of it. I'm about to enter into practicing.

   Anything in particular you want to work on?

   Yeah, there's a whole bunch of stuff. I've got two or three books that
   I've been wanting to crack for some time, but I haven't made myself go
   into them. I'm lazy, just like everybody else is [laughs]. But these
   are some real nice studies on fourths and some really nice, just
   melodic humps that are very good. That's why I'm going into a little
   woodshedding there - there are some things in there that I like.

   Do you have favorite books that you've gone over more than once?

   No, I rarely go over them more than once. If I take a book and decide
   I'm going to go over it, I really go over the sucker. I go over it in
   depth and really do it, and after that, I'm done with it. Then it's an
   absorption process, you know. Unless I've really forgotten something -
   and I haven't gotten to that point yet - I may be losing stuff down at
   the back end somewhere [laughs]. But as soon as I get to the point
   where I look at a book and draw a blank and then open it up and find a
   bunch of little marks and stuff and realize I've been through this book
   and I don't remember a thing about it, then I'll start going back. I
   haven't gotten to that point yet - but soon, I hope! [Laughs.]

   Do you do much jamming?

   Virtually 90% of the playing that I do is jamming.

   What about outside of the band?

   No, I don't. There's not a situation around that has both a loose
   enough structure and good-enough-quality musicians where I can get into
   it and enjoy it. The level of musicianship that I exist at right now,
   it's not much fun to play unless the people play really well. You know
   what I mean? There aren't too many situations where you can just jam
   with somebody.

   When do you play your best?

   I wish I could tell you that! Because if I could tell you it, it would
   mean that I knew when I was gonna play my best. It's something I don't
   know, when I'm gonna play my best. And a lot of times, I can't even
   judge if it's my best or not, until, say, like, later on I might listen
   to a tape and say, "Geez, that's the best I've ever heard myself
   sound." And that happens to me a lot. Almost all the time when I listen
   to a tape, I can't believe it's me. My own mental image of myself is
   that I play a lot worse than I actually do. I'm usually surprised when
   I listen to tapes.

   Are you self-critical?

   Yeah. Almost to the point of nihilism [laughs]. If it was left up to
   me, if I'd never heard anything, I think I would have given up long
   ago. Yeah, I am self-critical. Yeah.

   Do you ever feel like you're in a rut?

   All the time. Yeah. Then I do something about it. When I feel like I'm
   really seriously stale, that's when I start to crack books, because you
   really need something to move. And there's so much to music, there's no
   excuse for feeling stale. Nobody is such a great musician that they
   could be burnt out on all of music, you know. [Laughs.] So for me, it's
   just a matter of going out and putting a little bit of effort into it,
   and I can almost always find something that I don't know anything about
   and pick up on it and start a sort of itch-scratch cycle.

   Does listening to other musicians or bands ever inspire you?

   All the time. Yeah. Yeah. There's nobody playing right now who knocks
   me out completely. I mean, there's nothing that I hear right now that
   really makes me want to dash to my guitar. But there's plenty of stuff
   in the past. You know, if I go looking for stuff, I can find it. But
   there's nobody really playing right now who kills me. Music right now -
   everything that I hear right now is pretty derivative sounding.

   What's your source? Do you listen to the radio or MTV or . . .

   All those things. I'm just a human in the world - you know what I mean?
   And then I have a huge record collection. And I also have access to
   music stores, some of which are pretty hip, where the people who run
   them are music collectors and like that. That's helpful. It's helpful
   to have somebody's taste. And also, the society that I'm in has a lot
   of musicians in it, and musicians are always turning you on to music,
   so there's always input.

   What are your views of young guitar players now?

   Well, it's a little hard for me to listen. The thing is, they're much
   more accomplished than they used to be, but that just means that the
   instrument itself has a much better book than it used to have. The
   electric guitar has an enormous vocabulary and several different kinds
   of mediums, all of which have expanded enormously in the last 10, 15
   years. That's all to the good - it just means the instrument has
   expanded. But young players, even if they're really brilliant
   technically, there's a thing like a guy like John Lee Hooker or
   somebody like that who can play two or three notes so authoritatively
   on a guitar. There's like 60 years of real mean person, right, who can
   scare the pants off you in one or two notes played with such immense
   authority and such soulfulness. There's that, and that's a real thing.
   For me, I'd much rather hear something like that than a lot of
   facility.

   Do you ever listen to people like Eddie Van Halen?

   Not seriously, no. Because I can hear what's happening in there. There
   isn't much there that interests me. It isn't played with enough
   deliberateness, and it lacks a certain kind of rhythmic elegance that I
   like music to have, that I like notes to have. There's a lot of notes
   and stuff, but the notes aren't saying much, you know. They're like
   little clusters. It's a certain kind of music which I understand on one
   level, but it isn't attractive to me.

   If you could go back in time and question any old musician, does anyone
   come to mind?

   Uh, yeah. I'd still follow around what's his name - the Gypsy
   guitarist?

   Django Reinhardt?
   Yeah, Django. I can't remember anything, and my mind is gone. I have
   all of Django's records - every single one of them. Most of what he
   plays is even hard to understand, no matter how much I've listened to
   it, in terms of the actual technical how it's happening. Because I
   listen to it and I hear when a note is being struck and when a note is
   being articulated with the left hand somehow. And he does things I
   don't know how he's doing them. I can't imagine. You know, he's got
   fingers that are about half-a-mile long. I mean, I just don't know how
   he's doing it. And this is with a fucked-up left hand. [Blogger's note:
   Reinhardt's fretting hand was injured in a caravan fire.] He's able to
   cross his fingers over this way [demonstrates cross-finger techniques].
   He was able to do runs where the middle finger crosses over the index
   finger. That much I've figured out because there are things he plays
   that work that way, and he couldn't do them any other way. There's no
   other way he could do them. And they're lightning fast. His technique
   is awesome! Even today, nobody has really come to the state that he was
   playing at. As good as players are, they haven't gotten to where he is.
   There's a lot of guys that play fast and a lot of guys that play clean,
   and the guitar has come a long way as far as speed and clarity go, but
   nobody plays with the whole fullness of expression that Django has. I
   mean, the combination of incredible speed - all the speed you could
   possibly want - but also the thing of every note have a specific
   personality. You'd don't hear it. I really haven't heard it anywhere
   but with Django.

   The other guy I'd like to hear live would be Charlie Christian, who has
   an incredible mind, an incredible flow of ideas - they're just
   relentless flow of ideas that are just bam, pouring out. It has this
   intensity that's really incredible. And he has also a tone that I think
   is very hip. It sounds very modern to me. His whole playing, to my ear,
   it sounds very modern. And it's amazing because what people extracted
   from his playing, the Top-40 stuff in his playing, doesn't have that
   quality, really. People pick the lamest shit from his playing. But that
   great Solo Flight album, you know - I mean, that improvisation is
   amazing! You listen to that, and still it sounds incredible, to this
   day.

   He's really the first guy who could cut it with the horns.

   Yeah, right. Right, exactly. And could play the way a horn plays, play
   with that kind of flow of ideas. What horn players have to do is they
   have to learn chords as arpeggiations. They don't have to think of
   playing all the notes at once. Well, he's the first guy to play the
   guitar the way horn players play through changes. He has that sense of
   where everything goes harmonically.

   It's amazing what Charlie Christian accomplished in 17 months.

   Yeah, right. That's the way it is, man. [Laughs.] That's the way things
   are sometimes, you know. Yeah, well, he's a guy I would love to be able
   to hear. And those are the two guys whose reputations are
   well-deserved. They're the solid gold of American-derived music, guitar
   playing.

   Where would you put in somebody like Robert Johnson?

   Well, he's a primitive genius. And there's others that I like that I
   feel are in that similar category. Blind Blake. Rev. Gary Davis too,
   when he was young, but he was always great. I had a personal preference
   for Mississippi John Hurt - his early records sound so smooth. They're
   just like magic. And, you know, one or two others whose playing is just
   extremely beautiful to my ears. I like Chet Atkins.

   Are there non-guitarists?
   Oh, year, sure. Art Tatum is my all-time favorite. Yeah, he's my
   all-time favorite. He's the guy I put on when I want to feel really
   small [laughs]. When I want to feel really insignificant [laughs]. He's
   a good guy to play for any musician, you know. He'll make them want to
   go home and burn their instruments. [Laughs.] Art Tatum is absolutely
   the most incredible musician - what can you say?

   What era of Tatum's piano playing appeals to you?

   Well, all of it is fascinating, and I also haven't heard everything,
   but I've got the two big sets from Norman Granz, and everything on
   those is beyond the pale. It's just so incredible, you know. What a
   mind!

   Were you a fan of the bluegrass masters?

   [Tentatively] Yeah, uh, but bluegrass for me is band music, and I'm a
   fan of bands more than I am a fan of musicians. The musicians I like
   sounded best in a certain context - to my ears. So my favorites are
   certain bands, you know, certain vintage bands. That's the way I think
   of bluegrass music. I am much more attached to that side of it than I
   am to individual players, because there are so many good players in
   bluegrass. But not all bluegrass bands are good.

   What are your favorite bands?

   I think one of my all-time favorite bands was Bill Monroe's bluegrass
   band when he had Bill Keith playing banjo and Kenny Baker playing
   fiddle - I guess that must have been right around '64. '63, '64 -
   somewhere around there. That was a great band. And Del McCoury playing
   acoustic guitar and singing. That was a great band, really a
   sensational band.

   You saw that band?
   Oh, yeah. A bunch of times. And the classic Reno & Smiley band, with
   Mac Magaha playing fiddle. Also, the original Bill Monroe band with
   Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Also, the classic Lester Flatt-Earl
   Scruggs and Foggy Mountain Boys band - that was a great band. I loved
   Jim & Jesse when that had either Jimmy Buchanan or Vassar [Clements]
   and the two great banjo players they had at the same time - what's his
   name? It's been such a long time with banjo players. They had two real
   great banjo players back in the old days. They both had the same big,
   square-style sound. They both had rhythmically a real symmetrical
   style. It's hard to describe, but it's that era, back when Vassar was
   playing with them or Jimmy Buchanan. Both about the same era. That was
   also in the early '60s, right around there. They had a couple of really
   great bands in those moments back there. And also the Stanley Brothers.
   My favorite singers were the Stanley Brothers. Ralph Stanley was my
   all-time favorite singer, I think.


   "Ralph Stanley was my all-time favorite singer."



   What was your banjo style like? Could you describe it?

   No. [Laughs.] No, I couldn't. I really couldn't describe it. I can't
   describe it any more than I can describe my guitar playing.

   Do you still have a banjo?

   Sure, I've got several banjos. Great ones.

   Ever have a 6-string banjo?

   No.

   Those things sound loud.

   I bet they sound like hell! [Laughs.] I don't think I could stand a
   6-string banjo. I don't think I could stand the combination. It'd be
   too alien for me.

   Do you still play sometimes?

   Uh, once in a while. Once in a very great while. But like I say, I
   burned out on banjo. I'm a burned-out banjo player. I really am. I went
   to the end of the rope, you know. It's the band that counts. If I could
   play in a real great bluegrass band once or twice a week, I would
   definitely get my chops back together on the banjo.

   Were you a 5-string man?

   Oh, yeah, yeah. Bluegrass banjo - that was it.

   Do you think much of the technique transferred over to guitar?

   It doesn't transfer.

   The right hand?

   No really. Not really. No, to me, again, it's apples and oranges. They
   really aren't the same instrument. They have strings and a bridge and
   frets, and that's it, you know. Other than that, they really are very
   different. Also, I thought there might be some crossover when I took up
   pedal steel, but they're not the same either. The technique is very,
   very different. And the concept is also very different. And so when
   you're dealing with those instruments, it doesn't help to try to take
   one to another.

   Are there songs that you only play on acoustic?

   Yeah.

   How large is your repertoire?

   Well, I don't know. I haven't played through it yet. [Laughs.] I know a
   lot of songs - I know an awful lot of songs because I was into the
   traditional music scene. I like music! So I've learned a lot of songs
   in my life. I know a lot of 'em. And I know bits and pieces of a lot of
   'em, as well. And there are also a whole lot of songs that I plan on
   learning. For me, repertoire isn't a static thing. And even when I go
   on now with John and we do our acoustic thing - John Kahn who plays
   bass with me - there's always a few songs I think of on the road that I
   think would be fun to do. And if I don't remember them, I go and find a
   book somewhere that has them in it or something.

   Are you always adding songs?

   Oh, yeah. Part of the thing about music is the thing of staying
   interested, and you have to motivate yourself to some extent.

   Do you compose on acoustic guitar? Have you written any Dead songs on
   acoustic?

   I have done that a few times, but more often I tend to compose on the
   piano. It makes me think differently.

   Do you know as much musically on piano as guitar?

   No.

   Maybe that's why it's easier to compose.

   It is, because it just puts me in a different head. Theoretically I
   know as much, but my hands don't know anything. I don't know the
   instrument. But I can sit and figure anything out, you know, if I have
   a little time.

   Art Tatum.

   [Laughs.] Yeah, right. Give me 20 years and another head!

   Why have the Grateful Dead more or less limited their acoustic sets?

   I don't know. I don't think [Bob] Weir feels comfortable playing
   acoustic music. I don't know. I'm not sure exactly why. I personally
   would like to do it more often. Bob doesn't seem to like to do it very
   much. So we don't press it. If anybody feels even a little negative
   about something, we don't do it.

   How did the 1980 acoustic Dead sets come about?

   I just thought it would be a good idea, so we tried it. It was fun. And
   also the technology came into place. That was one of the reasons why we
   didn't do it for so long, because we used to try it with microphones.
   It really didn't work. But the technologically it's much, much easier
   now that you have instruments - like I say, the improvements in
   electro-acoustic instruments have been vast.

   Did your audience react as well to acoustic music?

   Oh, they have reacted as well, sure. They like it a lot. I like it a
   lot too. It's a nice way to play. It's a nice way to constitute. I like
   the combination of drums and electric bass and acoustic guitars. I
   think it's really a nice sound. There used to be a nice-sounding band
   with those two good English fingerpickers with Bert Jansch and whatever
   the fuck his name is - that other guy - in a band called Pentagram that
   played in the early '60s.

   Pentangle, with John Renbourn.

   Pentangle. Yeah, John Renbourn and Bert Jansch. And they were great! I
   mean, they had a nice little jazz drummer, a tasty jazz drummer that
   played brushes, and an excellent acoustic bass player and a lady that
   sang in sort of a madrigal voice [Jacqui McShee], and English voice. It
   was a lovely band. The texture was really nice, and it sounded great
   onstage. We played a lot of shows with them, and we heard them a lot in
   certain circumstances, and they sounded beautiful. It had a lot of
   possibilities, that combination of two acoustic guitars and so on and a
   standard rhythm section.

   Do you miss having a second guitarist when you play in the duo?

   No. No. It's just a different thing. For me, the more the merrier. I
   like playing in a band. But when it's an acoustic thing, it's
   challenging to play with just two instruments. I like to think of
   relating to just one other instrument, especially if it isn't another
   guitar.

   What's the appeal of working with John Kahn?

   He thinks like me. He's got the same "fuck it" attitude that I have.
   [Laughs.]

   Are you as willing to go out on a limb?

   Yeah.

   Is he good about following you?

   Oh, he's real good about following me, and that's the thing about it.
   He and I have very, very similar - we have the same musical taste, with
   a slight overlap. It's almost guaranteed. I mean, that's why we've
   played together for so long - we think like each other.

   What are your audiences like with the duo? Mostly Deadheads?

   I imagine they are. I imagine they're from Deadheads. But the audience
   is much more sensitive, I would say. We can get down to a whisper, and
   that place shuts up, man. I mean, nobody hollers nothin'. We can get it
   down to [gives a quiet whistle], where it's really whispering, where
   the strings are just [quietly] ping, ping. Little tiny sounds are
   coming out, and the place is just [whistles quietly]. You can draw them
   down to absolute silence.

   Ooh, that's good.

   Yeah, it is. It really is. It's something real special. I don't know
   how many audiences would do that, but I found that in every case when I
   go out acoustically with John and I playing, we can do it every time.

   What's the difference in pressure between fronting your own acoustic
   duo versus playing with the Dead? Do you feel more weight on your
   shoulders?

   Uhhh. I do, in some cases, but that's just because I have a martyr
   complex [laughs] or something like that. You know, a "poor me" complex
   here. No, no. Actually, it's great to be able to play at all for
   anybody under any circumstances and have anybody like it. That's really
   an incredible thing. And it would be so small minded of me to complain
   about any, any part of it. You know what I mean? It would be so
   chickenshit, you know? Ah, man, how could anybody think differently? To
   complain about any level of it would be so, ah, so . . . [laughs].

   What do you feel an artist owes his audience?

   Everything. Shit. I mean, either he doesn't owe them anything at all .
   . . I don't know how you even get an audience. Ideally, nobody owes
   anybody anything. You know what I mean? In other words, everybody gets
   paid off. The artist gets off playing, and the audience gets off
   listening, and that's it - that's what it's about. You know, the rest
   of it is somebody else's story. That's what I think the thing is about.
   And for me, being in the audience and getting off myself - I've never
   wanted any more than that. And the times when I'd get off, I love it!
   There's nothing better. That's where I get it from. The reason I'm
   onstage is because I've been in the audience.

   What your favorite part of your business? Of everything you do, what do
   you enjoy the most?

   I just love music. All of it - listening to it, playing. I mean, all of
   it. Everything about it, really. There's really nothing about it I
   don't like. Possibly interviews is the worst of it [laughs
   uproariously]. Well, that's the most non-musical part, you know what I
   mean? [Laughs.] That's the part that's the strangest. Music is easy.
   Talking is not so easy. And it's really something you have to learn.
   You learn how to bullshit, really. [Laughs.]

   Do you play any music that doesn't come out onstage?

   Yeah. Yeah, sure. There's a lot of music. Yeah, right! I have this kind
   of a weird kind of music that I play, mostly just to myself, for
   myself, at times that's just weird. [Laughs.]

   Can you describe it?

   No, I can't really. It's only just something I do when I'm sitting
   around with a guitar and there's nobody else around. Sometimes I get
   off into these zones that, to me, are very fascinating for some reason.
   I've never tried to record it, so I have no idea really what it's like.
   But I know as far as getting absorbed in something, I can get really
   absorbed in these things. But I have a feeling that they probably don't
   sound so great.

   Is it more abstract?

   Yeah, yeah. I can get really carried away. Yeah. It's formless music -
   music that doesn't have any form. It's not even music that I could play
   with somebody. I think it's that weird. I'll have to try and record it
   sometime and see what it really sounds like. I've never really
   objectively gotten away from myself and listened to it. This is not
   something I do all the time, but once in a while I fall into this zone,
   you know, when I'm comfortable enough and have a nice-enough instrument
   and I just feel like playing and I don't have any ideas or anything
   like that. I drift into a few kinds of areas that I just don't really
   know what they're like.

   This is on electric guitar?

   Any kind of guitar.

   Is it more like playing solos?

   [Laughs.] I don't know what it's like. It's just playing, you know.
   Like I say, it doesn't have any form. Sometimes it's chordal things,
   sometimes it's progressions, sometimes it's just chords, you know.
   Sometimes it's kind of weird chord melodies that just have leading
   tones. Sometimes I play a whole bunch of real dense chord things that
   have these leading tones, but they aren't songs. It's just music.
   Sometimes I'll get this idea that has a kind of counter melody of some
   kind in it, and I'll start stretching it out and fooling around with
   it, and gradually it'll turn into this whole thing. But it's never
   stuff that I can repeat or remember, and I don't even know whether it
   has any musical value or not. It's just stuff I do. You know, it's kind
   of a free-form music. Sometimes ideas come out of it.

   Do you ever get a musical idea without an instrument . . .

   Yeah!

   And then apply it to the instrument?

   Oh, absolutely! That's where "Terrapin" - you know "Terrapin," that
   Grateful Dead tune? - that's where that came from. Dropped into my head
   - boom.

   Which part?
   The end part. The big theme. It not only happened, it came fully
   orchestrated too. Yeah. I've had melodies drop into my head a lot, but
   they're usually short. They're usually not that long. That's quite a
   long melody. And all of it came in - the conversational part of it, the
   way the instruments answer each other and that. Yeah, that's one of
   those things. Yeah, that happens to me. Not very often, but it does.
   And then I do try to apply it. But usually I lose it. Usually I forget
   it. Usually I get a great idea, and then eengh! By the time I get
   somewhere where I can either solidify it with an instrument or write it
   down or something like that, it's gone.
   .
   Ever have song ideas come to you at really strange times?

   That's the only time they come to me! [Laughs.] There's always some
   music continuum going on, that I can sort of turn it on and off like a
   radio. But usually it's just mind rot; it's just stuff. Every once in a
   while a good idea comes through, and I never know when it's gonna be.

   Have you heard musical sounds that can't be gotten on traditional
   instruments?

   Not yet. No. Nothing that can't be got. I haven't heard anything that
   can't be got yet.

   What are your limitations as a musician?

   Shit, I've got nothing but limitations! I mean, I'm limited by
   everything. I'm limited by my technique. I'm limited by my background.
   I'm limited by my education. I'm limited by the things I've heard. I'm
   limited by all that stuff. I'm limited by being a human being. Yeah. I
   think in a way that a musician - and particularly a musician with a
   distinctive style - is, in fact, a product of their limitations. What
   you're hearing is their limitations, really. I assume that almost
   everybody plays at the outside edge of their ability, so that's usually
   what you're hearing - as good as they can do.

   How long could you last in a band where when you went onstage, you'd
   have to duplicate what's on a record?

   Not a minute! [Laughs.] I don't think I could last very long. I mean,
   that would be so dull for me. In fact, I don't even think I could do
   it.

   What percent of a Grateful Dead show is improvisation?

   Oh, about 80%. I mean, almost all of it, really. All the stuff that
   isn't the words and the melody.

   What happens when someone else in the band wants to go off into an
   improvisational tangent that you might not necessarily be able to
   follow or want to get into?

   You have to make an effort. Then I'll lay out. If it's something that I
   don't have a handle on, then I'll lay out. If somebody's got something
   going, rather than wreck it by playing stuff that fucks with it, I'll
   lay out until I either apprehend it - you know, understand it on some
   level and can do something to support it - or else I'll just lay out,
   because that's the best thing to do. And I lot of times I just like to
   listen to what's going on, because a lot of times there's some
   beautiful things happening that don't have anything to do with me, and
   it's nice to be able to just listen. The Grateful Dead can be very
   fascinating that way. I love to lay out, because sometimes Weir and
   Brent get into some incredible things. I mean, everybody does, really,
   so it's nice to just stop: "Wow! What's that?" I like that.

   Can you psyche yourself into creative moods?

   Uh, I almost always have to. I mean, yeah, they don't come to me. In
   other words, if I don't sit down and work at stuff, I don't get song
   ideas. I'm not that creative, really. I'm not real prolific. I write
   maybe three, four songs a year, if that. And I have to work at 'em. I
   have to say, "Now I'm gonna work," and sit down and work. It's one of
   those things where I'll work for a couple of hours and nothing will
   happen. I won't get anything. I'll stop for a while, pick it up again
   and work for a couple of hours, nothing will happen. The next day I'll
   do the same thing, and the next day, and the next day. Maybe three or
   four, five days into it, I'll get a little idea: "Hey, this is kind of
   nice." You know, it's like that. Then every once in a while you get a
   stroke - you get something, "Oh, far out!" But then usually then once I
   get going, once I've got the first idea, then maybe three, four songs
   will come out in the next two days. That's the way that works for me,
   generally speaking.

   Were any of the songs you've written particularly frustrating?

   Oh, yeah. Some were really frustrating. "Reuben and Cherise" took about
   three years to write, literally - maybe longer than that. I kept
   writing and writing versions of it - "Oh, this sucks." Hunter would
   rewrite the lyrics: "No, that doesn't make it." I'd write a new melody:
   "No, that isn't it." It's so utterly and totally different from the
   very first conception of it. That went on forever. It just went on
   forever.

   Did any songs happen spontaneously?

   Yeah! A whole bunch of 'em. A lot of 'em. I'd have to go through the
   whole list and say, "Yeah, this one, this one, this one." An awful lot
   of them have just boom - they come out real quick. Because usually
   we're cooking, Hunter and I, when that happens. The majority of our
   songs are cooking. It's that first one or two or that really different
   one occasionally that we had to labor like crazy at or whatever.

   Do you give Robert Hunter a chord progression?

   We do it all different ways. He gives me lyrics. He gives me a stack of
   lyrics this big [holds fingers a couple of inches apart], and I give
   him about two melodies [laughs uproariously]. You know, his output is
   enormous. My output it teeny. But usually what happens is I go over to
   his house, and we just work on something.

   On piano?

   Yeah.

   Then do you teach it to the other members of the band at a rehearsal,
   do you give them a cassette . . .

   No, I let them guess it! [Laughs.]

   Onstage, right?

   Yeah! No, I like to just teach it to 'em. I just tell them the chords:
   "Here's the chords." Like that. I like to keep it simple.



   Are there any songs you're particularly proud of?

   Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of them that I love. I really do love them.
   There's a lot of them that I'm proud of. I don't know. All of them are
   songs that I can perform time after time and not get bored with, and
   that's saying a lot.

   That's a good sign.

   Yeah, it really is. They live for me. And after I've written them, I
   don't feel like they're mine anymore - luckily, because I'm
   self-conscious about my own work if I think about. If they reminded me
   of myself somehow, I don't think I'd be able to stand to do them over
   and over again. So it's nice. They don't have any context, in a way, so
   it's nice. I can perform them over and over again in lots of different
   moods, with lots of different coloration, and still feel good about
   'em.

   Are there songs you'll only call out to play when you're in a certain
   mood?

   Geez, that's hard to tell. For me, playing onstage is so subjective, I
   don't know how I feel about it a lot of the time. It may be that there
   are, yeah. There are definitely songs that a lot of times I am not in
   the mood for, so it works that way for sure. Whether it works the other
   way, I'm not so sure. That is to say that it's possible that if I'm in
   the right mood, I can play any song. I can feel like doing any song. So
   I don't know about that part of it. But I know on the negative side of
   it that there are times when I definitely don't feel like playing a
   certain song. This is not true with every song, though. There's only a
   few songs that are sort of mood-triggered or attached in some way to a
   mood - for me, in that subjective sense. [At this point photographer
   Jon Sievert comes in and we take a short break.]

   You were talking about composing . . . .

   I'll tell ya, I don't think of myself as a composer. I only do that
   because that's what you do. I learned how to do it. It's a craft. I can
   do it as a craft. I know about the craft of writing, but I don't think
   of myself as a composer. I've never been compelled by my own
   compositions. I don't feel that I'm particularly gifted in that area.

   If somebody wanted to hear the essential Jerry Garcia, are there any
   cuts you'd tell them to listen to?

   No, not really. I don't think of myself as being on records. But any
   half a dozen live concerts of the Grateful Dead or my band would pretty
   much give them the more or less of it.

   Do any concerts stand out?

   I don't keep track. No, I don't.

   You're not like your fans, huh?

   No. For me, it's the next note. It's not the last one.

   When you make a mistake onstage, is that your attitude?

   Yeah. Oh, yeah. There's no such thing as a mistake. [Laughs.]

   Do it again, and it's improvisation.

   That's right. There's no such thing as a mistake.

   Are you satisfied with your accomplishments and your career?

   Not at all. No. No, no, no, no, no. I still think of myself as someone
   trying to learn how to play the guitar. If I learn how to play the
   guitar, I'll be really happy.

   Why do you think you've attracted such a loyal following?

   It must be really hungry out there. [Laughs.] I blame the general low
   quality of life, you know.

   Yeah?

   Well, yeah! I don't know why. To tell you the truth, I don't know why
   the first person stayed for the first song. It's been a mystery to me,
   because there was a time when that didn't happen. I played for a long
   time, and nobody cared about it at all [laughs]. That was never a
   criteria, as far as I was concerned. I would keep playing for nobody if
   that was what was happening. People hanging out and liking it is just
   another one of those things of just tremendous good luck, I think. Or
   at least that's how I feel about it. I'm glad it's that way - I'm glad
   people like it - but I don't know how or I don't know why or what,
   particularly. It's hard to appreciate from this side of it.

   Have you perceived a large change in your audience?

   Our audience has changed a lot of times, but our audience is still a
   Grateful Dead audience. That is to say, the kind of people that they
   are - I think there's a certain kind of person, maybe, that likes
   Grateful Dead music. I don't mean that in a narrow kind of way, because
   it seems to cut across all kinds of lines. I mean, it cuts across all
   kinds of cultural and social lines, so it's not some easy formula for
   the Grateful Dead person. Our audience now are people who are 16, 17
   years old, 18 years old now, that weren't born when we were started.
   [Laughs.] That's a sobering thought, you know.

   Does the ambience of the concert seem the same?

   Oh, yeah. Well, pretty similar, except there are some large
   differences, but they seem to be basically cultural in a big way in
   America. On the East Coast, they're more vehement, you know. They're
   more yaaah! The energy is higher, frankly. But the energy is higher on
   every level on the East Coast. You know, New York has that thing that
   only New York has. The West Coast has a thing that only the West Coast
   has. Those kind of differences, you know. But other than that, the
   Grateful Dead audience basically is the same kind of people. They get
   along pretty well with themselves, from coast to coast and all around.
   They seem to be a pretty good-natured lot. I like 'em. They're good
   people.
   Jon Sievert during the Frets cover photo shoot.



   For the work I do, I have to see a lot of heavy metal and jazz and
   different types of music . . .

   Lucky you! [Laughs.]

   Any bands you'd go out of your way to see?

   There are a few, yeah. Let's see - the last band I went to see is Dire
   Straits. That was the last band I went to see live, a couple of years
   ago. There are others that I would, but most of the time I'm out
   working and stuff. So I don't really get a chance. But there are more
   that I would go to see if I were in a situation where I wasn't working
   nights so much. I would go out more. But yeah, there's actually a lot
   of music that I would go to see. It's just the opportunity doesn't
   present itself that often. That's the problem. Time and space, you
   know.

   Do you ever have trouble with being recognized in public?

   I've given up worrying about it, because I'm recognized almost
   everywhere now. It bothers me sometimes, because there's that thing -
   you'd like to not have to think about yourself all the time. That's the
   drag - the thing of constantly being forced to think about yourself all
   the time. And there are times when you'd like to, uh, . . . I feel some
   sense of responsibility toward that person too, the public Garcia
   person, you know. In other words, I don't feel that I have the freedom
   to get roaring drunk and start fights and scream at people and do all
   the kinds of stuff that I might do perfectly comfortably if I were just
   nobody. You know what I mean? [Laughs.] I don't like to be obnoxious.
   There are things you might to be able to do in perfect comfort if you
   felt that you didn't have to answer for it in some way. And I feel some
   sense of stricture. Although I might not ever do those things, I do
   feel some sense of restriction down at that end of my personality. And
   sometimes I have mild fits of resentment about it, but shit, mostly
   people are very nice to me, and so far I've had no really bad
   experiences. I've had a few weird experiences and a few close brushes
   with total weirdness of one sort or another, but nothing that's really
   freaked me out or made me feel too awful about it.

   That'd be a great book title: "Close Brushes with Total Weirdness."

   [Laughs.]

   What's your acoustic guitar?

   Takamine. I don't know what model it is, but it's a lot like a D-21
   except that it's got a cutaway. A dreadnaught with one cutaway.

   With slider controls?

   Yeah, little slider controls. It's got a high and low cut and boost and
   a volume, so it's got three sliders as opposed to two. It's right off
   the shelf - it's a showroom model.

   Do you have it set up to approximate an electric?

   No, I use significantly heavier strings and also a higher action and
   all that. I have it set up like an acoustic guitar.

   How much preparation do you have to do, playing wise, before you go on
   tour and onstage?

   Well, I like to warm up. Before I go on tour, I like to spend two or
   three days with John, just warming up my chops on the acoustic guitar.
   We've done it enough now where it only takes a few days to warm up,
   chops wise. And then before a show, I'll do more and less as the tour
   goes on - warming up before a show. There's the long-term warming up,
   and the short-term warming up.

   On acoustic, do you have to make many compensations in terms of
   technique with your right-hand picking attack?

   Yeah, it's a whole different ball of wax, yes. It's very different. I
   hold my whole hand kind of differently. And just the position of the
   guitar and the thickness of the guitar and everything means my whole
   arm and wrist and everything have a whole different attitude. Electric
   guitar is real thin, so my elbow is close to my body and my wrist is
   close to the guitar. It's all in here [demonstrates close-up playing
   position]. With an acoustic guitar, it's all out here [hold arms
   further away from his body].

   Do you hold the pick the same way?

   Pretty much, yeah. But I move it around all the time while I'm playing
   anyway. I don't have "a" way I hold the pick in an iron grasp. I
   constantly adjust it. I more it around a lot.

   Do you always use the pointy end?

   Yes.

   A lot of guys lately have been using the rounded shoulder.

   Yeah, I know. It's because it makes it seem like you can play faster.
   But what you pick up in speed you sacrifice in point. I like to have a
   lot of control over the point of the note, the attack. And when you use
   the point of the pick, it means that by relaxing or tightening upon the
   pick itself you get, uh, . . . I use a real thick pick, one with
   absolutely zero flexibility. It's like a stick. And the point is you
   get a lot of change in touch and a lot of change in tone and point
   attack of the note and coloration on that level and harmonic content of
   the attack by holding on to the pick tighter or looser. That makes a
   big difference in the tone. And on acoustic guitar, that's one of the
   ways you can really color your playing.

   Can you play a vibrato with your fingers the same way on acoustic?

   I do a slightly different kind of vibrato. I don't do the same, because
   I use heavier strings, for one thing. It's a different thing. But yeah,
   I don't have any trouble with vibrato on acoustic.

   Which fingers do you use?

   I tend to draw my vibrato from my whole hand.

   Like a violin player rather than B.B. King?

   Yeah, yeah. I don't do independent vibratos with my fingers very often.
   Once in a while I do. More often, I do a vibrato with my wrist.

   Do you bend strings much on acoustic?

   Yeah, but I don't make an effort to. On an acoustic guitar, I'm more
   likely to bend a half-step.

   Will you back the finger bending with other fingers?

   No. Usually it's unsupported.

   You must have strong hands.

   Yeah, yeah. I always use relatively heavy strings for rock and roll
   guitar and a high action.

   Do you play in open tunings on acoustic?

   Never. Well, no, I wouldn't say never. There are things I especially
   do, but I never perform in an open tuning. If I had another guitar that
   I could tune up in an open tuning and leave it there . . . I hate to
   retune the guitar onstage. I feel they settle into a tuning, and I
   don't like to retune them for that reason - because you lose that sense
   of settling in.

   How do you amplify?

   I just run it into the board, because usually I travel with the same
   P.A., the same monitor system. I bring it up through the monitor, so
   it's plenty loud. Sometimes I use just a little Twin Reverb onstage as
   a failsafe - just in case something goes wrong, I can still hear the
   guitar.

   Do you have plans for acoustic recordings?

   No plans, really, but if something comes up, maybe. Really, the
   acoustic thing, the thing of performing as an acoustic artist, is
   something kind of new to me, really. I still see a whole lot. Like,
   John and I are just starting to get a feeling for it, and we're
   starting to flash on how many kinds of things we can do. We can do all
   kinds of different styles of music - we haven't even started to touch
   on it yet. I'm just doing a few things that are very available. I
   haven't started to put a whole lot of effort into it. But John and I
   are starting to think of all different tunes we could do and different
   styles and all that, so in the future I think there's a lot more
   happening in that acoustic format. I feel real good about that. John
   and I both do. It's really a kick to do that.

   Is a lot of your acoustic repertoire drawn from traditional tunes?

   Yeah, yeah. A lot of it is, because I love those tunes. I just do
   whatever I love.

   Would you feel comfortable playing, say, a reggae song?

   I don't think so. I might find some comfortable way to do it, but no,
   I'm too conscious of style. I associate style with the way it is. I
   don't like taking a style and doing an inferior version of it. I don't
   like trying to choke a style down into some package. Reggae is really
   an ensemble style - I would feel funny about trying to sort of force
   that down to one instrument or two instruments. It wouldn't work for
   me.

   Can you comment on your plans for the future?

   No, except that I have plans for the future! [Laughs uproariously.] I
   plan to have a future, yeah! That's as far as I'm gonna go.

   That's good enough for me.

   Yeah, me too.

   Any predictions for the future of rock guitar?

   I'm sure it's just going to get more interesting - at least I hope so.
   Or maybe it won't. It seems as though guitar goes through those things
   of being like - there was sort of a reductive school of guitar playing
   that went on there for a while during the '70s. There was kind of an
   anti-guitar school.

   Minimalist.

   Right, right. And that was kind of okay, you know. But I'm a guitar
   player.

   It put more of a focus on tone versus notes.

   Yeah, that's true. And sometimes it's a good idea to get down from the
   guitar tree. I also am not that much of a nut about guitar music, just
   guitar music. I like music music. It's the thing of a guitar as a voice
   in the music - that's really the thing. So it's the music that counts
   to me. I mean, I'll be happy whatever happens, as long as something
   happens. [Laughs.] You have to keep adjusting. I'd rather feel good
   than bad, you know. So given the choice of worrying about the
   development of music or being optimistic, I think it's easier to be
   optimistic.

   Are you concerned about what you'll be remembered as?

   God, no. I hope people don't remember me beyond what's necessary. Don't
   hang anybody up by having to remember me too much - that's what I would
   hope. It's like, remembering is dangerous.

   How would you like to be remembered as a musician?

   As a pretty okay musician. I don't know. I don't really expect to be
   remembered - that's way ahead of me. I'm still trying to just get good.
   If I get good, then I might say I hope people remember how good I am.
   The idea of being remembered would be embarrassing to me at this point.

   You've got a humble attitude.

   If you were me you wouldn't think so! [Laughs.]

   Epilog

   Jerry Garcia gave his last concert with the Grateful Dead on July 9,
   1995. Three weeks later he died in his sleep at the Serenity Knolls
   rehabilitation center, where he'd been undergoing treatment for drug
   addiction. By year's end, the Grateful Dead had announced their
   official retirement.

   ###

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