Bill Kreutzmann isn’t one to give interviews very often. So when the former Grateful Dead drummer does happen to speak up, it’s worth noting for Dead Heads to shut up and listen. After all, Kreutzmann was behind his drum kit for all 2,300+ concerts the Dead performed from 1965 until 1995, and has lived an equally interesting life in the 24 years since the group disbanded.
Kreutzmann’s latest interview shared on Monday is a profile piece by Hana Hou (the Hawaiian word for “encore”), the in-flight magazine for Hawaiian Airlines. Throughout the profile, the 73-year-old drummer opens up about his relaxed home life in Hawaii these days, his latest band Dead and Company, and how he strangely met his current wife who, at the time, was hosting a weekly Grateful Dead show on a local radio station.
“The Grateful Dead ended, and I was just broken in too many pieces. What do you do when you’ve done something for thirty years and then it’s just gone? So I came to a place I love,” he said in talking about how moving to Hawaii was his personal sanctuary following Jerry Garcia‘s death in 1995. It was a promise the two had made to each other while on vacation in the 1980s. “We were standing on the back of a dive boat in Kona and said, ‘God, let’s move here!’ We both agreed and said, ‘OK, when the band ends, we’ll move to Hawai‘i.’ He was as serious as could be—we shook hands on it.”
Kreutzmann continued about his late friend and bandmate, “What a terrible waste that we couldn’t turn him around. We couldn’t head it off. It was just the saddest thing. He was smarter than almost all his therapists, I guarantee you. He could talk circles around them.”
Scuba diving isn’t the only thing Kreutzmann has been up to in Hawaii for the last two decades. The interview goes on to mention how he turned his drums in for a fishing pole and now runs a farm where sheep are raised for wool and fruit is grown and shared with the local Kaua‘i Food Bank.
While he does spend a lot of time bouncing along the Hawaiian islands, when he’s not at home these days, Kreutzmann can be found on tour with Dead and Company. Kreutzmann brings up how he initially felt about guitarist John Mayer stepping up to fill Garcia’s shoes with praise for his younger bandmate.
“I’d come home from the studio at night and say, ‘Aimee, you wouldn’t believe it. He’s a really, really good guitar player! We throw all this stuff at him, and he’s right on top of it. We can’t shake him.'”
More recently, Kreutzmann announced that his other, smaller music project, Billy & The Kids, which includes Reed Mathis (Golden Gate Wingmen), Tom Hamilton (Ghost Light, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead), and Aron Magner (The Disco Biscuits), will regroup next spring for their appearance at Ventura, CA’s Skull & Roses Festival in early April.
Fans in California can also catch “Bill The Drummer” when Dead and Company regroups for a four-show New Year’s run in Los Angeles and San Francisco later this month. Head to Dead and Company’s website for ticket info.
Read the entire Hana Hou profile piece on Kreutzmann here.