Jerry’s funeral was an open casket. It was held in St. Stephen’s church in Belvedere, a real wealthy area near Sausalito. But it was a funeral, which meant, it sucked. It was painful to look at people’s faces. I tried not to. Everyone was just a mirror of all of our sadness. For me, the worst fucking part was the open casket. Jerry looked like a toy model of himself, but it wasn’t very complimentary. It was like some oddity from a wax museum. Who would want to look at that? It was Jerry … but it wasn’t Jerry. I would’ve preferred not to have seen him like that. I would have preferred to keep him in my mind the way he appears in my memories. And I’ve done that. But the way his body appeared in the casket was some mortician’s idea of what he was or what he looked like, when there is just no way that even the world’s best mortician could’ve come within one millionth of one percent of replicating the life energy that Jerry was capable of emanating, effortlessly, every time you caught eyes with him. The way he looked in that casket bothered me.
Still, I went up there with my bandmates and we huddled around him like the unit that we once were, lifetimes earlier. We even made some stupid jokes. “I wish we had a battery, because we’d kick-start you, old pal.”
I tapped him on the chest. “How you doing, brother?” I knew that he wasn’t there at all. It was all for show. I said some things, both to him and to the others. I said all of these words and I heard them come out of me and I meant them, but I was hardly even paying attention. I remember my final good-bye, though. “I love you, Jerry,” I said. And that was it.
On August 13, 1995—about a week after Jerry’s death—there was a memorial held for him in Golden Gate Park. It was in the Polo Field where we once played some of our biggest shows, for free. And just like it was back then, thousands of Deadheads from all over the country showed up. The memorial was a big, beautiful celebration of Jerry Garcia’s life and of everything that he meant to so many people, and it was almost like some kind of happy event; but I didn’t feel happy. And I know you’re supposed to get drunk; but I didn’t get drunk. I didn’t go wild. It was a very beautiful gathering and with wonderful intent—an Irish wake, a hippie send-off—but it didn’t have anything going for me. I guess I was more private in my sadness and more isolated in my grief.
Mickey gave me this big drum to play as we marched through the crowd but I didn’t want to play a big drum. Everything seemed awful. Except, of course, for the Deadheads. They were there to pay tribute to Jerry and to honor him and to celebrate his life and that part of it was wonderful and moving and made the day special for a lot of people and it gave so many others the closure that they, too, needed. I had to see outside of myself to see that, because I was so blinded by loss. By personal loss.
There was a giant picture of Jerry on some kind of shrine and everybody was really respectful—there was no separation between band and audience and yet nobody asked for autographs or anything like that. Everybody was truly there just to support each other and to come together as a community and to deal with Jerry’s departure. But dealing with it was something that for me, personally, I needed to do by myself. And, in a way, I’m still dealing with it. My father’s death, too.
The first time I saw the rest of my bandmates after that—at this point, sadly, we can start to say things like, “The surviving members…”—it was at our new rehearsal space, which was in an old Coca-Cola plant in Bel Marin Keys, not too far from our longtime headquarters in San Rafael. We had run into some kind of trouble with the landlord back at Front Street, or something like that, and we had just moved into this new space. It wasn’t even fixed up yet and the studio wasn’t fully built or operational. It was just a big empty space, which made our meeting there even heavier. You could feel the loss in the air. And the weight of it all.
We got together in one of the front rooms and everybody just kind of gazed down at their shoes. Nobody even bothered making wisecracks, which, of course, was a sure sign that everything had changed and that nothing was the same. Nobody faked a smile. What was the point? We kind of batted around talk of, “So, are we going to keep doing this?” “Should we start to think about auditions?” “What next?” and that sort of thing, but it wasn’t even halfhearted—it was completely empty-hearted. The light had gone out in the Grateful Dead’s attic and there was nobody home. I think there was talk, probably initiated by Phil, about creating a permanent home, museum, concert venue, store, and mixed-use space called “Terrapin Station.” And there was some talk already about merchandising, I think. Everything from that time is a blur to me. If it wasn’t the mourning, it was the alcohol, and if it wasn’t the alcohol it was the painkillers. Or the holy trinity of all three. Fuck, man. Not a good look. Not a good scene.
Jerry’s death, the funeral, and the Golden Gate Park memorial all happened in August. My dad died in September. And then, in December we had another band meeting. Before we called the meeting, I knew one thing already in my heart—the Grateful Dead without Jerry Garcia would be like the Miles Davis Quintet without Miles Davis. Had Jerry still been alive, we would’ve ended up taking time off anyway, maybe go on another hiatus. We were burned out. I had been burned out since 1993. I did things on the road to make it work for me, like paying more attention to my health and whatnot, but it still wasn’t a very healthy lifestyle. I surfed a lot at home but there was never enough time to get enough exercise on the road. I realize that complaints like that are all just rationalizations and justifications. I think the heart of it was just that the band itself was not healthy and the band was my life—so if the band wasn’t great, my life wasn’t great. It was a ruthless fucking feedback loop.
I think Jerry wanted to take another break from it, too, and maybe even put an indefinite halt to the Grateful Dead. I don’t think that would’ve been permanent, but I do think some kind of a break was imminent. Undeniable. Unavoidable. That’s my honest feeling about it.
Before the December ’95 band meeting, there were rumors flying around as to who might “replace” Jerry. David Hidalgo, Carlos Santana, and so on. They were (and are) all great players, but nobody could ever replace Jerry Garcia. Let’s be honest: Nobody is the next anybody and the only way to replace someone is to imitate them and that’s not art. It’s a reenactment, nostalgia, mere bathos. Regardless, I’m not interested in being a rodeo clown. Or a puppet. I knew that, without Jerry, it could never be the same. That, in itself, is fine. After all, no two shows were ever the same. But the harsh truth is just that it could never be as good. So I wanted out. Besides, I was in no shape to go back out on tour anytime soon—I was in such a bad way, that I had to call into the meeting. I couldn’t even make it there, physically. It was too hard for me to get out of bed.
I think my bandmates knew that I was done with it before that meeting, but that meeting is where I made it clear—I was done. The Grateful Dead were over. Some say I pulled the plug on it but that plug was pulled when Jerry was ripped from this Earth. I was just trying to be respectful.
I became very, very depressed. I can see that for what it was, looking back on it now. When I was in it, however, my head was too convoluted to see the fog for the clouds. I was washing a lot of Vicodin down with red wine and I got to a place where I couldn’t even go out to get my own dinner. I was that helpless, that low. I stopped surfing. I turned visitors away. I didn’t have a therapist. I didn’t have anybody that I felt I could relate to; so, I didn’t have anybody. It was bad. I was lost in all directions without a sail, a map, or anyone to carry me home. And no one waiting up for me when I got there.
I had to go into rehab because I couldn’t even carry a conversation anymore. So I had a friend check me into Sierra Tucson, a treatment facility in Arizona. I was determined to not meet the same maker as Jerry. And that’s when I started to get better.
At one point, my therapist told me to assign each of my problems to a different piece of furniture and place those pieces in the middle of the room. Well, I didn’t stop rearranging the furniture until every damn piece was
in the pile. I promised myself I would take those things and turn them into a bonfire inside me that would eventually burn off all the pain.
I completed a four-week program and I then insisted that I stay for another week, just for bonus points. Who willingly signs onto rehab for an additional week, after putting in a month already? I did.
Things had turned around in there and I wanted to make sure that they would stick; that I’d be ready to be released without regressing. I waited until I was strong enough. It was such a relief to, physically, feel good again. And besides, I knew that getting healthy was the only way I’d be capable of turning the page and starting a new chapter. The first, since I was nineteen, that didn’t involve the Grateful Dead.
I didn’t really want to live in Mendocino anymore. My dad had departed. I divorced my wife, Shelley, and later I broke up with my girlfriend, Pam. I didn’t have anything keeping me there but ghosts. I moved to Hawaii and I knew right away that I wanted to be somewhere on Kauai. The Garden Island. Kauai is to Hawaii what Mendocino is to California. It’s not as densely populated, or as overrun with tourists, as the other islands. It’s small and, except for an untamable stretch of the Napali Coast—where there are no roads—you can drive around the perimeter of the island in under two hours. Kauai is rugged. It has picture-postcard beaches and waterfalls and mountains and valleys. The locals are kind … mostly. Gentle but strong. As are most of the surf spots. The weather is perfect, the views are scenic, and the rest is history. I moved to the largest town on the island, Kapa’a, with a population of just over 10,000. I knew right away that I’d never leave the island. And whenever I do, I can’t wait to come back. I moved up the coast to the island’s North Shore and bought a house from a drug auction. The irony was not lost on me.
Later on, I would move back to California for a short period of my life that I’d choose to forget. I made a mistake and married someone I shouldn’t have, someone I didn’t love. But then I realized that the whole marriage was one giant blunder, a misstep on my behalf, and I filed for divorce and the first thing I did after signing those papers was to move back to Kauai where I belonged. Even when I was living back in California (in Marin), I kept my house in Hawaii. There was no way I was going to part with it. So when I came back, I already had a place to live. I love it here and I’m happy. Locals don’t know me as “Bill the Drummer,” they simply know me as “Billy.” I’m just a local. A lucky man who had a crazy life back on the mainland. But now I fish and I snorkel and I married a girl I’m crazy about, Aimee, and I spend many days helping her out on her organic farm and I jam with friends and I eat well and I just enjoy the hell out of island life. My island life.
I had to divorce myself from music for a while. It didn’t feel right. At my first house on Kauai, a friend of mine brought me this old funky black Ludwig drum set. It sounded like dog shit, but it was something for me to bang on and some local guys—aspiring amateurs—would come over and want to jam. After playing in the Grateful Dead, that kind of open-mike jamming just wasn’t that much fun. So I didn’t do it that much. I didn’t start playing music again for a while.
As for listening to music—and specifically the Grateful Dead—it took awhile. I had to get away from it before I could get back to it. I closed the door on everything Grateful Dead for a bit because I had to. After we disbanded, I needed to untangle. And then I went into treatment and I wasn’t even allowed to listen to music, or watch TV. I was there to heal. Of course, you could argue that there’s no better healer than music, but what I needed most at that time was silence inside my head. And that required counseling and treatment.
When I got back to the island, after my five weeks at Sierra Tucson, I listened to a lot of reggae and what I guess you would call stoner music. Not that the Grateful Dead isn’t music for stoners, but I could only listen to stuff that I wasn’t so attached to. Back in rehab, my roommate snuck in a Peter Tosh cassette and I used to listen to it every night, religiously. But I didn’t listen to any of my own music, even after I got out and had the freedom to hit play on whatever I wanted.
I’ve since had a Grateful Dead reawakening, thanks to my wife, Aimee, and thanks to some of my good friends who, recently, began playing me some of the great shows and tours. Our current record label, Rhino, has been releasing great box sets and archival packages and I’ll play those CDs in my living room after dinner, or around a bonfire when I have friends over, and it really makes me emotional. When I hear that music now, it transforms me and it heals me. And it redeems me. But it also makes me miss Jerry.
23
It’s an old adage that time heals all wounds, and, in the end, I suppose that’s true. But some wounds take until the end of time to heal. Or so it feels like, when those wounds are yours. By this point, I’ve built up a lot of scar tissue, and looking back, I can agree that it adds character and all the other things they say about it. Look: everybody has to deal with loss and with death. Many of us also have to deal with things like addiction and depression. All of those demons hang in the same ugly gang, and I had to fight them all at once. I was outnumbered, I’m afraid. I put up a fight, but 1995 kicked my ass and I was still licking my wounds during the year that followed.
Bands are like marriages and, in 1995, I had to end a thirty-year band marriage. I wasn’t looking for a rebound band. I wasn’t looking for another band at all, really. I was just looking for peace, love, and understanding. At the age of forty-nine, I had to figure out who I was again. Because who I was had just changed, seemingly overnight, from the drummer of the Grateful Dead to…?
In the Summer of 1996, some of my former bandmates—Bobby, Mickey, and Hornsby—decided to combine forces and hit the road with their various, respective new groups as part of the first Furthur Festival. It was a traveling, daylong circus that toured the amphitheaters of America throughout the summer season. The other bands included Los Lobos and Hot Tuna and, sure enough, there were plenty of cross-pollinations and nightly jams. I had no particular problem with any of it; I just didn’t particularly feel like participating. So I didn’t.
When I decided to start playing music again, it was a situation that was easy and that didn’t require the same kind of massive commitment and energy that going on tour with the Furthur Festival would have required. I needed things to be simple. In 1997, two years after my last show with the Grateful Dead, I formed a band called Backbone with some local players on Kauai. I don’t think we ever “toured,” per se, but we did play some casual shows, mostly around the island.
Backbone was a trio that featured my friends Rick Burnett and Ed Cook. We weren’t that great, to be honest, but it was what it was. It got me back in the game; or, at least, got my feet wet again. (Actually, all four limbs, considering that I’m a drummer.) We recorded an album in Burnett’s home studio, mixed it in Marin, and released it on BMG/Arista in 1998. Self-titled. About ten originals and the obligatory Dead cover; in this case, “New Speedway Boogie.” That was about it for the lifespan of that little trio. Don’t hold your breath for a reunion.
Meanwhile, the Furthur Festival went well enough for my former bandmates. It was a profitable enterprise for them and the idea of bundling all their groups together on a package tour made it appealing to Deadheads. They went out again in the Summer of 1997, but this time the headliners were the Black Crowes. The groups led by Bob Weir and Mickey Hart (Ratdog and Planet Drum, respectively) were in afternoon slots, along with Bruce Hornsby and some other bands. I thought that was a bit odd.
A Grateful Dead concert it was not, but I heard reports that the parking lot scene looked just about the same. Except maybe less electric. Less optimistic. There was a new unspoken sadness, like everyone knew that they were there chasing spirits long gone. The ghost of the Grateful Dead. That’s how I imagined it, anyway, which is why when Bobby, Mickey, Hornsby—and, now, Phil—decided to put as many pieces of the band back together, I declined to participate. I knew it wouldn’t be anything like the Grateful Dead that our fans
remembered. But at least, now, my old bandmates could headline their own festival. They called it the Other Ones. The name said it all. Interpret that as you will.
The first incarnation of the Other Ones featured other players that were familiar to our scene: Steve Kimock and Mark Karan had the unenviable task of filling Jerry’s shoes. Those shoes were so large that the two of them, together, could step into them and they still didn’t fit just right. It was something different, which isn’t to say it wasn’t something good. Hornsby’s guy, John Molo, was on drums. And they brought in a saxophone player—Dave Ellis—as well, for whatever reason.
When the Furthur Festival came to Shoreline Amphitheater—a venue that Bill Graham built and that, allegedly, resembles a Steal Your Face from space—I made the questionable decision to go check it out. It was the last night of the tour. July 25, 1998. I happened to be in the Bay Area, on some kind of visit, so it made sense at the time. I made it to the venue—albeit, late—and I ended up sitting in for a number of songs. I played a talking drum, but they didn’t really put me in the mix. I was turned down and placed off to the side. It was more for show. Their show. That was fine by me, because I was decidedly drunk and it was probably obvious that I didn’t really want to be there. It brought back too many memories. Memories that were great when we made them but which became painful after Jerry’s death. My heart wasn’t ready. I felt like a stranger on that crazy night.
My next project had to be just as casual as Backbone but a little more enjoyable for me as a player—and House of Spirits was born. We were a Hawaiian jam band that just stuck to the islands. Nothing too fancy and certainly not so serious. We partied and played music, simple as that. The guitarist, Steve Inglis, really had a knack for interpreting Garcia/Hunter songs, and the other guys—Calvin Schaeffer and Eric Peterson—were enjoyable to play with too. We formed in 1999, but not everything is built to last, and so we didn’t quite survive Y2K. Easy come, easy move on.
Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead Page 37