Bobby Weir, invigorated by friendships with John Mayer, Sammy Hagar, believes 'live music has to rebound'
With his grizzled beard and weathered brow, you can see the rock ānā roll longevity etched into Bobby Weirās face.
At 74, the acclaimed rhythm guitarist for The Grateful Dead, Dead & Company and Wolf Bros ā just a sampling of his resume ā is still joyfully immersing himself in music and thrilled to have at least one tour in his immediate future.
Weir and Wolf Bros, the group he formed in 2018 with Don Was and Jay Lane, will be joined by keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, pedal steel player Barry Sless and the string and brass quintet The Wolfpack when they hit the road March 9 in Nashville, Tennessee, for a run of 13 cities.
But first, the Wolf Bros firstr vinyl collection of recorded material, āBobby Weir & Wolf Bros: Live in Colorado,ā will land Friday.
While Weirās February gigs with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., were bumped to Oct. 5-6 and 8-9 because of COVID-19 concerns, heās still working on ā āGod willing,ā he says ā a summer tour with Dead & Company.
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That outfit, featuring Grateful Dead members Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, along with John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti, remain a touring behemoth. Last year, the band ranked No. 5 on Pollstarās Year End Worldwide Tours chart with a gross of $50.2 million.
Chatting from his home in Mill Valley, California, Weir talks to USA TODAY about his love of vinyl, the āfunā of performing with Mayer and his musical legacy.
Question: You have the shows coming up this fall in Washington, D.C., with the National Symphony Orchestra. How challenging is it to rework your music into a symphony setting?
Bobby Weir: The challenge is enormous, but as you might expect thatās why we did it. You live from challenge to challenge, in the art world at least. Otherwise, what are you doing? We could have done the shows (as planned in February), weāre pretty much ready to go. But the extra time we have will give me time to sit with the audio fellows we have and just learn how to breathe more life into the arrangements. With the Wolf Bros tour, itās looking like, knock on wood, the omicron effect will be in the rearview mirror. Hereās hoping something else doesnāt pop up.
Q: With both Wolf Bros and the symphony, youāre working in a more structured musical environment than the improv-heavy side of the Dead. Does that challenge different parts of your musical brain?
Weir: Itās really not that different. Thereās a number of bars on the chart and thatās how many bars youāre going to play, no more than that. Wolf Bros is not going to do anywhere near what the Dead does and Iām getting so I know the arrangements.
Q: You and Sammy Hagar get together to jam sometimes. That does not seem like the most likely pairing?
Weir: Weāre neighbors and heās a dear friend of mine. We go back years, and the unlikeliness of the pairing is something that we delight in.
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Q: How is your Sweetwater Music Hall holding up, given the continued challenges to independent venues during the pandemic? (Weir is among the venueās ownership group.)
Weir: Itās still limping along. The pandemic has been really, really hard on clubs. One of the things we did is turn it into a nonprofit and that has helped us a lot. We were running it for profit ā though it never really made one. Live music has to rebound. I canāt imagine living in a culture where live music on the club level would no longer be available. It would be a world I donāt want to live in and I donāt think Iām alone in that feeling. The government has to step in and in this case, it did. We got our Small Business Loan and that helped substantially. Clubs have had to make some pretty serious reductions in cost, but weāve done that and thereās still music, and thatās what we need.
Q: This new Wolf Bros release is the first on vinyl. What do you still love about that format?
Weir: It just sounds so much better. The audio information youāre getting is more complete than what youāre getting on most any digital medium. (The album) is a pretty good representation of how we sounded in June! Weāve been rehearsing a bit and I tend to think the band sounds better.
Q: When youāre with Dead & Company, what do you love most about playing with John Mayer onstage?
Weir: John is endlessly inventive and he loves the songs. He throws himself at them and heās a fabulous technician and can play pretty much anything you throw at him. Itās a lot of fun playing with him. Sometimes fun isnāt the most apt word Iād use to describe what weāre doing. Maybe itās something else. Itās deep and itās living, and thatās what we do, those moments of living.
Q: Aside from The Grateful Dead, you have such an incredible history with Furthur, Ratdog, Dead & Company and Wolf Bros. What do you think your musical legacy is after so many decades of creating?
Weir: Iām going to let people in the future decide the legacy. There are great musical cultures and great music to be found. But there is nothing quite as magical as the American songbook. I spent 60 years or so delving as deep into it and as intently as I can. I just love the stuff so much. I wish I could settle in on a particular vein of American music heritage, be it country, blues, R&B, but I just love it all and I try to play it all. I guess in years to come when people listen to me theyāll make note of the fact that he tried to play it all. Weāll see how successful people think I got.