JPG: With the Grateful Dead you got the okay to use the band’s material but did you ask for anything unreleased or specific tracks or did they send over some possibilities and said, ‘Take it or leave it’?

JK: They gave us a wide choice of tracks. In fact, we picked the concert tracks that were unreleased and are now on the soundtrack album, which is out on Amazon.com and iTunes. They were great about that. At one point I had different songs in where “Ripple” is now. “Sugar Magnolia” was used in an opening scene that was eventually cut from the film and then we put it in a different place — when he’s getting into the van after leaving College Night. They were incredibly great to work with.

JPG: How did it move from there to Bob Weir and Mickey Hart performing in support of the film at the Sundance Film Festival?

JK: They’ve been just incredibly supportive, coming up and doing that. Mickey Hart’s coming and talking at another Q&A I’m doing tomorrow night down here in the Valley. Mickey and Oliver came to a Q&A in Washington and a couple in New York. They really love this film and think that it’s great for musical therapy. They just want all good things for it, which is really nice.

JPG: I’ve interviewed Mickey in the past and…

JK: He’s a kick.

JPG: He’s had his coffee when you talk to him.

JK: (laughs) I know he has but he doesn’t drink that much coffee.

JPG: Figuratively.

JK: I know what you mean. I really admire him. For a guy that age to have that unending curiosity and energy is really remarkable.

JPG: At one point we did discuss music and brain waves. I though it involved more drum circle type of work rather than finding music to connect with people. By the way, how was Sundance for you?

JK: We got an amazing, a shockingly amazing reception there. I didn’t expect it at all. I thought that that audience would be pretty tough on it. At three different screenings we got three standing ovations.

JPG: Great. I heard Sirius XM’s broadcast of the concert Weir performed there. Was that you saying a few words to the crowd prior to it? You sound elated.

JK: Yes. Mickey and I did a quick couple of breaks over the phone with the Sirius guy and they’ve been using those clips.

JPG: Since the character of Gabriel was so touched by the music of the Grateful Dead and other artists, what about you? Is there that feeling for you with the Grateful Dead as well or what artist or artists does the same thing to you?

JK: I was a fan of the Grateful Dead and I think I went to a concert or two. I wasn’t a Deadhead. I really liked their music and had several of their albums — Europe ’72, American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead – but I was also a huge Dylan fan and am a huge Dylan fan. I play the guitar really badly (slight laugh) and sing even worse, but I go out there and howl at the moon every now and then. (slight laugh)

JPG: Although you’re someone who’s dealing with another creative outlet what does music mean to you?

JK: For me it’s a creative outlet where, it’s only for myself. It’s not for anybody else, which is really freeing. I don’t have the critic out there wondering whether anyone else is going to like it. I can just do whatever I want. It’s the one creative outlet I reserve just for myself.

JPG: You mention Dylan, is his music something you turn to occasionally or is it like your daily vitamin, so to speak, or do you find emotional connection as well?

JK: I don’t play every day. It all depends on travelling but if I’m home I probably play most days. If I’m reading a script or I’m writing and I am stuck a lot of times I’ll pick up a guitar in order not to get up in my head and going around and around.

JPG: Is it the same thing as a listener? For myself I think of that grade school game, ‘Would you rather slide down a hill or razor blades or…?’ So, for me if given the choice of being blind or deaf I’d probably choose blindness because listening to music is as necessary as blood running through me.

JK: Yeah. I always have to relearn how powerful it is. I don’t know why I have to keep relearning it but it can pick you out of bad places. It can make sure you’re connected when you get full of yourself. It’s a really, as Mickey says, ‘Every single culture has music and dancing.’ It’s one of the most basic human…maybe it’s one of the things that makes us human. Whenever I get too far away from it I feel impoverished.

JPG: It reminds me of one of the things discussed with Mickey was the idea that at its core music comes from the heartbeat.

JK: Yeah.

JPG: Back to the film’s use of music, tell me about the Tulips (the band’s number, “Summer Song,” was used several times for dramatic effect).

JK: That was the one rock ‘n’ roll song that we actually composed for the film. We couldn’t find quite the right song so Sue Jacobs was just fooling around with a couple of her friends and musicians in the studio one day and they said, ‘Hey, I have this cool sixties thing,’ and they sent me a recording of it. And I loved it because we were looking for a song that filled that radio moment which takes [the father] back to Gabriel playing in the garage. So I wanted a sixties song that would have been logical for a kid to cover and I was looking around for the name of the groups and I kept remembering all these other groups — the Monkees and the Byrds — and there was another group that was named after a flower. I want to say the Violets but that wasn’t it. So, Tulips popped into my mind and it stuck.

JPG: So this whole thing I found prior to this interview is just mythmaking?

JK: Yeah.

JPG: Oh, very nice.

JK: Where did you find it?

JPG: It’s at http://wikibin.org/articles/the-tulips.html .

JK: I haven’t seen it, but yes it’s mythmaking. (slight laugh)

JPG: How did you get Christina Amphlett from the Divinyls to sing it in the credits?

JK: She was working with [Craig Jared Johnson], and she just came in and did the first recording of it just for a lark. When I first heard it, I just completely fell in love with it and said, ‘God, we’ve gotta use that somewhere.’ It went from there.

JPG: Talk about jogging one’s memory. Hearing that voice reminded me of her work with the Divinyls. Your company’s Essential Entertainment/Essential Pictures, but at the very end of the credits I saw copyright Mr. Tambourine Productions.

JK: Right. As I said, it was originally titled “Mr. Tambourine Man” and we just formed a special purpose company for the film. Essential is the ongoing production company.

JPG: For some who has done theater, documentaries, films and directing film now. What do you want to do in the future? Do you have something lined up or how much longer will you be pushing this film?

JK: I think I’ve got another month or so of time working on this and doing publicity. Hopefully, another couple months. And I’ve signed the rights to a book called, Home in the Morning. I’ve got a couple projects that I’m thinking about directing and then I’m working on a series of books, The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. It’s a well-known adventure romance. The books sold 25 million copies, the whole series, and we’re in the late stages of getting a script from Ann Peacock who wrote The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. So, we’re pushing that along. There’s plenty for me to do. But, are you asking me whether I’m going to direct again?

JPG: I was going to ask that next.

JK: Definitely. Assuming the world lets me. (laughs) It was a great experience and I felt like we came out with a film that audiences really react to and in some ways that’s all that matters.

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