Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams, and Drugs With the Grateful Dead by Bill Kreutzmann & Benjy Eisen

Author:Bill Kreutzmann & Benjy Eisen
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Music, Genres & Styles, Composers & Musicians, Rock
ISBN: 9781250033802
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2015-05-04T12:00:00+00:00

13

The hiatus officially began on October 21, 1974. There were points during the hiatus when I honestly didn’t think the Grateful Dead, as we knew it, would ever get back together. Maybe it had run its course. Jerry was content and busy and musically satisfied—he had several active bands, including the Jerry Garcia Band and Legion of Mary, and he was touring as much as ever.

I played in a band with Keith and Donna for a little bit, but then they both defected into one of Jerry’s bands. Jerry recruited me, too, for some shows that were billed as “Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders”—just a few at first and then not at all. Pretty soon, I was a drummer without a band.

Before the break, Susila and I bought a second property up in a remote area of Mendocino County, in the small Wild West logging town of Comptche. Today, Comptche has less than 200 residents. Back then, it was probably half that. Booker T. was one of them. Also, Rita Coolidge’s sister, Priscilla, lived in the area. Their father, Pastor Dick Coolidge, held Sunday services at the grange. Not that we went. But that meant that Rita and her husband, Kris Kristofferson, were no strangers to the land. It was an odd mix of people and took a certain type. There wasn’t much in terms of modern luxuries and it’s the type of place where the only gas station is also the general store. Susila describes the town as “kinda Norman Rockwell with an edge.”

Comptche is about fifteen miles inland from the Pacific and 140 miles north of San Francisco. Realistically, it takes almost four hours to get to the city limits from up there. That’s why we chose it. I wanted to be close to the coast but away from the bay and the band and the whole lifestyle. It was our escape hatch; our getaway. A place to relax and recharge during downtime. A place to run away after a long tour.

The house was physically built by another drummer, John Barbata, who was known for his work in the Turtles and Jefferson Starship—one of those many post-OG incarnations of Jefferson Airplane. He was also Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s drummer for a while and worked sessions for legends like Eric Clapton. He may have been a better drummer than a home builder, though.

Here’s another crazy connection: Barbata allegedly built the house with the help of the real-life Indiana Jones, the real-life Han Solo. Yes, Harrison Ford. Before Ford was a famous actor, he was a starving carpenter.

Susila and I were attracted to the house because of its unusual architecture. It was made of all redwood, with wooden decks, wooden rails, wooden everything. It was like a pirate ship turned upside down. None of the walls were the same size. The windows leaked. It was funky. It was odd. We loved it. We bought it from Barbata and used it as our retreat. All told, I had it for something like twenty-five years and lived there full time for a long time, over different periods.

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