JPG: You’ve played on a number of other tours, opening for some amazing people and getting to jam with some of them. I’m looking at Gov’t Mule, Chickenfoot and my absolute favorite guitarist, Jeff Beck.
DK: I’ve been very, very lucky.
JPG: Were there specific things that you pulled from those opportunities?
DK: The Jeff Beck Tour, unfortunately, wasn’t a big education. It was a solo acoustic tour for me. It was fun going out there and doing something different, trying to play acoustic and hold the crowd that way. To be honest, Jeff Beck’s crew was less than friendly towards me. I never got soundcheck. The crew kind of made sure that there’s no interaction. So, I got to speak to Jeff twice in the month long tour. I never really got anything from that and it was disappointing. But in the same term, it’s my job as opener to stay away and make sure I do my job and get out of the way.
With Gov’t Mule it was one of the biggest educations for me. I was getting a bit of a big head at the time, ‘Yeah, I’m out in the States playing guitar. I’m getting pretty good at this. Record Deal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ The first night I saw Gov’t Mule was Halloween and they played two hours of their own stuff. I thought, ‘Holy crap! That was incredible.’ They took a break and then played an hour-and-a half of straight Pink Floyd. I was just shot right down thinking, ‘Oh my God. That’s how you do it. That’s how you play guitar. That’s how you sing. That’s how you write songs.’ It was just incredible, and that was a big thing for me. And Warren, every single night would push me and push me and push me to the point where they’d invite me up onstage wouldn’t tell me what key I was in, what song they were doing, nothing. I just had to follow along in front of 2,000 people. It was absolutely brilliant! It was a great kick up the ass that I really needed.
And with Chickenfoot, those guys going out there and doing it for all the right reasons. They’re not doing it to try and change music. They’re going out there because 30 years of their career or however long is their career they still have fun and they want to have fun and that’s what I learned from that is that you just got to go out there and entertain and have a great time. And that rubs off. They went out there and they did it for all of the right reasons. And that’s what I love and that’s what I hope I’m doing. When I’m at 50, I’d love to be doing the same thing.
JPG: Bringing matters up to your current tour. There’s the impression gained from seeing you at ROTHBURY and understanding how you could easily fit in with Gov’t Mule. How does the Rhythm Devils fit into this because it seems like a different area for you?
DK: It’s absolutely a different area. Wonderful. It’s something completely different. Not a world away from what I was doing but still it’s just a huge education. It’s fantastic. (Mickey Hart walks by and says, “Tell him how you met Mickey Hart and your whole career fell apart.”) (laughs).
The first time I met Mickey it was amazing. Me and my tech had driven down from Seattle. We’d just driven like 14 hours straight. We pull up to Mickey’s ranch and we end up seeing Mickey just coming out of the house and we have food on the top of Grateful Dead road cases. We ate dinner on the top of all these old Dead road cases. It was really cool.
JPG: How did you end up getting the call to do this?
DK: I’m not altogether that sure. I think it came from Mickey’s manager had seen me in Boulder a couple years ago. I think that. I just got a phone call from my agent saying, ‘Would you be interested in doing this?’ ‘Of course. Abso-fuckin’-lutely.’ It just came out of the blue. Wonderful.
JPG: It’s funny that you gave an ‘abso-fuckin’-lutely’ because I wondered if there would be even a tiny bit of hesitation, thinking about what you were going to get yourself into.
DK: I think that’s what you’ve got to do. You’ve got to keep pushing yourself and pushing yourself and throw yourself into unexpected circumstances. I think that’s how you learn. Either you learn, I don’t ever want to do that again or like this, you learn ‘Wow, I’ve really pushed myself and I’m a better musician because of it.’ If you never take chances I don’t think you ever get anything out of it.
JPG: With the rehearsals and the nine dates you’ve done so far, with the material that you’re doing — Grateful Dead songs and new Robert Hunter songs — what are you learning about yourself and what are you learning the Grateful Dead music that you didn’t realize before you got here?
DK: Well, first, this massive library. Obviously, I’ve heard of the Grateful Dead. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t. I’ve heard tracks. I liked it, but I’ve never actually delved deeply into it. Become a Deadhead. Now I’ve just found this huge body of wonderful, wonderful music that I hadn’t found before. And then I’ve heard Jerry Garcia properly now. I just realized what a genius guitar player that guy was. Just incredible. From a purely technical point of view, I’ve had to go back and learn a lot of the stuff Jerry was playing. That’s expanded how I play now and, obviously, I want to take what we were talking about before — paying tribute, but not copy. So, there’s that aspect of it and from a songwriting point-of-view too, I mean, in stuff like “So Many Roads,” “Ship of Fools” and songs like that those are just heartbreaking beautiful. I’ve just been exposed to this whole new body of music that is very different from what I was used to and that’s just a wonderful thing for me.
JPG: As far as taking it in another place, when you listen to him and think about his background there’s a bluegrass root to his style…
DK: Yeah!
JPG: …whereas you’re coming from a blues root in your style.
DK: Absolutely. Well, he was a banjo player, wasn’t he?
JPG: Yes.
DK: And you can hear that in his guitar playing, not a lot of string bending. Wow. It’s very different. It’s made me change tack a little bit or try to incorporate that into what I’m doing. Honestly, I was talking about Gov’t Mule but this is just as much a huge kick up the ass. It’s wonderful to sit down and learn and listen. It really is.
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