Mickey Hart: An Edger and a Devil

With the Core Four of the Grateful Dead split up at this moment, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, took to the road with the latest incarnation of the Rhythm Devils. As has been custom for each of Hart’s non-GD musical excursions the lineup this time around varies the previous Devils’ roster. Besides Hart and Kreutzmann, they are joined by Mickey’s longtime drumming collaborator Sikiru Adepoju plus guitarist Davy Knowles and bassist Andy Hess. Living out a Deadhead dream, Keller Williams received his horns and joined the outfit during its first leg. The Mother Hips Tim Bluhm joins them for the second leg, which begins on Aug. 21 at the Hoxeyville Festival.

Speaking from his home during a break between tour schedules, Hart, as usual, is ebullient in tackling subjects that range from why the Dead aren’t touring to the current Devils lineup, the neurological element of the concert experience for artist and audience and the Jerry Garcia Tribute Night at the San Francisco Giants game which took place two days prior to our conversation.

JPG: Catching up on recent events, at the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark, At&T Park…

MH: We set the world’s record kazoo ensemble. It went great! It was good vibes all around. Giants won. And Rex Foundation made a lot of money. Now, we’re about to give it away and Jerry is smiling. He lost weight in heaven. They had the bobblehead Jerry dolls. He was thin. He must be working out in heaven.

JPG: Well, It’s heaven. The food doesn’t have calories.

MH: I guess not. I guess they don’t have the calories in heaven. Milkshakes and hamburgers either.

JPG: That’s why they call it ‘heaven’.

MH: I hope they treat me that good. (laughs)

JPG: Just curious. Why kazoos and not some sort of drum ensemble or rhythmic handclaps with the crowd?

MH: It’s not about the kazoos. It’s about “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” It’s really hard to drum “Take Me Out the the Ballgame.” It’s a waltz. Rhythmically it’s challenged, but it’s the anthem, and it’s doable. Kazoos cost pennies compared to drums, and 9,000 kazoos… It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. It’s really hard to say. It was just a thought I had. And I thought Jerry would like the oddness, the weirdness, of doing kazoos. It just came to me in a moment. And then going for the Guinness record seemed like the right thing to do. I can’t really explain it more than that but he’s smiling.

JPG: Does it amaze that 15 years have passed quickly?

MH: It has actually. It seems like it doesn’t seem that long in some ways and in other ways it seems like forever. He’s always with me. When I think about him I can hear him. He’s with me. I can see him smile. I hear him all the time in my left ear, the ear he deafened.

JPG: I’ll get to Rhythm Devils in a moment but you reminded me of something. I was watching the Bruce Springsteen DVD and noticed how Max Weinberg maintained a laser like focus on Springsteen for 99.9% of the show. For you with so much happening onstage, your focus when you were playing with Jerry was it mainly on him or was your antenna moving to other places?

MH: The bands are very different. That’s Springsteen’s band and they’re playing Springsteen’s songs the way he wants to play ‘em. In the Grateful Dead it was more of a conversation, the way I see it. So, I listened as much to Bill and Phil as I did to Jerry. It was really important, first of all, to lock the rhythm in down tight. Phil was my first priority. Then there was Jerry and Bill, and Bobby’s in there in the middle. I try to listen to everybody. It’s really important. You can have a real intelligent conversation, something that’s interesting.

I don’t know if those guys jam very much. It’s a different kind of music. We’re more interactive, they’re playing the song. They play ‘em well. It’s not a jamband. You can get away with that and focus on the leader and locking up with the guy who’s writing the songs. I would assume he’s doing the right thing. Max is an excellent drummer and he knows his focus. Perhaps, if I was in a band like that I would be totally focused on Springsteen as well. It doesn’t serve us really well to do that because that’s an isolationist kind of a view, musically speaking. It isolates you from the conversation and everybody else’s thing if you’re totally focused on one person. Then, it’s just you two guys, and there’s the rhythm and there’s the lead and everybody else is tracking that. That is one way to do but it’s not our way.

We’re listening all the time and focused totally on the whole group. It’s all about the group if you don’t get a group sound then you’re just playing the song, and that’s fine. But it’s built for different things.

JPG: You mentioned Phil and Bobby, and it makes me want to cover this before we get to Rhythm Devils, the fun stuff. Did you expect to by touring this summer as part of the Dead and…?

MH: No, we didn’t have any expectations at all.

JPG: I guess after Spring Tour went so well, fans may have been thinking that something next would happen.

MH: Yeah. We just said we were going to do it when we did it. That’s all. Bill and I really want to do this. We have things to say and places to go that we wanted to do alone.

JPG: So, it wasn’t some phone call where you said, ‘What?!? You’re doing what?!?!?!’

MH: No, no, I wish them well and I feel that they wish us well. I just saw Bob, and we had a great time the other night.

JPG: I recently read some comments that Bob made in regards to Furthur moving forward musically and that such a thing couldn’t happen with the Dead due in part to expectations that come up when the four of you play together.

MH: I didn’t read anything. I don’t know anything about any of that. Expectations, I don’t understand.