gdead.berkeley.edu/gdead.berkeley.edu.tar/gdead.berkeley.edu/pub/gdead/interviews/Kreutzmann.12.12.97

Text File | 1998-01-14 | 9KB | 174 lines

Culled from a well posting by [e-mail] (David Gans)

 BILL KREUTZMANN 12/12/97
 Novato CA
 Interviewed by David Gans
 (excerpt)


 DG: I also have to say, you were over here on the mainland a few months ago
 when you were mixing and mastering the record, and I got a chance to hear you
 and Backbone play in a little, tiny club gig, and it was so sweet, just to
 have such access to your drumming. You know, I miss that a lot. I mean, the
 Grateful Dead got so big for a while there, it was hard to get close to the
 music. And it was so sweet to sort of reacquaint myself -- 'cause when I
 first became a fan of the Grateful Dead, it was 1972, and you know, I could
 focus on your playin', and it was so nice to hear that again. So it was
 gratifying to me, and I know to a lot of people in the audience, to know that
 you were still playin' music. 'Cause it would have been a real loss if you'd
 given it up.

 BK: Yeah, you know, I was tryin' to say that earlier in our interview, but --
 when it's in your blood, and it's in your molecular makeup, and in your
 whatevers, you don't really give it up. You might just set it down and let it
 cook for a while, let it kind of develop, and get to a place where you have
 to do it again. I had to learn to listen again, 'cause in the Grateful Dead
 we used those great ear monitors, and in Backbone and [with] all the people
 I've been playing with, you listen over the drum set. You don't have [ear]
 monitors -- you have a floor monitor. And that's a whole different ball game,
 'cause the drum set potentially is a really loud instrument, you know. You
 have to hear over your own volume to hear the band. So that's been really
 great for me, because now I'm hearing at that finer level again. It's just
 cool as can be, you know, and the other way, it was sort of like cyberspace
 or something. It was in this far out place you didn't really get to touch.
 You could hear it all, but it wasn't maybe as physical, somehow.

 DG: Actually, I wondered about that, when you started using the ear monitors,
 because it seemed like it could potentially be a way to isolate yourself, not
 necessarily from everybody, but everybody had his own controlled mix and
 stuff, and you could sort of forget to listen to certain things.

 BK: [laugh] Forget, my ass! You turn off who you don't want to listen to!
 Ball game -- set and game. [laugh]

 DG: [laugh]

 BK: And you turn yourself up the loudest. I mean, I think everybody had that
 kind of mix goin'. And the vocals were up front -- the vocals up there, just
 blam! They're up there really shining.

 DG: So, can we talk a little bit about playing music? I think -- as time goes
 by, it becomes apparent how unique and special the Grateful Dead music has
 been in the history of music, 'cause it's so -- everybody has control over
 it, you know, their own participation in it. It's not like jazz, where you
 play the head, and then you take turns soloing. It's like everybody was --
 you wouldn't say everybody was soloing at the same time, but everybody was
 inventing at the same time, and collectively. And at its peak -- and I think
 I got on board at the peak, like in the early '70s, that band was really,
 really coverin' ground --

 BK: Mm-hm.

 DG: -- and inventing whole, beautiful structures in mid-air, spontaneously.
 And I'm wondering how that evolved for you, over the years, and if it got
 kind of set in stone a little bit, as time went by, and how that felt for
 you, being part of it.

 BK: Yeah, there was a point where it was totally free, and it seemed that you
 could basically go in any musical direction you were feeling at that moment
 you were playing. And that could be from what the other players were giving
 you, to use, you know, and then your interpretation of what you heard. And
 there was like you said, you could -- I think Lesh best said it once, he said
 it would just turn obliques. The music would appear to be going one way, or
 it would be going one way, and then just do a radical turn, whatever that
 means. I can remember them talking about ad libbing key changes while they
 played. Things like that. Just -- and I always thought that was like common
 stuff. It's not, you know. Or taking a part of a chord and making it the new
 root, you know -- just breaking it up in any normal way, not normal, not
 using the normal way. It got, later on, to be more songs. It got locked into
 songs, which was fun, because then we would still take the song and go way
 outside and jam on it and stretch on it, you know. I think what your in-
 ference is is that it got more regimented maybe, didn't seem as free.

 DG: Well, my personal opinion was that as Jerry was sort of beginning to fade
 a little bit, his leadership started to fade with it, and the ability, almost
 sort of the desire of the band to really get out there and take chances sort
 of also began to fade a little bit.

 BK: Mm-hm.

 DG: Because there were times when anything could happen.

 BK: Let me tell you this, David. I see what you're trying to say, but no, I
 never once went up there -- unless I was really feeling bad or somethin' --
 but I never went up and played and thought that I had any limitations about
 anything that I could do or change. Whether it had any effect on the music,
 who knows?

 DG: [laugh] Interesting question, uh-huh.

 BK: But I know that it was never said, you can't do this, you can't do that.
 I mean, people tried to lead the band on stage like crazy, and that's a whole
 different thing. But I never go up with the idea it can't be open and free to
 go there. Wherever "it" is, you know; it's the good old "it."

 DG: In the beginning, did you guys talk about that in the beginning? 'Cause
 it went from the jug band, picked up the rhythm section and became the War-
 locks, and that was a fairly straightforward R&B band, and played --

 BK: Mm-hm, Pigpen.

 DG: Right, and played the pizza joint, then started playing the acid tests,
 where sort of all bets were off. Was there a lot of discussion about how to
 develop that unstructured freedom?

 BK: God, um. For me, it didn't come about as discussion. It came about --
 Phil turned me on to Coltrane when I was 18 or 19; I was living with him. And
 that* was the freedom; that's what he said: "Here, hear this?" [laugh]

 DG: So you just knew.

 BK: So *that* was the discussion. The discussion was using other music to
 teach, you know. And yeah, there was tons of discussion, of course. Those
 guys would rap about it all the time.

 DG: It's been -- I recently also came to -- I was in Boston, listening to a
 band, a Dead-influenced band, playing "Reuben and Cherise." And I suddenly
 realized, the main thing that Garcia left behind was a whole generation of
 guitar players who like to play "sweet."

 BK: Isn't that great? That's cool. That's way cool. Yeah, yeah.

 DG: And that --

 BK: Listen, I'm gonna jump right up to the Garcia. That's the one I was
 thinkin' about today before we got together. I was really thinkin', I want
 you to make this clear to all the Heads out there that are gonna hear this
 show: I was in that band 'cause Jerry was in that band, at first. And Phil.
 Those two guys, and this is no slight to anybody else, but those guys were
 the wizards when it came to the music. And it was great to be with them, and
 play with them, you know, so. . . Like you said, Jerry influenced a whole
 bunch of guitar players. He influenced me totally, too, in my music and
 thinking about music, you know. It's amazing, it was great; I wish he was
 still here, darn it.

 DG: Yeah, ain't that the truth.

 BK: I bet I think about him on a daily basis, you know, that much.

 DG: Well, I sort of got the impression you guys really inhabited each other's
 heads and hearts, completely.

 BK: Somewhere. It was at a level that was totally far out. It was so amazing;
 it was at the music level. Because we didn't really hang out that much. I
 mean, I love him dearly, but we never -- you know, we just didn't. We played
 music together. I could feel where he was goin' in his music all the time.

 DG: Well, that's --

 BK: So could millions of others! I mean, that's not any big deal, it's just,
 it was real evident.

 DG: Yeah, but it was a form of music that was as intimate as can be --

 BK: Mm-hm.

 DG: -- in the sense of really, really being in each other's heads. And in
 each other's laps, kind of, musically, you know.

 BK: Well, years ago, we would all get stoned -- we'd all take LSD together,
 and that's a good way to get into each other's heads. I mean, in a real posi-
 tive way, just 'cause it lets all that crap go away. All of the fear shit
 goes away and you get into some neat stuff.