Friday, May 9, 2003 | 5:33 a.m.
For more than 30 years Bob Weir spent his nights collaborating with fellow Grateful Dead singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia.
Since Garcia's 1995 death, Weir's primary musical partner has been dynamic bassist Rob Wasserman. Together the two men founded RatDog, and played more than 450 shows before Wasserman exited the band last year.
This year marks the start of the next chapter in the 55-year-old Weir's long, strange musical journey. His retooled RatDog visits the Palms' Skinpool Lounge Friday night at 8.
Later this year Weir will also revisit his past, teaming up with former Grateful Dead mates Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart in a reconstituted version of the improvisational rock ensemble, known this time, simply, as The Dead.
Last week Weir took time between RatDog shows for a telephone interview from his hotel room in Fayetteville, Ark.
Sun: What prompted RatDog's recent lineup change?
BW: Basically, Rob has always been sort of a square peg, and RatDog turned into a round hole, or maybe it's the other way around.
When I first started playing with Rob, it worked real well because we were an acoustic duo. Then as we grew into a sextet, the requirements for the bass player got to be less and less. And that's just not what Rob is all about.
He's used to being basically the whole rest of the band, and the band was trying to get him to do something that he wasn't about to do.
Sun: Do the two of you remain close?
BW: Sure. Every now and again I miss him, but I'll play with Rob in the future, in smaller ensembles. We did a gig recently with DJ Logic, and it was a lot of fun. I expect that we'll probably be taking that on the road at some point.
Sun: New bassist Robin Sylvester has played about 10 shows with the band so far. How is he doing?
BW: He's doing real well, considering he has to learn 130 songs or something. He's been working on it since around the first of the year, but no human can be expected to learn our book that quickly.
Sun: RatDog released its first studio album, "Evening Moods," in 2000. Are there any plans for a follow-up?
BW: Yeah, we're doing it now. Our management would like to see it out by the fall, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
Sun: What type of feedback have you been getting about the name change from the Other Ones to The Dead?
BW: I haven't heard too much negative feedback. But for what it's worth, I thought it was premature. I thought we should have let a groundswell of fan opinion force our hands with that decision, put it to a vote on the 'Net or something.
I was fine with the name the Other Ones until that happened. But the other guys in the band wanted to change it and I was outvoted.
Sun: I've read that you feel Jerry Garcia's spirit communicates with you.
BW: When you spend 30-something years with somebody living in your head and in your heart and you living in their head and heart, you can see where the physical body might leave, but the spirit doesn't.
While I'm playing onstage there are times I know he'd be hating what I'm doing, that it's not the way he would want to do it. And there are times I'm sure that he'd be loving it. I can hear him, sort of, kicking me in the head or flagging me on, the same as when he was around.
Sun: The Dead's lineup will feature Jimmy Herring on lead guitar. I'm curious whether you've ever considered switching over from rhythm guitar to take over The Dead's lead guitar role yourself?
BW: I've given it some thought. It would be interesting, to take The Dead out as just the surviving members and that's it. No keyboards, no extra guitarists, just the four of us. I'd be up for that. Maybe that will happen.
Sun: I notice there aren't many West Coast dates on The Dead's tour schedule so far. Do you expect more to be added?
BW: I think that's going to be a separate deal, later in the year.
Sun: Do you suppose Vegas will be included?
BW: I would think so.
Sun: For part of The Dead's tour, you guys will be playing with Bob Dylan for the first time since the "Dylan and The Dead" tour in 1987. How excited are you about that?
BW: I'm looking forward to it in a big way. He's always been a favorite of mine, and his most recent record is one of my current favorites. It's a masterpiece. He's definitely got the hot hand again.
Sun: The Grateful Dead continues to release material from its vault at a steady rate. How much input do the band members have in those specific choices?
BW: I guess we all have veto power, but really all of us are pretty busy. And (Dead vaultkeeper) David Lemieux and the people he works with are far better judges of what should be put out than we are.
People in our management waltz it under my nose. They ask me for my opinion, and it's always, "Sounds good to me." (laughs) They encourage me to listen to it and sometimes I do, but I don't get very far into it.
Sun: Are there plans to make more vault material available online?
BW: I'm not sure that the technology is here quite yet to make offerings straight off of the Internet that are of the quality that we want our stuff to go out on. Your standard MP3 files are just audio trash.
At the same time it's going to take us awhile to digitize our vault. So I'm thinking give it a couple of years.
In the meantime we'll probably be making available custom-order CDs, which is something we can do now. So if you want the first show you saw or every "Uncle John's Band" from '78 to '82, you can get it.
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