Times Leader (PA)
April 13, 2005
by Michael Lello
Bob Weir knows all too well about talented musicians leaving the planet too soon.
An original member of the Grateful Dead, the guitarist and vocalist saw four bandmates die during the group's 30-year run, most famously Jerry Garcia in 1995.
So when Weir himself was feeling the physical toll of touring last year, he decided to cancel the planned fall tour of his band Ratdog.
"I realized toward the end of rehearsals I didn't have enough gas in the tank to be able to do it," said Weir, who will lead Ratdog to the Kirby Center tonight for a show originally set for October of last year. "People pay good money to come and see our shows. I didn't think I could've given them their money's worth. I needed rest."
Weir said that last year he did a spring Ratdog tour, followed by a summer tour with The Dead (the new name for the now Garcia-less group) and then went straight into rehearsals for the planned Ratdog fall jaunt.
"I hadn't had a day off for months," said Weir, 57.
So he decided to pull the plug on the tour, spend some time with his wife and children in their Mill Valley, Calif., home and regain his footing before taking Ratdog out for another walk.
Ironically, Weir gave this phone interview right after some strenuous exercise and sounded a bit, well... exhausted.
"I just got back from a workout and I'm kind of trashed," he said, catching his breath.
A known health nut, Weir was asked the details of his regimen.
"I try to masturbate three to 50 times a day," said Weir, always the prankster. "Aside from that, I have a whole training regimen. All of it, really. I run, I bike, I do a fair bit of yoga. I have a gym on my lower floor and I hit the weights a few times a week. I play a little tennis and football in the fall, and I kayak."
For the current tour - which has featured some Grateful Dead favorites never before played by Ratdog, such as "Black Muddy River" - Weir said he was planning on taking his focus on wellness onto the road.
"For what it's worth, we're taking a trainer for the first part of the tour to work up a routine for us, for anyone in the band who's interested. We take bicycles on the road with us."
Before hitting the wall physically, Weir's Ratdog seemed to be turning a corner musically. Somewhat limited in its ability to rock because of the inclusion of a member (Rob Wasserman) on standup bass, an instrument better suited for jazz, both Wasserman - a longtime Weir collaborator - and the band, decided to part ways.
Weir pointed out that Ratdog sprung from a duo setup with Wasserman. As the band gained more players, Wasserman's busy fretboard work was not necessarily what Ratdog needed from a bass player.
"The bottom groove was kind of soft for a few years," Weir said. "Rob is a wonderful bass player in a small ensemble situation. He was my whole band at the time; he was slapping on the bass and making percussion sounds. A whole lot of what he does - the nuances, the little clicks, pops and glisses, and stuff - are lost when you get more traffic happening. To ask Rob to simplify what he does. É We asked him that, but it sort of emasculates him. It's something he's not really there to do."
So Weir added Bay Area bassist Robin Sylvester to the Ratdog mix that already featured drummer Jay Lane, keyboard player Jeff Chimenti, guitarist Mark Karan and saxophonist Kenny Brooks.
"The bottom groove is a little stronger, given the fact that we're a much larger ensemble," said Weir. "Robin's a better fit for that. It wasn't easy because Rob's a dear friend of mine." While Ratdog has an album full of original tunes as well as a host of cover songs to choose from, it's the Grateful Dead's enormous catalog that generates the bulk of the band's concert material.
Ratdog offers longtime Dead fans the chance to enjoy both the music and spirit of that former group, and also allows younger fans that never saw the Dead with Garcia to get a feel for what went down in those heady days.
At certain musical moments, Ratdog fans may sometimes feel the presence of a channeled Garcia.
They're not the only ones.
"I just hear him, and I react to what I hear, just like I always did," Weir said. "I try to meet him there. I can sure as hell sense his drift. That's more what I was listening to anyway. The actual notes he was playing were almost secondary to the drift and the aura of what he was up to."