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Weir-May-4-2001
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Downloaded from http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/investing/20010504b.asp
Bob Weir: Balancing money music and causes
By Larry Getlen
The Grateful Dead were an incredible 30-year phenomenon, and
could probably claim the most loyal following in the
history of music. The fanaticism of Dead fans was legendary.
But while the Dead enjoyed their success and their
vagabond, party lifestyle, the actual devotion of the
Deadheads sometimes made them uneasy. Guitarist Bob
Weir says that many of the Deadheads misled themselves
about the band's significance and he even blames the enormous
responsibility felt by Dead leader Jerry Garcia toward
the fans as part of the pressure that continually
drove him back to drug abuse. Garcia's heart gave
out in 1995 during an attempt at detoxification.
He was 53, and his death meant the same for the Dead.
People often think of the Dead in terms of drugs,
partying, hippie lifestyle and the ever-present
Deadheads, there were some very serious aspects to the
band as well. Beyond just being environmentally
conscious, the members of the Dead were activists,
even testifying before Congress in 1992 on the
plight of indigenous Malaysians in the wake of
that country's deforestation. These days,
Weir is in touch with a powerful cadre of
environmentalist friends, including former leaders of
Greenpeace and the Green Forest Action Network, and
is strategizing a next step in the fight for
environmental awareness.
That type of power has been
an interesting
contradiction in the band's
life. On one hand, they
were the epitome of mellow,
clearly liberal beings who
seemingly rejected
traditional establishment
in all its forms. On the
other hand, especially
toward the end, the Dead
were a major corporation in
their own right. They were
one of rock's top touring
acts, and as such brought
in hundreds of millions of
dollars every year. For a
band so decidedly
anti-establishment, they
were an establishment all
their own.
After the band broke up,
Weir toured with his side
band Ratdog, and eventually
built it into a full-time
act. Bankrate spoke with
Weir, currently on the road
with Ratdog, about his
friends in high places,
some of his other
endeavors, and the
interesting dichotomy
between the Dead's
extremely liberal lifestyle
and views and the
tremendous corporate entity
it eventually became.
BANKRATE:COM: I've read
that you're friends with Al
Gore. Are you in touch with
him at all?
BOB WEIR: I just got a
thank-you note from him
today for helping out with
the election. I'll be in
Tennessee not too far from
now, in a couple of weeks,
and so I intend on looking
him up.
BANKRATE:COM: What do you
think his next big
political move will be?
BOB WEIR: I hesitate to
guess, but I'd love to find
out what's on his mind.
BANKRATE:COM: Tell me about
the books you wrote with
your sister Wendy Weir --
Panther Dream: A Story of
the African Rainforest, and
Baru Bay.
BOB WEIR: They're
children's books. I
attempted to bring kids
into environmental
awareness at sort of an
organic level.
BANKRATE:COM: How did they
sell?
BOB WEIR: They were pretty
well received. I don't know
how they sold because I
never got any profits from
it. I funneled the profits
into environmental causes.
So I never did actually
look at the checks.
BANKRATE:COM: The Dead were
such a liberal, artistic
entity, and yet at the same
time they were a really big
business. Did you ever find
that the ideals of one side
of the Dead conflicted with
the realities of the other?
BOB WEIR: All the time.
That's the balancing act
you're going to be doing
unless you run the business
like Coca-Cola or something
like that, where the bottom
line wags the dog. We never
did that. We had conflicts
of money, but that was kind
of the fun of it. We had
lots of board meetings and
hashed it out. It was
interesting, having a bunch
of maniacs sit in a room
for a few hours and try to
get complicated issues
straight.
BANKRATE:COM: What was the
biggest business conflict
that you remember having to
deal with?
BOB WEIR: They were all
that way. Every meeting we
had monumental conflicts to
negotiate. Some real bumps
on the road -- there's no
one I can think of that
takes precedence over any
others. They were all
miserable, but we had fun
dealing with them anyway.
BANKRATE:COM: Considering
the business aspects of the
Dead, are you very involved
in your own finances?
BOB WEIR: Yeah. I'm
Chairman of the Board of
Grateful Dead Productions,
and basically the same with
Ratdog.
BANKRATE:COM: Do you play
the market?
BOB WEIR: Not personally,
no. I have a stockbroker.
That's a little like
gambling as far as I'm
concerned. I have a
philosophy about it that I
only invest in stuff that I
want to see happen. So I
probably haven't done as
well in the stock market as
people who invested in
stuff that they expect will
make money.
BANKRATE:COM: Who are some
of the companies that you
invested in that you
believed in?
BOB WEIR: You know, I can't
... for instance, a company
that sells spring water,
the best spring water I've
run across. I bought stock
in that.
BANKRATE:COM: Do you
remember their name?
BOB WEIR: No, not really.
It'll come back to me, I
just haven't been thinking
about it for a couple of
months.
BANKRATE:COM: Any stocks do
really well for you?
BOB WEIR: The Pernassus
fund.
BANKRATE:COM: All socially
responsible stuff?
BOB WEIR: They have a
number of levels of it. In
those funds I usually
subscribe to the tightest
directives, or whatever.
BANKRATE:COM: Considering
what's going on with the
NASDAQ, have you had any
stocks that you got killed
on?
BOB WEIR: I had one called
E-Loan that did real well
at first, and that was sort
of a darling of that whole
community, and then quite
suddenly took a nosedive,
and a spectacular one.
BANKRATE:COM: Do you tell
your broker what you want
to invest in?
BOB WEIR: Yeah.
BANKRATE:COM: So you're in
control?
BOB WEIR: Yeah. Not
specifics, though. I rarely
give him specifics. I just
give him directives. And he
specializes in that,
anyway.
-- Posted: May 4, 2001
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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