From 1965 to 1995 Bill Kreutzmann was the drummer for the Grateful Dead. He was there for every show in a band that arguably is still the best live act in rock history. The Grateful Dead came to an end in August of 1995 when lead guitarist Jerry Garcia passed away. Bill initially retired to his Hawaiian home to pursue his love of all things aquatic, especially scuba diving as well as his various art projects.

Of course this retirement was short lived because a few years later Bill formed a small band called Backbone with guitarist Rick Barnett and bass player Edd Cook. This was the start of many different musical outlets for Bill. Soon after this there was The Trichromes which featured Journey guitarist Neal Schon. Then there was a brief stint with SerialPod where Bill teamed with Phish’s dynamic duo of Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon. Later on The Bill Kreutzmann Trio, or BK3 if you will, came together. This was an outstanding band that featured the Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge and Max Creek’s guitarist Scott Murawski.

As if this wasn’t enough, Bill also played with the surviving members of the Grateful Dead in a band called The Other Ones. He was part of what was affectionately called “the core four” with Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and his lifelong drumming partner Mickey Hart. This band finally cut to the chase a couple of tours later and stared calling themselves The Dead. (The name “Grateful Dead” has been retired in honor of Jerry Garcia.) Bill would also tour on several occasions with Mickey Hart in a band called The Rhythm Devils.

Now Bill Kreutzmann has a new band called 7 Walkers and he couldn’t be any more excited about it. It is a musical tribute to the sounds of New Orleans with Papa Mali on guitar and vocals along with the legendary bass player George Porter Jr. and the multi-instrumentalist Matt Hubbard. There’s a new CD out with lyrics by Robert Hunter and a long tour scheduled with many shows in the northeast including a stop in Uncasville, CT. at the Wolf Den on December 9th. This phone interview took place on Tuesday October 12th. Bill was at his home in Hawaii and if you don’t think he’s having the time of his life just count the number of times he uses the word “fun” in this conversation.

Tell me about Papa Mali and the genesis of 7 Walkers.

BK - "It was pure fortune. I was here in my home in Hawaii and my girlfriend asked me if I'd ever heard of Papa Mali. I said no and she played his music and I really liked it a lot. And that very summer we went to the Oregon Country Fair and he was headlining there, he was on the main stage and I saw him play with a trio. Ross Johnson was on bass, it was a real good band and I introduced myself to him and we just hung out like crazy after that. To this day we get along really well and it's fun to play music with him. We just played in Maui, we played three dates there and it was really good. So it was just happenstance. I was just fortunate that I got to hear his music and I've always loved New Orleans music so when I heard his stuff I went 'yeah this is the real thing!' "

Could you alto talk about George Porter Jr. and Matt Hubbard and their contributions as well? What were the recording sessions like?

BK - “They were probably the most fun sessions I’ve done in some time now. We did them at Austin Texas at a place called The Nest. It’s an analog studio. Analog in analog two inch tape analog out and it just makes the sound really soft. We’re actually going to release about 1500 vinyls right at the get go of this thing because people are getting back into vinyl just a little bit which makes me very happy. I can start calling them records now without being dated. So the sessions were easy. They were real fun. I got Robert Hunter to write oh twelve or so songs and he sent them to Papa and Papa put the music to them. Then we went down to Austin about a year ago now and recorded the whole thing. We did the whole session in about a week. It was easy. We were getting a minimum of a track a day. And the way we’d do it which was so much fun for me is instead of recording the same song twenty times and going back and trying to find the one that you liked the best, Papa would just ask at the end of each take ‘how’d everyone feel about that one?’ If anybody had any hesitation he’s say ‘ok record over that and we’ll do a new one.’ So we only kept the ones that we liked which were all done in one or two takes. We didn’t have this big problem of disseminating which ones we were going to use and that made it go a lot faster. So the sessions were easy and Reed Mathis played bass on those sessions. George is actually on one track called ‘Chingo’ on the record.”

Will George be part of the tour?

BK - “Yeah he’s on the whole tour now. He’s in the band. After those sessions I was really excited about how they sounded so I asked Reed if he could perform with us but he was doing Tea Leaf Green pretty much full time. He just couldn’t devote enough time to 7 Walkers so Papa asked George and he said yes and so we’re very thrilled to have him playing bass with us now full time.”

I assume that you’re looking forward to this tour?

BK - “Oh yeah I always am. This band is a lot of fun to play in. You get to express yourself as much as you want. Nobody says don’t do this or don’t do that. There are no rules and everybody trusts each others taste in playing music and having a great time and having fun doing it. And the audience really gets that. And I’ll tell you, George and I when we get going, we do duets once in a while and it’s really fun for me. He’s just a wonderful bottom line groove bass player.”

Your love for the music of New Orleans really shows on this record.

BK - “I’ve been a big fan of it and until just the last couple of years I haven’t really played very much of it because the Grateful Dead only did a couple of songs like ‘Iko Iko’ and ‘Hey Pocky Way’ and that was about it. But I always kind of had this thing that I wanted to be able to do it some day and here I am getting to do it today and it’s wonderful.”

It’s funny how 7 Walkers came together at the Oregon County Fair. It seems like any time there’s a jam festival a new band forms. The scene is amazing that way.

BK - “Yeah that can be true. Actually Hunter was the focal point. We actually formed a band, Papa Mali, myself, Matt Hubbard and Reed would play bass once in a while. But we hadn’t come up with a name and then at the recording session the one song of Hunter’s, the 7 Walkers song, I just said maybe that’s what we should name our band and everybody said yeah. And because he sent us those great songs we had a focal point for our energy and what to do with the music and that worked great.”

How did BK3 come about with Oteil Burbridge and Scott Murawski? Also, is that a band that will play together again some day?

BK -“You could go back to that and I wouldn’t mind doing that if everything was set right. Oteil is playing with Derek Trucks pretty much full time so I don’t know if he would be available. 7 Walkers has got me so busy. But that was a really fun trio and everybody played tons in that band so the trio space worked really well. I’m glad you heard us at the Gathering of the Vibes in ’08.”

I met you backstage and you were kind enough to let me take a picture of you holding an issue of Sound Waves. You said you’d be happy to because Mike Gordon was on the cover and he’s a good friend of yours.

BK - “I still like Mike so much. We’re a big fan of his here and he’s come to visit us in Hawaii and stayed with us. He’s instrumental in what we’re talking about here. The story about BK3 is that we were down in Costa Rica because I was invited down there by Mike to play with Mike and Scott Murowski who I hadn’t met yet or even heard about yet because I didn’t know anything about Max Creek. And we played down there and had the best time. A few local musicians would sit in with us but it was mostly the three of us, Murowski, Mike and me. But then Mike said he couldn’t continue with us but he did introduce me to Oteil and said ‘why don’t you try this out?’ So we went to Rhode Island to a practice studio and started practicing there and the band just grew because Scott and Oteil, they formed this bond. Oteil was playing the six string bass and he would follow along with beautiful lines and come up with great stuff and those two guys really got off and it was great fun for me because it was sort of like fusion music a little bit. I’d never gotten to play that either. Some times I’d be listening to the music at home and I’d go ‘god we played that – far out!’

It was fun because it was such a different style than the Dead. One of the reasons I’m getting to do this and liking it so much these last past years is because I’ve been doing something that is way different than the Dead. It’s like a new change and that’s really fun. It gives you a lot of energy. It’s like a rebirth of sorts and I don’t mean that in a religious way but in a spiritual and musical way.”

I have to ask you about Mickey Hart. I associate him as your lifelong musical partner.

BK - “Right on that’s a true association because we are. We just finished two great Rhythm Devils tours and that proved to be true. There are two things. One is Rhythm Devils without the Dead, that’s one band with Davy Knowles, Tim Bluhm, Sikiru Adepoju on talking drum and Andy Hess on bass. And that band has a whole different texture than what we used to do inside the Grateful Dead. So once again it’s changed its face again. It’s changed its complexion so to speak. This time instead of only doing drums we did more songs than we did drums and people liked that a lot. We did some nice really good rhythmic songs. Andy Hess is a wonderful bass player. He used to play with Gov’t Mule and the Black Crowes.”

After Jerry Garcia died in August of 1995 could you have envisioned being involved in so many different musical projects with so many different musicians?

BK - “Yeah it keeps you interested. If I made any mistakes with the Grateful Dead the biggest one was not playing with a lot of other musicians while I was in that band. I just kind of had my blinders on and focused on Grateful Dead music. And that was a good thing, the music was wonderful and paid off but I’m kind of catching up on lost time when it comes to playing with a lot of different musicians. But mostly it just keeps you interested because everybody plays differently. You get so you can change your style with theirs and it’s a lot of fun. That’s what is going on in jam bands today. Everybody is getting out there playing. There is more jam band activity than ever. I think it’s just a sign of the times that I’m playing with all these other bands.”

Also with SerialPod and what you’ve already said about Mike Gordon it seems like you have a really great relationship with Phish.

BK - “Well I really like those guys. I love Trey Anastasio and I love Mike because we did that Serial Pod thing at the Warren Haynes Christmas benefit and that was over the top fun. So we got to do that and I’ve sat in with them at Red Rocks for half of a second set one night, stuff like that.”

Looking back do you have a favorite period with the Grateful Dead?

BK - “Yeah I have different periods. I always loved the ‘American Beauty’ period. That was really fun because the vocalists got really into their singing and the record sounded really good. And then I also liked the Brent Mydland period a whole lot. He played the heck out of the B-3 and sang like crazy. He was an exceptional player and musician.”

I know that you were involved in computer artwork. Is that something you’re still doing?

BK - “I’m not actually doing the computer art right now. You kind of grow out of things. You do it for a number of years and you have some success with it and that’s fine. You like what you did but it’s really cool to move on. So I’ve actually been painting with acrylics these days. I’m coming out with some art you might call Jackson Pollockish, for lack of a better word.”

Will there be an opening?

BK - “I think the 7 Walkers are playing in New York at this combined art club called the City Winery in Manhattan and they want to show my art a month before I play there so that will probably be our first showing of this art. We don’t have a ton of pieces done yet, I don’t have a bunch done yet. And that’s ok.”

How about the scuba diving? Is that something you’re still enjoying out there in Hawaii?

BK - “Yup, my girlfriend just got certified and we’re going to go this week. I’m taking the day off a little bit and just going on a hike with the dogs because we played three nights in Maui.”

How did those shows work out?

BK - “It was good. Playing on your sister island or on your own home island is really sweet. You don’t have to travel so far and you pack a real small suitcase. Just bring your snare drum and it’s easy.”

There’s been lots of talk lately about the Grateful Dead archives. What’s going on there?

BK - “The archives are doing especially good. There’s that one exhibit in Manhattan at the New York Historical Society but the big archive is kept in Santa Cruz. It’s monumental. We have mountains and mountains of fan letters, posters, ticket stubs, and just everything band wise from clothes to whatever and it’s all going to be available at the library at Santa Cruz University.”

Do old deadheads like me make it a point to tell you what their first Grateful Dead show was?

BK - “They do and I congratulate them for having good memories but I’m afraid that when you’ve played 3,500 shows they all run together. I know we had really great fun shows but everybody has a different experience at each show. And if I tried to learn everybody’s experience or try to remember it, it might be a little tough. I just remember having a great time playing in the band. It’s been fifteen years now. It seems like a while ago. It’s getting to that big twenty year space.”

Looking ahead are there any special plans for 2011?

BK - “We have a business plan. We have a new agent Scott Galloway from ATA and he’s real energetic and really likes the band a lot. He likes Papa Mali a lot and he’s really excited that George Porter Jr. is in the band fulltime now as I am. Its crazy going on stage and having a person like that up there with you because you know you’re going to sound good. He makes every drummer sound good so it’s cool. Anyway, I’m glad you like the record. I like the record because each of the songs is so different from one another. It has a pretty general mellow vibe but it’s still easy, cool listening.”

I felt it necessary to tell Bill Kreutzmann that my first Grateful Dead show was September 3rd 1980 at the Springfield Civic Center. The band opened with Mississippi Half Step into Franklin’s Tower. In other words the bus came by and I got on. That’s when it all began. The last time I saw him was on August 2nd 2009 at the Gathering of the Vibes Festival in Bridgeport when he was touring with BK3. The next time I will see him will be on December 9th 2010 when 7 Walkers comes to the Wolf Den. As is always the case with anything involving former members of the Grateful Dead you know the music will be excellent, old friends (deadheads) will gather and stories will be shared. And you can be sure that the big guy on the drums will be having fun.