Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead

by Bill Kreutzmann

  The last great Grateful Dead prank occurred in the middle of the summer at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, PA. The rainstorms that plagued our tour—a known risk that haunts many bands when they trek across the East Coast in the summertime—were fully present and accounted for that night. The majority of the stadium was uncovered and fans were getting dumped on. We did our version of a rain dance by stringing together a thematic setlist for the beginning of the second set: A cover of the Beatles’ “Rain” led into “Box of Rain,” “Samba in the Rain,” and “Looks Like Rain.” (The Grateful Dead did not control the weather … but we would sometimes comment on it.)

  Throughout the tour, Jerry’s performances were weak. Even with a teleprompter at his feet, he mumbled his way through forgotten lyrics and would even need help identifying what song we were playing—right in the middle of it.

  It’s been said before that with a scene like the Grateful Dead’s, whatever was happening backstage was a direct reflection of what was also happening in the audience (and vice versa, I suppose). I’ve always felt nothing but love for Deadheads and I feel grateful for them to this day. Consciously. Consistently. But in the 1990s we began to notice a new subgroup that we nicknamed the “railers”—they would ride the rail in the front row, night after night, and they looked just as dazed and confused as Jerry. They didn’t look high. They didn’t look stoned. They looked … strung out. Vacant. Cadaverous. But then I looked at our antihero nodding off onstage, unaware of what song he was playing even as his fingers picked out all the right notes. Things were bad.

  At RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., one night, several fans got struck by lightning in the parking lot. That was nature’s fault, not theirs. But about a week later, at Deer Creek Amphitheater, the storm came from the lawn, not from the sky. The thunderclap came when the back wall of the amphitheater came crashing down as thousands of gate crashers stormed the venue.

  Located in the heart of America’s corn belt, just north of Indianapolis, Deer Creek Amphitheater—which, these days, has been unceremoniously renamed after a speaker company—had become a legendary stop on our summer tours. A typical summer shed, Deer Creek’s bucolic setting allowed for plenty of nearby pop-up campgrounds (with names like “Dead Creek”) that local farmers would operate, right on their property. It became a favorite Midwestern play for us. Unfortunately, it’s now impossible not to remember it as ground zero for our star-crossed and cosmically cursed Summer 1995 tour. (Deer Creek no longer exists. Neither does Great Woods, Irvine Meadows, the Boston Garden, Knickerbacker, or Lakewood Amphitheater. Their naming rights have all been bought by corporations like phone carriers and speaker companies. But, to me and a nation of Deadheads, the original names will always stick.)

  The trouble at Deer Creek started with a death threat. We were scheduled for a two-night run at the shed beginning on July 2, 1995. The afternoon of the first show, we received word from the local police that somebody left a message claiming they would attempt to kill Jerry during the shows. The authorities took it seriously, so we couldn’t ignore it. But Jerry never let anybody dictate what he could or could not do, so he wasn’t going to let the police persuade him to flee just because some nut-job called the station. In true American tradition, the Grateful Dead wasn’t about to cower from a coward—whether it was a pissed-off fan or a pissed-off local, they made for a bad terrorist. Who calls a police station to tell them they’re about to assassinate a hippie?

  Jerry shrugged it off and even made the whole thing into a punch line when he sang “Dire Wolf” that night (“Don’t murder me/I beg of you, don’t murder me”). But as he sang it, the house lights remained on. Everyone had to pass through a metal detector to get into the show that night, and there were cops everywhere—especially down in front. It was an environment that was quite counterproductive to the Grateful Dead Experience. Also, it was just hard to concentrate on the music while looking out into a fully lit house, watching police intensely survey the crowd. You’d look at people’s faces and wonder if they were going to be the one to try to, somehow, murder Jerry Garcia that night.

  Then things took a turn for the even worse. Thousands of ticketless fans outside had managed to break through the back wall of the amphitheater and they came streaming onto the field. The sold-out venue held about 25,000 people. Suddenly there may have been more than 30,000 people inside and the gate crashers didn’t exactly pass by security. So in addition to property damage and concerns about crowd safety, thousands of gate crashers just negated all the increased security measures that were put in place to protect Jerry from the death threat. It was disastrous. And a heartbreaking scene to watch.

  Again, Jerry seemed to comment on it through a song selection but without the black humor of “Dire Wolf”—this time, he launched into “New Speedway Boogie,” a tune that he wrote with Robert Hunter following the Altamont murder. “One way or another this darkness got to give.”

  When the local authorities informed us the following day that the police would direct traffic but not set foot inside the venue that night, out of concerns for their own safety, we were forced to cancel the second show. So long, Deer Creek. Sorry about our so-called fans?

  The true Deadheads that were at the heart of the Grateful Dead Experience suddenly became overshadowed by the intrusion of an army of wookies. It changed the entire character of the scene. There were bad apples, bad eggs, and—sometimes—just bad people.

  The next stop on that tour was at the Riverport Amphitheatre, just outside of St. Louis. It’s yet another venue that has since been renamed after a phone carrier. The show itself was fine, although the setlist might reflect some of the emotions we were going through that week (“Going Down the Road Feeling Bad” -> “Throwing Stones” -> “Not Fade Away”). Again, the houselights had to be left on. It began to feel like we were playing the show in spite of the audience, rather than for them. At the same time, finishing those shows felt more like a contractual duty than a privilege.

  In a rainstorm after the show, some fans at a campground took shelter by crowding onto a nearby porch. The roof collapsed, injuring more than 100 people. One fan was paralyzed. We dedicated the following night’s show to those fans, while we braced ourselves for whatever bad news would come next. It was beginning to feel like, as a touring band, we had overstayed our welcome.

  We only had two more shows to get through, both of which were at Soldier Field in Chicago. A football stadium that’s been the longtime home of the Chicago Bears, Soldier Field is fortified so that gate crashing isn’t really a concern. Instead, the concern shifted back to Jerry, who didn’t have his best shows either of those nights.

  We ended the second show—the final night of the tour—with a double encore of “Black Muddy River” and “Box of Rain.” Two songs that, in hindsight, seemed eerily prescient of what was to come. After our final bows, we had our customary end-of-summer-tour firework show light up the sky above the stadium. It was a good one, too. Explosions. Lights. Smoke. Big bangs. Small crackles. “Oohs,” “Ahhs,” and that was that.

  We didn’t know it then, but that was the end of the Grateful Dead.

  I don’t remember saying anything to any of my fellow bandmates after the show. We may have exchanged pleasantries, but nothing substantial—we were all eager to get home and go our separate ways for a while, process everything that had gone down that summer, and recharge until the fall tour. I couldn’t wait to get back to Mendocino and get to a place where I could clear my head. A safety zone. For me, that meant being out on the water.

  I had no way of knowing, of course, that that would be the last time I would see Jerry Garcia alive. My friend, my bandmate, my brother. All I knew was that he was in need of some serious help. His roadie, Steve Parish, made it sound like Jerry knew that, was willing to face it, and even had a plan. I looked forward to seeing Jerry in another month or so, hoping that by then he’d be in better shape. Or at least on his way in that direction. Something. Anything.

  In
deed, just days after the tour ended, I heard that he checked himself into the Betty Ford Center in Southern California. I didn’t talk to him while he was there, and they probably didn’t allow a lot of outside conversations anyway. But, as it turned out, I didn’t ever talk to Jerry again, period.

  When he went to the Betty Ford Center, I remember thinking that, for once, Jerry was really going to have a chance. I was cautiously optimistic, as they say. All I could do was send thoughts of love his way, which I did in my own way. But Jerry only lasted two weeks there before pulling the rip cord. That wouldn’t do and I knew it. Remember, I had checked myself into rehab in 1990 and I knew firsthand that two weeks was nothing. It’s not enough time to detoxify, let alone change patterns and habits. For some reason, twenty-eight days is the magic number in those places, and even that’s just the introductory package; the basic plan. The ground floor. The human body can’t really undergo the necessary physiological changes in half that time. So when Jerry came back after a mere two weeks, I thought to myself, “Hmm. That’s not going to hold.”

  Jerry knew this, too. Maybe he just had a problem with the Betty Ford Center in particular or maybe he simply wanted to be closer to home, because when he got back, he checked himself into a place called Serenity Knolls in Lagunitas—just down the road from the old Girl Scout camp where we briefly lived during the Summer of ’66. Those were magical days. I was hoping that, just by being on the same road—almost within sight of the old camp—Jerry would find some inspiration, some motivation, some of the spark that we used to start the fire that became the Grateful Dead and whose flame burned so brightly for three decades. I wasn’t thinking of the band. I was thinking of my friend’s health. We all were.

  There is no easy way for me to say this, so I’ll keep it simple: On August 9, 1995, Jerry Garcia died of an apparent heart attack. It happened sometime around four or five in the morning, so he had been sleeping when the angels took him. He was just one week into his fifty-third year. I miss him. Every single day.

  22

  Every Deadhead remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news that Jerry Garcia died. That’s something else that we all, sadly, have in common. I was visiting my dad and his wife Patricia at their condo, in the town of Mendocino. I had recently broken up with Pamela, who was my girlfriend following my divorce from Shelley. I guess you could say she was my rebound. We split amicably, and she called me that morning, at my dad’s house. August 9, 1995.

  Nobody has ever received a phone call from an ex-girlfriend that started with the words, “Sit down” which they haven’t remembered for the rest of their lives. So I sat down. Yet, despite all logic and probability, I wasn’t ready to hear what came next. “Jerry’s dead,” she said.

  I mumbled something to my dad and his wife, stumbled out of the house, got in my car, drove back to my place, and sat there. All shock and tears as I looked out at the cold, vast ocean from the relative safety of the Mendocino bluffs.

  “Fuck,” I thought. “I’ve got to do something. I can’t just sit here, sobbing like this.” I put on my wet suit, grabbed my surfboard, and went to battle the unmerciful Pacific Ocean—fierce by nature, unforgiving by force, and totally unfuckwithable in every way. The ocean didn’t give a damn that Jerry just died. It’s not that the ocean is apathetic, it just doesn’t have time for the small stuff—like life and death. I spent a few hours surfing, just to get out of myself, transcend, and connect to something bigger. I caught waves by muscle memory alone. My head was somewhere else; neither here, nor there. I guess that’s called trauma or shock. Surfing was my shock treatment. My therapy. I didn’t even attempt most waves. I just floated on my surfboard, more than anything, and tried to stare past the horizon, hoping to discover a place beyond the sight line where I could disappear or else make everything perfect again, in a way that it hadn’t been for years.

  Open water has that magical ability to wash away your problems. To make them go away. Yeah, well … not this time. Jerry was gone and nothing could bring him back. Not even the tide.

  I was in the water for a few hours. I didn’t know where else to go. There was nobody at my house. I didn’t want to be alone, but I also didn’t want to be with people. I wanted to be on the water. It was the one place besides the middle of a Grateful Dead jam where I could feel the arms of the universe wrap themselves around me and tell me that everything was fine exactly the way it was. Even if I wasn’t happy with immediate events. The waves come and crash over you regardless. You can ride, float, or drown. It’s that simple.

  Meanwhile, Bobby had a gig that night with one of his other bands—Ratdog. He didn’t cancel the gig. He told the evening news cameras before the show that Jerry would have wanted him to continue to put music in the air. I wouldn’t have been able to keep a beat that night, but everybody deals with death differently. During an emotional “Throwing Stones,” Bobby ad-libbed, “Papa’s gone, we are on our own.” It was a harsh reality. But he was right. “Papa’s gone, we are on our own.”

  His words rang even truer for me, personally, than he intended. About a month after Jerry died, my actual papa passed away. I was on my own. I was single, orphaned, and in a band that had just lost its centerpiece. I felt crippled by loss. It didn’t matter that I was in one of the biggest bands in the world or that I was rich and famous. That’s surface success. It doesn’t do a damn thing to protect you from grief. And in 1995, I had lots of grief. I dealt with it by taking a lot of painkillers and drinking bottomless whatevers until I bottomed out. I hit rock bottom. So to speak.

  The only good thing about hitting the floor is that you have nowhere to go but up. It’s a choice … with the only other option being death. I wasn’t going to let the Reaper take me. He already had enough of my friends and family to keep him busy for a while. I felt lost but I wasn’t a lost cause. Finally, I called a friend and said, “I need help. Get me to therapy.”

  And that’s when I went to rehab for my second—and final—stint. Set two. But let’s back up for a moment so I can tell you about my father’s death. It was from complications of old age. His body just gave out on him. I went to be by his side, along with his wife, Patricia, and some of his best friends at the hospital in Fort Bragg, just up the Mendocino coast. We watched over my father as he went into a coma on a Saturday afternoon. By Sunday afternoon, he was gone. It was a sunny day in a part of the country that is perpetually foggy, and a train whistle blew as my dad drew his last breath. It was fitting; he loved train whistles. He had a thing for them in the way that some people have a thing for ice cream or roller coasters or fancy cars. It made him happy, that’s all. I think when he heard that train whistle blow from his hospital bed in Fort Bragg, he thought, “That’s my cue. All aboard.” And there he went. In peace. As sad as it was for the loved ones he left behind, it was a beautiful moment at the end of a beautiful life.

  Back when my dad lived with his second wife, Gail, in Carmel, California, he did this thing where he used blow his train whistle as loud as he could, intentionally disrupting the neighborhood. He loved doing that sort of thing. He had a few recordings of train whistles and he’d blast them from his stereo on Sunday mornings with the windows opened wide, all these noises—the train whistle, the steam engine, the chug-a-lug—spilling out onto the street and into the ears of neighbors who were not thrilled. My dad didn’t care. In fact, I think he even enjoyed that part of it. He loved that sound so much.

  I must’ve inherited that love from him—or maybe that sound became a reflection of my love for him—because eventually I incorporated a train whistle into my drum repertoire and I would use it sometimes in “Drums -> Space.” I still have that train whistle to this day; it’s in my barn.

  Consider this: Before my dad died, Jerry died. Before Jerry died, the Grateful Dead had that catastrophic final tour. Before the final tour, my girlfriend—Pamela—got lung cancer and I held her hand through weekends of chemotherapy. And throughout all of this, I was drinking a c
ouple bottles of wine every day—often by myself—and downing fistfuls of painkillers. All in all, 1995 was not my favorite year. In fact, it was my least.

  The general public didn’t know about my dad’s passing, but it seemed like every last person on Earth knew about Jerry. I couldn’t avoid it. Wherever I went, somebody was there to remind me. In Mendocino, locals that I recognized but never directly interacted with would approach and say things like, “Sorry about the bad news…” (“Yeah, me too…”) And whenever I ventured elsewhere, strangers from all walks of life would offer their sympathy. Condolences are always awkward and I didn’t know how to handle them. I appreciated the thought, but after a while, it just got to be too much. It became part of the burden. I didn’t need to be reminded of that which I could not forget. And I didn’t need comfort from strangers.

  At one point, I was visiting a beach in Hawaii that happens to be just a stone’s throw away from where I live now. I was by myself and I parked and started walking to the beach. Two huge Samoan guys just got back from spearfishing and they emerged from the water like creatures from the dark lagoon. They were as massive as sumo wrestlers and they were carrying spearguns with them, for fishing purposes. But, you know, a weapon’s a weapon. And to prove it, they had dead fish hanging off their belts. They were nothing to fuck with. I kept my cool when they started walking right toward me, but I’d be bluffing if I said I wasn’t a little bit nervous. When they approached, all they said was, “Sorry to hear about da kine.” They were speaking in Hawaiian Pidgin—local slang—but they were talking about Jerry Garcia. He would’ve loved that, like it was some kind of prank that made up for that time the dive instructor in Kona asked him for his autograph, twenty feet below the surface. It made me smile. Jerry was “da kine.” And it also showed just how far and wide his reach was and how deeply he was embedded in the American consciousness. You couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t escape it. And I didn’t want to. But I did need a break, to give me time to mourn, for both Jerry and my dad, and to put the pieces of my life back together again.