\n<\/p>\n
Bob Weir<\/a> worked with a variety of players and projects in his final years, including regrouping with some of his former Grateful Dead<\/a> bandmates for numerous tours. <\/em><\/p>\n His final live performances prior to his recent passing<\/a> happened in August of 2025<\/a> with Dead & Company<\/a>, the collective he formed in 2015, which initially featured fellow Dead alums Mickey Hart<\/a> and Bill Kreutzmann<\/a> alongside John Mayer<\/a> on guitar and vocals, former Allman Brothers Band<\/a> bassist Oteil Burbridge on bass, percussion and vocals, plus keyboardist Jeff Chimenti.<\/em><\/p>\n For most musicians with a career like Weir enjoyed, a single project like Dead & Co. would be enough to ride out the glory years. But the guitarist had an ongoing enthusiasm for making and playing music — as you can see from the many artists who have paid tribute to him<\/a> in the wake of his death.<\/em><\/p>\n Legendary producer and bassist Don Was<\/a> was the person who connected Weir with Mayer, planting the seeds for Dead & Company’s eventual birth. But he’d also unexpectedly end up playing in a band with Bob himself. Weir, Was and drummer Jay Lane (who eventually replaced Kreutzmann in Dead & Co.) joined up for a new project in 2018.<\/em><\/p>\n Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros.<\/a> was the moniker that the trio used and it proved to be an endeavor which found the Grateful Dead cofounder adding and expanding his vision to include Chimenti on keys and multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz on pedal steel guitar. Eventually, they added a horn and string section (the “Wolfpack,” of course) and played a set of shows <\/a>as part of Willie Nelson’s<\/a> Outlaw Music Festival.<\/em><\/p>\n The lineup of players remained fluid as more bookings appeared on the calendar. By 2022, they’d branched out further to perform concerts with full symphony orchestras and as Was shared<\/a> on the evening of the news of Weir’s passing, the pair had been discussing plans to do more things together here in 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n Was is currently on the road with his excellent Pan-Detroit Ensemble<\/a>, paying tribute to the Dead’s <\/em>Blues for Allah<\/a>, which turned 50 last year. The concerts, which began this past October, will take on a different tone as the tour continues forward.<\/em><\/p>\n The group began the next leg of the <\/em>Blues for Allah trek last weekend with four shows in Ann Arbor, Michigan and dates are currently set to continue through mid-February.<\/em><\/p>\n During a 2022 conversation with UCR, Was shared the story about his collaboration with Weir and how it was evolving. Clearly, he was having a lot of fun\u00a0working with Weir, who was finding fresh ways to interpret the work from his long career, both with the Dead and beyond. What you’re doing with Bob and the Wolf Bros. seems like such a special collaboration. How have you seen yourself evolve as a player, working with Bob?<\/strong> Over a period of time, the challenge has been, how little can you play and still be helping the song? The challenge is to find the perfect note and don\u2019t mess it up. It\u2019s really helped me work with singers. It\u2019s impacted everything I\u2019ve done. What I try to do now is I try not to play when he\u2019s singing. Like, not to play. Just hold a note. And if there\u2019s a chord change that has to be emphasized on the low end, just play whole notes — and then answer and try to give him something that he can work off of. But don\u2019t step on his phrasing.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a work in progress, man. Every night it\u2019s different. We play the songs differently every night. The one thing that I do know is that if something worked the night before, don\u2019t do that — because the song\u2019s definitely going to be different than it was the night before. You approach each night and each song with a beginner\u2019s mind. We don\u2019t come roaring in, 1-2-3-4, BOOM<\/em>. We hold the chord until we see what we\u2019re going to settle into. When it feels like we\u2019re someplace, it starts to flesh out and then he starts singing when he\u2019s comfortable. It\u2019s been a great lesson in improvisation and restraint and taste.<\/p>\n Hearing things like “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” there’s so much interesting history bundled into the set list that goes far beyond the catalog of the Dead’s own songs.<\/strong> What’s the Dead stuff that you’ve really come to appreciate?<\/strong> I remember on the first tour, we hadn\u2019t done \u201cLost Sailor\u201d and \u201cSaint of Circumstance\u201d for a couple of weeks. When we got to it again, I [realized that I] missed the song. It was like the songs were becoming friends. I\u2019ve never experienced that before. It was like, \u201cOh, man, it\u2019s great to see you! What do you want to do today? Where should we go?\u201d [Laughs] That keeps coming back — they start living inside of you. Grateful Dead songs are like masterpieces, man. You don\u2019t necessarily know it until you get inside — from the outside, that\u2019s not necessarily evident. The Deadheads know. I think that\u2019s why people come to the shows. They come for the songs.<\/p>\n You’ve mentioned that you’re about to rehearse with the guys. With yourself and Bob and the other members, you are all people who have been playing shows on the road for a long time.\u00a0What does rehearsal involve at this point?<\/strong> About halfway through the show, I thought, “Alright, now I remember how we do this and how the [musical] conversation works when we’re a trio. So that’s the rehearsal. Yesterday, we rehearsed and we were just jamming on stuff. It’s more about just getting used to listening to each other and reacting. We know the songs. It’s just getting used to playing with each other again.<\/p>\n
<\/em><\/p>\n
Well, a whole lot. You know, I was really intimidated, just to follow Phil [Lesh]<\/a> and Rob Wasserman, who in their own ways, are virtuosic melodists. They\u2019re very lyrical and I don\u2019t play that way. I thought, \u201cThis is going to sound like a bar band covering Dead songs.\u201d I was worried about it, but I soon learned that Bob didn\u2019t want me to play that way. He wanted it to be intimate and he wanted me to play less.<\/p>\nListen to Bob Weir and Wolf Bros.’ ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall’<\/h3>\n
Yeah, well it\u2019s not out of line with the kind of solo shows Bob has done outside of [the Grateful Dead]. If you go back and look at Ratdog\u2019s set lists, there\u2019s a [Bob] Dylan<\/a> song in there — or two. We try stuff all of the time. One day, we started playing [Donovan\u2019s] <\/a>\u201cSunshine Superman.\u201d<\/a> At soundcheck, I was just playing the lick on the bass and Bob started singing. He said, \u201cYeah, let\u2019s do that thing!\u201d It baffled the fuck out of people. [Laughs] I wouldn\u2019t say it went over good. It was met with confusion, but it was fun!<\/p>\n
The stuff that drove me crazy at the beginning. I remember being angry learning \u201cLost Sailor\u201d and \u201cSaint of Circumstance.\u201d It seemed unnecessarily complicated. I was writing the charts out and it was like, \u201cWhy does there have to be a bar of nine right there?\u201d [Laughs] They were hard to learn, but once I learned it, oh, it flows so beautifully, man. Everything is there for a good reason. That medley, it takes you for a ride. Every night, we hit something incredible with it.<\/p>\nListen to Bob Weir and Wolf Bros.’ ‘Lost Sailor \/ Saint of Circumstance’<\/h3>\n
They involve remembering how to play with each other. Because remember,\u00a0when he plays with Dead & Company, it’s the same songs, but it’s a whole different chemical blend. I’m not talking about drugs. [Laughs<\/em>] But we played as a three-piece, we did a benefit gig in Bend, Oregon last Saturday, just Jay Lane and Bob and myself. We hadn’t done that in years…I mean, really, like three or four years.<\/p>\n