The Other Ones was a band formed in 1998 by former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Mickey Hart. In 2000 the band played The Further Festival in Pittsburgh. WYEP’s Music Director at the time was Jack Barton, a dedicated Deadhead. You can hear his excitement as he interviews Weir backstage at the festival. He draws attention to the band’s changing line-up as Dead alumnus, drummer Bill Kreutzmann joined, and Alphonso Johnson replaced bassist Phil Lesh. Weir talks about meshing band member needs, writing with Robert Hunter, his new band Ratdog. And listen for a cameo from songwriter Garrett Graham! The recording took place on Oct. 16, 2000 — Weir's 53rd birthday.
Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Jack Barton: Jack Barton backstage at the Further Festival 2000 with Bob Weir, longtime Grateful Dead guitarist and vocalist, now vocalist and guitarist for The Other Ones, and fronting a band called Rat Dog. Thanks for giving us some time, Bob. Now this tour, you're about three quarters of the way through it. Is it being as musically satisfying as the band growing the way musically that you thought it would?
Bob Weir: Pretty much. I mean, we've got a bunch of great players and it's pretty much what you expect. It took us a while to get the theme formed up, to get a notion of what it is that we can do and what it is that we want to do with it. And, and I think we're getting there now. You know, if we stay together, if we do more tours and stuff like that, it'll just get better.
Barton: There's a difference this year from two years ago, both in the personnel and it can be heard in the musical conversation that goes on stage. Do you think the biggest impact in the change that it's had in the conversation has been as ability? Is it Alfonzo?
Weir: Probably the biggest difference is we've got Billy again, and Billy's in good form now. Billy knows the nuances of the older tunes and we have years and years of working together under our belts. He knows when it's going to take a dynamic turn. He knows when he's going to turn a corner and that kind of stuff. When you're used to working with a drummer for 30 some years, you can't just pluck that out of thin air. It doesn't just come. It takes a long time to get that kind of thing together. And Billy is working out his rapport and his relationship with Alfonso, who's a very different kind of bass player than Phil was. And so, he's having fun with that. Billy is having fun with that. This band, it's turned a corner now from the way the other ones used to be. We can do the old chestnuts, but they're going to come out a little differently now, but they're going to have the dynamics that we weren't really able to fish out the last time around. It's just the bottom group is going to be different, but it's good.
Barton: That sounds a little bit like last time around with the other ones. You were part of the guitar Army, and it seems like you're more part of the rhythm section with Billy and Mickey up there at this point.
Weir: Little bit of both. I don't think about that much. I don't think about it at all when I'm playing out there. I just put something in where I think it's needed. We don't have Dave Ellis out here with us. Mickey just can't stand the sound of the saxophone, and he just nixed it. I kind of miss it, but whatever. And so there's a little less traffic now as well.
Barton: Have you been adding songs into the repertoire as the tour goes on? Because I read somewhere you started with 59, and it just seems like there's a lot more songs popping up at this point.
Weir: I've lost count. I've made no attempt to keep up with it. We'll keep adding songs and we've started writing new ones. I don't know how soon they're going to start showing up.
Barton: I want to talk a second about your other band, Rat Dog, which is, I guess, your full-time project now and started as your side project a number of years ago and has really evolved into something completely different over the last five years. And I'm wondering how that process took place. Going from what Rat Dog was in 95 to what Rat Dog is now in the year 2000.
Weir: Well, it's like with any band, after you stay together for a little while, after the personnel is stabilized and you get used to working with the guys, the band grows a phase. We know who we are now and what we're up to, kind of. And we're having a lot of fun. We're loving doing it. It's the best of all possible worlds for me to be out on the road, playing the stuff I love with the people. I love doing it.
Barton: The album Evening Moods. The first real official Rat Dog album. The first solo Bob Weir album that isn't, or I guess it's not solo because you're with a band, but first album you've done outside the Grateful Dead isn't a live recording or something in a long time. All new songs, some old songs that we may have heard before. How did this album come together as opposed to the other work you've done before?
Weir: There are 10 tunes on the record, I think. And one of them comes from the not-too-distant past, being Corrina, And then, over the past year and a half or so, I've been writing with Garrett Graham here and, say some great radio here.
Garrett Graham: It's radio. My favorite medium. Yeah. Bob and I have four tracks on the new record. I'm as dissatisfied as usual. You know, I'm looking forward to the next one. I'm already thinking about the next one. It's a good record, though. I've listened to it probably all the way through probably 20 times now. And each time I like it better. It is very beautifully recorded, for one thing. And there's some, there's some lovely tunes on it. I'm not necessarily speaking about my own either. There's some great stuff on it, I like it.
Barton: Well, that's kind of interesting that you're working with Hunter again. I'm talking about Robert Hunter, who was Garcia's main lyricist, and I guess has written some things with you two Bob. But for many, many years you've worked with John Barlow and you've been working with Gary Graham over here. But there's this myth that many, many, many years ago, when you were writing with Hunter, there was a point where he just threw his hands up and ran screaming from a room going, somebody else take him. I can't write with this guy. What was up with that?
Weir: Well, you know, honey Hunter's right here in the pet cocoon. I can be difficult. Anyone can be difficult, you know? And it's sort of my job to be difficult in some ways. When it comes to writing, I, you know, and I write a little myself as well. And sometimes that gets in the way of the flux, and sometimes that helps. What the hell? You know, I'm working with all these guys now, and, and it's great to have the different flavors.
Barton: Back to writing, talk for just a second with the new album Evening Moods coming out. You know, it's going to be out on the road this fall pushing that record and playing the new songs for the masses around the country.
Weir: That's our earnest intent. We'll be out there kicking the stuff around. It'll be good to have a record out, because then the kids can sing along with the tunes because they like to do that. And, we can have the tunes kind of in heavy rotation, as it were, the new tunes. But I gotta say, by the time we get back out on the road, I think probably where we're going to be headed is going to be the next body of material. Because that's where we live, the new stuff. It's always been the case and always will be.
Barton: When you started out playing with Rob Wasserman, you were just a duo, and you stayed really far away from Grateful Dead material. There were maybe one or two songs a night that would come out, and as riot talks evolved, you're doing a lot more of that material, a lot of the same material that you're doing with the other ones. Is there a different dynamic in how you approach it with the two different bands?
Weir: Yeah. You know, it's going to get to the point where both bands have repertoire so large that I don't have to worry about burning out on the material, you know. I can play the old Grateful Dead chestnuts, one night in six, and I'm not going to get burned out on them. And so I can do that by being with either band, I might. You know, some of the some of the tunes, some of my old tunes might gravitate towards one ensemble or the other. They naturally do that. Like, for instance, Carina, Rat Dog does a killer version of Carina. And this man doesn't really have a, have a, a great handle on it. So I don't do it so much with this man. And I do it a lot with rat dog and. That's the kind of stuff that's going to happen.
Barton: It sounds like you're thinking that The Other Ones is going to continue on as an entity, past 2000 at this point.
Weir: It's starting to amount to something. And it'd be a shame to let it go fallow again.
Barton: Oh, Bob, thanks very much for spending some time with us. I'm Jack Barton, 91.3 WYEP. Continued success with the further tours and good luck with Evening Modes in your tour this fall. Bob, thanks for spending some time with us.
Weir: All right, kids, turn off your radio, shut down the computer and get outside.