Ep. 11 - Oteil Burbridge on Grief, Music and the Light We Keep Finding

Jill Bershad sits with Oteil Burbridge for a wide-ranging conversation about grief, music, death, family, faith, and the strange ways light keeps finding its way in. What starts with memories of Oteil’s brother Kofi opens into something bigger: how loss changes your priorities, how music carries people through what words cannot, and why staying close to your own mortality can make life feel more honest and more alive.

They talk about what it means to lose someone who shaped you, the healing force inside song and community, raising children without crushing their light, and the difference between identity and essence. Oteil also shares the story behind Kofi Day of Service, the grief woven into his music, and the deeper reason some songs hit so hard when life breaks open.

It is thoughtful, emotional, funny in unexpected places, and deeply human. A conversation about sorrow, magic, service, and what remains when everything extra falls away.

Contact Jill K. Bershad, LMHC, CAP

• Email: jill@jillbershad.com 
• Website: jillbershad.com
• Instagram: @jillkbershad.lmhc
• Facebook: jillkbershad

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hi friends, I am Jill Burshad, and this is the Present Moment Project. Come with me on a journey of healing, transformation, and curiosity. I'm a licensed mental health counselor, a Reiki master, hypnotherapist, a sound healer, and an EMDR trauma therapist who also is a widow. I have learned how to move through life with grace in the aftermath of tragedy. I have learned how to use these modalities through my own healing journey. I hope you're listening, and I know this podcast will help you on your healing journey as well. It's not always easy, though you too can laugh again. I look forward to having you along this wild ride with me. So here we go. Let's get started. Hello, friends. I am Jill Bershad with the Present Moment Project Podcast, and I have such a special guest today in the house. And I want to read a little bit about him first before I tell you who it is. Two-time Grammy winning bassist has been in the music business, touring and recording for over three decades. First step into the national spotlight came in 1991, becoming a founding member of the Aquarium Rescue Unit featuring Colonel Bruce Hampton. Wow, a cult classic that has stood the test of time. Wow. That led to his membership in the classic rock group, the Alman Brothers, since 1997. With work with the band, he earned him two Grammy nominations following his 17-year stint in the Allman Brothers band. O'Teal, O'Teal, you heard it here. O'Teal spent 10 years holding down the end of Dead in Company. I mean, I could just go on and on, on and on and on, but I just want to get straight to you. I don't want to sit here looking at this. So, wow, thank you so much for being here. What an honor. Thank you so much for taking this time. I know you're super duper, duper, duper busy. And I'm just so happy to be here. And what I really want to talk about is we've been taught I we've been talking about this. I came up to you at the Kofi Day of Service.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

And when was that? What month was that? Is it wearing the shirt? Had to be September 22nd. September. That's right. September, right? That's exactly right. September. So September 22nd is his birthday.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah. Which is my firstborn's birthday. All right. See, we got a synchronicity already.

SPEAKER_03 2:43

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

And he was the firstborn in our family.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

And now, right, my oldest daughter.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Was she born on Friday? Because then she could be named Kofi also.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Oh my god. I don't think so. I think it was a Tuesday, but that was 25 years ago. So I don't really remember. And especially what has gone on between then and now, I definitely don't remember.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

It's also fast.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

It's so fast. I want to talk to you really. This is really what I want to talk to you about. So I came up to you at the Kofi Day of service. I went up to Linda, Laura's mom, and I said, Do you think it would be inappropriate for me to ask OTL to be on my podcast? And she said, No, just do it. Because I didn't want to. You're probably asked a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I have my own podcast. So I ask people all the time, and I do tons of other people's. I mean, it's just kind of, I don't know, after the pandemic, that's what we did, and we were still doing it. And you know, I mean, I come down here, it takes an hour out of my day, and I'm gonna go eat breakfast and help my wife do something.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

I just didn't want to, I you know, I just again I didn't want to cross a line or be inappropriate. We're there for to really celebrate your brother's life and really put a spotlight on that. And she said, no, girl, just go do it.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Well, we can also help with that through the podcast as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Well, that's what I mean. This is why I wanted you here. So will you talk about it? Will you talk about your brother a little bit first? I want to know him as a person.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:09

And then I want to know just the relationship, and I want to know how people can help and support. And here's the reason. This is why I felt the inclination to ask you to be on my podcast. And it's because my husband passed away three and a half years ago. Yeah, thank you so much. Three and a half years, you know, I have three children.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Wow, and sorry for all of you guys. Jeez.

SPEAKER_03 4:33

And I have to tell you, my husband was a big deadhead.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

He was a big deadhead back in the day. We're 55.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

And um, yeah, and and your music has been a big part of my grieving process.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

And my healing.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

I'm glad. Because that's what that's a big part of what we do it for.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

And I know that your music has been a big part of your grieving process.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

And so your music was a big part of your grieving process, and your music was a big part of my grieving process. So I just felt like I had to have a conversation with you.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Well, that's we definitely have that in common.

SPEAKER_03 5:19

So and I want to say that in regards to the songs, like I'm not a person who knows like all the history or every word of every song.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:29

Um, that's not me. For me, it's more the energy and the way it that it shifts my energy being part of the community. And there's nothing like it. It's so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

That's what music is for. I mean, I I have a really hard time with materialists. And I know we need all kinds. You gotta have left and right, hot and cold, objective and subjective. You know, but I wonder, like to a material, I would ask a materialist, some of whom are musicians.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Right, of course. They're probably some of the biggest, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:06

No, I think it's more, they're much more on the spiritual side, but some have been very hurt by their spiritual upbringing. You just get born into whatever you're born into, right? But I asked them, I was like, so to a materialist, what is it that we do if I'm talking to a musician? What are are we up here doing math? Are these just sound waves of you know, numbered frequencies coming out of a speaker? Like, no. I mean, why nobody would pay us to do that?

SPEAKER_02 6:41

No.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Why can I do it? Why can I use these frequencies or whatever, but also it will make someone cry or laugh, or all of a sudden feel completely better, like shift their whole like they're just down in the dumps, and now they walked out, and the whole thing is not only reversed, but then the light is turned all the way up. Oh, wait, and then you spread it to someone else just from your vibe.

SPEAKER_03 7:09

Wait, I can't believe you just said that because you just said about you know, you're turning up the light, yeah, and you know, our friend Laura has it tattooed on her arm. Help me. Uh we see say it. I don't let people go in. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

We see the light in the strangest of places when we look at it right. Right. Right. And and that's been my life, really, for for sure, for the last few years.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

And I think it's more than once in a while. The line is once in a while you get shown the light. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I think it is more than once in a while. Once in a while part is connected to the strangest of places. Yes, we get shown the light all the time.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

But it's those really strange ones where you're like, okay, I did not expect it to come from there. Every once in a while that, and I think those are extra special. Um, but you know, every religion talks about that. So I'm just like, to the materialist, we we are dealing in something that can only be categorized as magic. It's in the same basket. I would agree with you as magic, but it's just the objective and the subject.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

So I always say to people, um, you know, even a totally left-brained person should be curious about the right brain because it's 50% of the whole ball game. It's like, oh, well, what's that there? If I had a twin that was the total opposite of me, I couldn't ignore that. Right. You know, I'd be like, okay, well, wow, we're like opposites, but yet we're the same. We're like mirrors, right? Right, right, right. Like, you know. So even a totally left brain person should be curious about the subjective, just because I mean the left brain categorizes, so you should want to know what category to put that in. I mean, curiosity should be on both sides of the You're a very curious person.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

You're a very curious person, as am I.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

And I think most humans are.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

But do you think they stifle it and they don't ask the questions?

SPEAKER_00 9:18

I think it's stifled for them because they're born into Oh, we talked about this yesterday, Janine.

SPEAKER_03 9:24

Are you listening?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

It's like there's a great book called uh In the Name of Identity by this guy named Amin Maloof. And the book, the premise of the book, I found it from this guy that was uh trained military intelligence, which I thought would have nothing in common with him besides motorcycles. But we had these deep philosophical discussion discussions, and he recommended this book to me because I had asked him, you know, how would somebody like strap a bomb to themselves and walk into a market and do, you know, do some? And he said, You should read this book. It's called In the Name of Identity, and it's in the name of one of five identities. It's uh not in any particular order, but I'm just gonna say uh religious, ethnic, or let's say religious, racial, um, national, linguistic, and then there's another one called ethnic slash tribal. Because, like if you're Jewish, but you're non-observant, it's not racial.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Right, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Right, but it's also not religious, right? So, where do we put that?

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Exactly. Right?

SPEAKER_00 10:38

So, and there's other things in that category as well, right? So, but he says it's in the name of one of these identities, and if one reinforces the other or all of the above, then you can get some seriously extreme stuff, which we see in our political situation. So when you say, like, how do we get our lights turned off? It's because we're boxed into these identities.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

O'Teal, do you believe that you can't see the light until you've seen the dark?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Well, no, I think you can see the light without seeing the dark because I've had to see the light. Babies do it all the time.

SPEAKER_03 11:17

Well, that's true. But before they're conditioned.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Well, I can't say they haven't seen the dark because the birthing process is very dark.

SPEAKER_03 11:26

Well, and beautiful, and beautiful. So and again, there it goes with the dark and the light. There we go again. There we go again with the duality.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

You can't have it. I think the darkness is the tab for being alive. Like, you know, I love this uh when you see a sine wave, right? When when it makes a tone, it goes, it's exactly the amount down that it goes up. You know, if it's right, right, right, right, right. No matter how what the intensity is, like, so if it's flat, you have no life. It's like the heart machine, you know. Right. So that's the tab. You have to have the dark and the light, you know, and you know, the Buddhists talk about this like accepting both, you know. Um, and I think it's it's dealt with in uh in Judaism. It's like the story of Job. It's like, you know, can I can I make it really shitty for him? And let's see if he's gonna be faithful to you. And he goes, Take your best shot. That's my boy, you know? And Job goes, yet though you slay me. You know, wow, you took my wife, all my children. He might have had a couple of wives, actually. My farms, all my crops died, all my animals, you took everything. Yet, still, that's about accepting, you know, what's Jesus saying, another very liberal Jewish prophet. He says, Take up your cross. You carry it, you know? It's all about the embracing, you just have to accept this dark side, you know.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

You know what I'm thinking about right now? I want to share this with you, is that I feel for me. So, you know, I met Adam when I was in high school. So we were best friends. He was I knew him longer than anybody, and he really became a light. You know, he I could go on and on about that, but what I'm gonna tell you is that he used to say this all the time you can't know the light until you've really known the dark. And I sort of believe that. And piggybacking on what you were just saying, I feel like I am shining brighter and I can feel my light expanding more and more as I get further and further away from the dark.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yes. Right? Well, and I think you also it's more so clearly it's more intentional, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

Like a baby can just accept the light and just bask in it and just be happy. Yes. But you know, you start getting older, especially as you get closer to your own death, then these little moments that you might have like just taken for granted. Right? You don't take it for granted so much anymore. You know, Jess said something to me the other day, she goes, you know, you may only have seven more summers with Nigel. I was like, oh wow. Okay, when you put it like that, he's 11, and that went like that. So I know and that again, he's gone. So now knowing that wait till you're in his senior year. Yeah, knowing that, oh, I can't.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

That's gonna be is that your oldest?

SPEAKER_00 14:47

My my I've my friends are becoming grandparents. I started late. I had my first kid at 50. So he did, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Wow. Oh, well, you're busy.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

I was not you were busy playing music until it was having zero intention of having children. Oh, really? And when I met my wife, she really wasn't like, I want to have kids, she was much more career-oriented, and she's super cool too. And then one day, out of the blue, she just goes, I want to make a little you.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

And I was like, Oh my god, that's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

I said, Well, that's gonna be hard since I had a sector. Oh Teal, no way. So we had to get that reversed and do uh, you know, but it's but you have other kids, right? We have uh a daughter, also, Javi, that just turned eight.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

So, okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

She's amazing. She is amazing. So I got started late, you know. So really when I'm all that to say that I really am aware of how fast it's going and how soon they're gonna be gone. And also, I have 19 years left till I'm 80. And, you know, it could be a good 80, it could be a bad 80, but 80 is 80.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

I love what you're saying right now. I want to ask you something, which is just occurring to me in this moment. I don't know how you felt about death before your brother passed away. And I don't know how I felt about death before Adam passed away. I mean, I thought I did.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah, you don't know until I have to tell you that I'm not really scared of it anymore.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

I'm not it's not that's it's only if I was even scared before, I'm not really sure because uh, you know, Adam's obviously the closest person I've ever lost to me. Yeah, I've lost grandparents.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Um, when they're older, that's more natural. Right, of course. You know, my mom's 90. If my mom passes now, you know, it actually would be kind of a gift. Her body, it's how old, how old ninety? Yeah, it's not fun for her right now. No, you know.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

Do you feel like because I think this is what you were just saying, is that now, and I'm processing this as I'm sitting here talking to you. Yeah, and it's been sort of processing, it's been marinating in there for a while, which is there is so much now I want to do. Yes, well, that's what's so much, and this is what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Mike and I came up with this thing because it was we call it six months. So I was trying to think like death is always a great clarifier. Then you just immediately, like, immediately you go, that's bullshit, that's important, that's bullshit, that's bullshit, that's bullshit, that's important. It's just like it's I'm sorry, I don't know if I can cuss on here, but you can beat me out. Um, but it just is like immediately your priorities, it's like when Nigel was born, all of a sudden my priorities just went and I was like, oh, so all that doesn't matter. It's this stuff, you know. So if we could keep our death closer in our minds, closer, like right here, or maybe right here, maybe just right here. Not, you know, right so I was trying to think of a time like what you know. If you had five years to live, or if you had two days to live, like if you had two days to live, you would do a lot of drastic stuff. So, and maybe six months is not long enough, but we picked six months. I would like it, whatever would just clarify it. Am I gonna quit this job or keep it? Am I gonna stay in this relationship or am I gonna leave it? Am I gonna, am I gonna, am I gonna, and it's real, it's a lot easier. Like you said, when he died, you're like, hey, wait a minute. Wow, I could just be gone now. Like, and I'm sure you've experienced this when people are dying younger than you. Like a lot of people are dying younger than me at 61 now. And I'm like, man, what if I, you know, and I think about my son. So yeah, we gotta get to it. We gotta get to it. We're you don't know. You may have less than six months to live, and you don't know it. There's cars hitting people every day, all the time. So get to it.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

All the time. Did you know you were gonna lose your brother the day you lost your brother? Because I did not know I was gonna lose my husband.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

You know, Kofi was like me and my mom. I could show you a picture of my mom. I showed somebody the other day. I was like, does she look 90? They were like, no way. My brother was like super slim, just like you would never have guessed, you know. And even though he had had one uh, it's not really a heart attack, it's an aortic aneurysm where it like tears. So I guess maybe I don't know what the technical definition of a heart is. He had a heart episode. He had had that first one, I think like a year, a year and a half before or something. And it was a second one that got him, you know. So you never know. Like I know people that are perfectly fine just wake up dead.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I know.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Once you get to my age, enough of it has happened. But in general, I try to keep my own mortality close because it just and realizing oh, you only got seven more summers with Nigel. Oh, because when I turned 18, I ghosted my friends.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

You did?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Oh, for years, really, years. I was a nut job, you know. I was a crazy teenager, O teal at 18 years old. Hello, right? Past the moon. Um, I love it. Yeah, so I know what Nigel's gonna do. Well, he may turn out different, we're all different, but it's just like I keep it close because it helps me weed out BS. It helps me figure out, like, you know, I want to work on this on myself more, uh, or I want to try this. I want to try some things like I did the coal plunge in Iceland with this much snow on the ground. And I said I would never do that.

SPEAKER_03 21:01

Did you do it again?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

I did it twice and I did it for Nigel because I was and I had my wife videotape it. I said, because I wanted Nigel to have video of his dad doing something facing something that he was terrified of. That's brave. And that he thought he couldn't do. Right? And so I it's like those kind of things that I think about. So I think, yes, that's a long answer. To the short answer is yes. When someone dies that close to you, it's a great, I call it the great clarifier. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:35

What is one thing that hopefully you will have done, but if you haven't, that you want to make sure to do before you die?

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Oh, this, it's yeah. Have children.

SPEAKER_03 21:46

Oh, every day.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Oh, well, I've done everything else.

SPEAKER_03 21:52

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I mean, I'm open to new things. Sure. I'd like to go to the moon. I don't want to go with Bezos, like. I have conditions.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Oh, that's so great.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

The aliens, I'll go with the aliens. Like that, probably. Oh my god. Yeah, there's like I'm I'm very open, but I know like I'm gonna get to do it all, especially maybe even before I die, but certainly after I die, I can go to the moon and I can do all that now. I could go to the moon now when I go to sleep, or leave my body or something. Like we could do all kinds of things.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

I want to tell you something. When you just started talking about your brother a few minutes ago, you went somewhere for just a split second, and I saw such adoration in your life.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

I feel bad about that because you know, I realized it's really hard when it's really hard being someone else's hero.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Um and he was older than you, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah, he was three years older, and they discovered he had perfect pitch when he was seven years old.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

What?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

So he was a complete prodigy. By the time he was 12, he was playing all this jazz and classical stuff that was far beyond. You see all the pictures of him playing flute. It's like, you know, a 12-year-old kid with all these adults. Everyone else is an adult. There was nobody his age, he was past everybody, you know, and um so we all thought he was like a Jedi knight, you know. He was, he had this magical superpower that no one could explain. Um he said, I just remember what it is. I've it's the funniest thing. They gave him an uh exercise, they were teaching like a beginning music class in whatever grade you're in is seven years old. I guess it would be first grade. Wow, because Kavi's eight and in second.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

So do his kids live here?

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Huh?

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Do you does he have kids?

SPEAKER_00 24:00

No, he has no children.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

So the exercise, the the homework assignment was to learn the notes, like on the piano. This is a C D E. He thought the assignment was to learn the pitches. So he just was like, Can you imagine it's music teacher? Okay, Kofi, what's a C? Uh he's like, no, I mean play it, or however it went down. I don't know that the teacher figured out, like, hey, so he calls my dad. He's like, Yo, you know, this kid's got perfect pitch. And my dad's like, I thought he was figuring out stuff quick. Wow. So of course we all looked up to him, we were like, This is, you know. Now on the other side, I kind of thought that was normal too, because that's what I grew up with. So trying to keep up with him is what made me a better player because that was my measuring stick. But I still had this saying where Kofi was the one, like, if I didn't know something, he had the answer. You know, Kofi, what's a major minor seven? Well, you can look at it this way, or you could look at, you know, he just any musical question, there was nothing he couldn't tell me.

SPEAKER_03 25:09

How many siblings?

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Four. Me, that's Kofi's the oldest, then me, then two younger sisters, Lailani and Adoro. So, but that put a lot on Kofi being my Yes, of course. You know, being him having to be my hero. So, and I feel bad about that, but and having children made me understand it. I was like, oh wow. I see what Kofi had to go through because I'm, you know, I am my kids' hero.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Hero.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

I don't want to let them down. People ask me, you know, what do you want your legacy? I'm like, I don't give a shit about my legacy. My legacy is what my kids say about me. You know, what my wife said about me. That's that's my real legacy. Because I've heard people are like, oh, blah, blah, blah. And then their kids get interviewed, they're like, you know. But you know, right. You shouldn't, again, if your identity is wrapped up in your legacy and I'm an artist, right? And I'm a v. You know, you're a dad. If you're a dad, you should be a dad first. You know, I'm not I'm not impressed by how extreme humans can be. A, we're extreme, and B, we have superpowers that we can't explain why we have. So you shouldn't get an ego about it because you don't know why it's easy for you and not easy for someone else. Right. When you can tell me that, then I'll be impressed about it. Right. And I tell people, God's just using you to show off. Don't get an ego about it.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Right. So I keep that on myself as well. Like, hey, man. You know, I mean, because I accept my other prima donna side. It's her name is Ja Zha Gabor. And I'm like, that's who's that?

SPEAKER_03 26:54

Who's that?

SPEAKER_00 26:55

Uh Ava Gabor's sister.

SPEAKER_03 26:57

No, no, no, no, no. Who's Zaj Gabor?

SPEAKER_00 26:59

She's a famous.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

No, no, no. I know who Jah Zah Gabor is. Why did you just bring it up?

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Me, I'm saying my alter ego is Jah Zah Gabor.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Oh my god, that's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 27:08

You gotta accept your own like prima donna as well. But you know, Zaj gets kept in check. It's like Josh, you know, just a great thing.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

We're flying coach today.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Just we'll be okay. You know.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Do you will you fly coach?

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Not if I can help. I I try not to.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

Do people bother you everywhere?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Oh, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 27:35

I got the fame with but not the money.

unknown 27:37

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

Oh, come on now. Oh, come on now. I have to tell you.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Come on, hell. Shit, I wouldn't be flying coach if I had the money. I wouldn't be dealing with the fans. I'd be with I'd be in private. I wouldn't be flying commercial at all. Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:55

I have so much I still want to say to you. And I'm thinking about what's the most important because I know we don't have all day. So I I want to talk about the fact that well, first of all, I wanted to ask you: do your kids play any, do they play the g the guitar? Do they play instruments?

SPEAKER_00 28:11

My son, he doesn't want to do it because I wanted him to do it. And I am totally against stage parents. I saw them. I was in acting and dance and music since five years old.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

What did you do with acting?

SPEAKER_00 28:27

I had a TV show when I was a kid uh that was like a talk show for preteen to just teenager. Uh I grew up in Washington, D.C. It was in um Washington, D.C. on uh MBC, WRC TV. And we won an Emmy. It was a regional Emmy. Oh, I had an I you know, Washington, Maryland, Virginia. This was when I was 14 years old. But Kofi, Kofi had uh done plays and stuff, like with Arena Stage in Washington, DC, in the Krieger Theater, and he went to Russia with this play in here at the win. And they were calling him for uh he was part of Central Casting, which did all the commercials, movies that were filmed in the DC area, uh radio spots, um different things, ad promos. Uh and so when he was in Russia, they said that well, doesn't he have a little brother? Can he come in and audition? So I came and auditioned, and then I started doing commercials and radio spots, and I did a commercial with a pilot for Tony, the Tiger campaign, stuck up for breakfast. Remember that. And um so I got into the TV thing from that, and then I got the show called Stuff We Wanna Emmy. It was an icky business, and that's why I was like, you know, I want to play music like my brother because this is gross.

SPEAKER_03 29:55

I was wondering about how when that came to be.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

1415, and I brought my I had bought a bass guitar with the money that I made from the TV show, and I brought it in to the studio one day, and they all laughed at me. They were like, Oh, you're gonna go probably go to New York and start doing soap operas, or what they had a like TV career. I did a movie called Being There with Peter Sellers and Shirley McLean. And um I did a couple of movies. I did, I had the whole lot. My mom was just trying to keep us off the streets. We're from Southeast Washington. We lived in the world. Such great parenting. So we were doing art. You know, it was also a matter of survival. You know, like I don't want you out running the streets here. Go do acting. Do music, do dance, whatever. You know, I did ballet.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

You want to do a couple little moves for us later?

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Oh, at 61, the ball.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

You can't still plie?

SPEAKER_00 30:51

You could, I could probably do a plie, yeah. But that's like I could do some moves on stage if the grooves really go.

SPEAKER_03 30:59

Are you getting tired? Like, is your body getting tired?

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Yeah, I'm 61. I got arthritis in my back, and it's hard to get up, you know. But we, you know, we were we were always into that stuff, and that that that kind of brought me into the arts world, and then I decided to do music, and so we've I've I cut out the TV stuff, um, and I just did music, and you know, it it treated me good. It treated me good.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

It's treated us really well, it's treated us really well.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

My mom always said, You better like what you do because you're gonna have to spend a lot of your life doing it.

SPEAKER_03 31:41

Do you feel this is your soul's purpose? I asked that. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yeah, but I got lucky because my mom always said she drilled it into us, you gotta like your work. She was a nurse, she always like had it.

SPEAKER_03 31:55

That's what my youngest wants to do.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Yeah, and crazy stuff happens all the time.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Mirac miracles.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

Yes, I believe that.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

And so that I believe that you gotta get the gift that I'm gonna give my kids is that A, they're gonna believe in miracles. Um, B, they're gonna be taught that, you know, your own happiness is a priority. You shouldn't like let other C, don't let other people define who you are. You know, like I was impervious to the N-word growing up. You could call me, I mean, all the comics, Richard Pryor said all the time, you know, we refer to each other that way, you know. Um, but I was like, you know, because my mom was like, you know, somebody could call you that. You hit them, you go to jail because you are the one that got violent. You can't let words have power over you.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

Are you close to her?

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Yeah, you call me anything you want. She was like, it's just gonna bounce off me like a drop of water, you know. So I I want to give these things to my kids so that their light, they're always gonna have the permission to believe their light exists for one thing, because they don't even want to they try to psy up us or brainwash us out of that. Don't let anybody diminish it, protect it. Right. Like, so there's gonna be a lot of resistance to all these things that are coming. All these it's money, no, not money, no, the flag, no. That's not that's not all of who you are. You can be an American, fine, but that's not all of who you are. You know, the closer death gets to you, you realize all these other things fall away, their their importance decreases.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

I want to say something about I want to piggyback on what you just said about I want to teach my kids to believe in miracles. And where my head went with that is magic, to believe in magic. And and then I'm going back to how you were talking about music and it and how magical it can be. And I think because of Adam's death, I am so much more focused on what I truly now believe is magic, is like mother nature, yeah, music, connection, right? Those kind of things.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Real magic.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Real magic that no materialists can deal with. I always I tell them all the same thing. You know where you're screwed is that you can't measure the thing that's doing the measuring.

SPEAKER_03 34:40

Did you hear that? Can you say that again, right there?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

It's just it's your consciousness. You can't measure, you can't prove that the measure exists, even. Right. Because you can't because your only definition of what's real is what you can measure. Right. Can you measure love? So you can't prove it exists. So then if I kill your mom or your daughter or whatever, it's no problem because love doesn't exist. You can't, and it's okay even if you feel it, because you can't prove it. So it doesn't matter. There's a lot of people that live that way. There's a lot of people running stuff that live that way. Jeffrey Epstein, all that was right here. And he believes that, or and I say believes because I don't think he's dead. Whatever. Call me what you think.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

I love your real how real you are. Call me what you think.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

I don't care. I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 35:40

Um I just love, I just love realness. Is that a word? Realness, it should be authenticity, just being genuine, just being who you are. You are in total alignment.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

Well, you know, how many deaths have I gone through in the last 10 years? Just since Nigel was born. Oh thank God he got to meet Colonel Bruce. I got a picture somewhere. They actually touched, you know.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

Wow. Are they impressed at all, your kids?

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah, you know, uh okay, so this is funny. You asked me about my kids playing, they don't want to play because I want them to do it, so I totally back off, right?

SPEAKER_03 36:23

That's probably the best thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Last night, I decided, thank you, John Modesky. He teaches at our camp. You know, they cut all the arts out of the schools. He said it's ridiculous that the art should be optional. Music should not be optional. He said, English isn't optional, math isn't optional, science isn't optional, you know, like it should be mandatory. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna have to force them. I'm gonna have to force them. So I said, you gotta take piano lessons. I bribed him with a Nintendo Switch, right? So my keyboard player, well, he's not my keyboard player, Jason Crosby, who plays keyboards with me, came to our house and tested him, and he said, I think he's got perfect pitch. Oh, I have a I also so I was like, okay. And I kind of knew because he would learn to read something and then he would play it in a different key, and then he would figure it out by ear. And I was like, Oh, he hears the intervals. And his his first music teacher said, He's cheating, you know. I was like, Yeah, I know, because he's good like that.

SPEAKER_03 37:35

Wait, I have to ask you a question. Do you see a future of your son coming into the band?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

No, I let all that go when I'm when I bought him a drum set and he totally let it collect dust and didn't want to do it, even though he's really good at it, and I gave it to his best friend Vincent. Because I didn't want to go to waste before he outgrew it. It's really little, right? Right, right, right. So I let go of all that in my heart, just to not it wasn't uh I know I get it, a tactic like that. I'm gonna just not I'm gonna take the pressure off.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

It was surrendering to the let it go.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

I don't care if he plays music at all. But Jason thinks he's got perfect pitch, and he asked me, I have a secret knock, it's a Latin ostinato. So my friends know that it's me knocking, so it's like, don't blow me off. You know it's me. And he goes, Dad, what's that rhythm? I said, I thought you didn't like drums.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

He goes, Well, I just want to know what it is.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

I was like, That's great. So I gave him shit about it for a little while, but then I did a little thing. I was like, eat bananas and eat some cherries and eat bananas and eat some cherries and eat bananas and eat some cherries. And at the end of the school day, he came back and he goes, and I was like, You little Yeah, I get it. Yeah, there you go. But my heart was glad too. So just last night, after piano, they were trying to teach him Beverly Hills cop. Shout out to Victoria Pasarello, she's an awesome teacher. Right, so he was after she left, a couple of days later, I hear him up there, and he's not reading it. He's trying to just figure it out without the music paper. He remembered the key, and I was like, right? He's getting it, you know, and then he had it. And so I went in there and I played it. I sat down and I was like, Can I play it with you? He goes, Yeah. So I played it in a different octave. I think he was low and I was high, and I went, dun, dun, dun. And it took me like two times to figure it out, and then I had it. He was like, How'd you do it that fast? I was like, Well, I can hear the intervals, I can't read music anymore, but I can hear the intervals so I can figure it out fast. So then later that.

SPEAKER_03 39:57

You can't read music anymore.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

No, but I used to I could do it again if I wasn't lazy. I just don't care.

SPEAKER_03 40:03

Well, I'm sort of in the same spot as you. And just I just want to mention this in case I forget later. I've been I this sounds so funny talking about this with you. I was a concert pianist when I was younger.

SPEAKER_00 40:17

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

And I all I wanted to do was learn Billy Joel. And my teacher would come and clip my nails with the metronome. I would have to sit at the piano for hours and hours, and it just didn't wasn't fun for me anymore. I was a kid and I was traveling around Florida and I was competing, and all I wanted to do was learn the piano man. And and then so I always said I wanted to go back to piano, and I was working with a piano teacher, and during COVID, I learned the piano man. I know, I know, and I and I feel the same way as you. It's like getting back on a bike. But I was working with this teacher. It's not that teacher is not the right one for me anymore. Yeah. So if you know someone, let's talk about it later.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Yes, Victoria Pasarello. Okay. And she's looking for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

But is she like fun? But is she fun?

SPEAKER_00 41:04

And she'll teach me like rock and roll. And she can teach you all the stuff that you want. And I'm more by ear now, but I want to learn.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

There's a lot that I want to learn.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Well, I think learning by ear, my brother always told me he was he said having relative pitch is more important, he thought, than having perfect pitch. I mean perfect pitch is a freaking awesome convenience. But I've been able to do it all with and my relative pitch got better quicker because he had perfect pitch. Because I was trying to keep up. Right. So, and in jazz, you have to be able to hear the intervals if you're gonna improvise, right? Or any improved paragraphs, blues, right, of course, gospel, whatever. So I encourage you to keep doing it by ear because that's the what you're gonna see, is you'll find the just what Kofi told me, look for patterns and you'll find them. There's only 12 notes. You'll find them, and then you'll be able to play all these songs. Most of the songs that you hear on the radio are major scale, minor scale, or mixolydium, which is what the use for a blue scale. You know, every once in a while you'll have some diminished or augmented or half-diminished or something, but mostly it's just those three things. It's just 12 tones pretty basic.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

I have to tell you where I just went in my brain. In the future, down the road, I'm maybe playing for a group of people and they're gonna say, How'd you do that? I'm gonna say, Well, you know, OTL Burbridge, he gave me this tip once on my podcast. Just listen, just do it by ear. They're gonna be like, Wow, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Most of the people are only using pentatonic scales, it's only five note scales.

SPEAKER_03 42:39

Thank you for that. I can't wait to go home and play the piano. And for real, do it just for fun. No Nigel's starting to do it.

SPEAKER_00 42:45

Yeah. So he asked me last night, he's like, we have the little piano app on my phone. He goes, How did you do it so fast? And I said, Well, Nigel, there's only 12 tones. And really, if you learn these two scales, it's gonna be just about everything, major and minor. Just learn the major and minor. So we did it on, and he was singing it along. And because he has good relative pitch, right? He can hit the notes. And so I was explaining him, you know, the major third is like the happy sound, and the minor third, pray for the dead, and minor third, the dead will pray for you, right? It's right, right. I love it. And Ben, like in about 10 minutes, he had it. That's what's it? And I was like, and I called him out, I was like, You have this, you're good at music. I'm not gonna ride you, but I'm gonna just tell you not everybody can do this, man. You're like 11 years old, and your relative pitch is really good. You have the gift. Wow, and he goes, Man, this was fun. I said, Yeah, and remember, your job, you want it to be fun. This is why I do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he also got the great drawing thing from his. Mother.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

Your wife is an amazing artist. She's an amazing artist. Well, she's a big thing. Her kids have two artists in the family.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Wow. Yeah. I was like, when she started making the dragons and stuff, I was like, where did you get this? She's like, I told you I was in the ceramics since high school. I was like, Yeah, but we've been making cups and bowls and stuff. Where'd you meet her? In Winston's Dale, North Carolina, where my brother went to art school.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

Wait, okay, so I I since you're in the singing mood, you were singing a little bit. I want to talk about something. Lovely view of heaven. I want to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Well, that's about that's back to processing grief.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

I know. I want to talk about that with you. And I want you to share with me the very last song, uh.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

High time. And that was with Kofi.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

I'm having a hard time living the good life. Yeah, man. Those lyrics.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

Yeah. Yeah. Are you able to, but you don't have to? No. It's too hard for you. Can you share some of the lyrics?

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Huh?

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Can you share some of the lyrics of that song? Because I was listening to it last night and I I had tears running down my eyes.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

I mean, yeah. I'll probably start crying if I go. You told me goodbye. How was I to know? I didn't mean you didn't mean goodbye. You meant please don't let me go. I was having.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

Were you with him when he passed away?

SPEAKER_00 45:35

No, uh-uh. We were on our way to get Kavi in India.

unknown 45:42

What?

SPEAKER_00 45:43

Yeah, our daughter is adopted and we adopted her from India. We were going to India and on the connect and during the connection, um while we were waiting for the plane, I got the call from Madero that he passed. So we diverted from there and went to Atlanta.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

Wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Your your um your brother passed when you were on your way to get your daughter.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yeah. Crazy. And we had we had it had taken, it was a two and a half year process adopting Kavi.

SPEAKER_03 46:18

I met I met your two kids. I remember now at Kofi Day of Service.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Yeah. And so it was just like bam, you know, and I was like, wow. I had already had a lot of people die at that point. Um at that one I did not see that one.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

I can't imagine losing your hero. I can't imagine that.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Yeah, it was. And I had and and then I experienced so much loss after that. It continues, you know, when you get older, then it just you're let's I think we're just more aware of it.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

You know, can we talk about Bob? Yeah, can we talk about Bob for a second?

SPEAKER_00 46:59

And people are like, you know, how are you dealing with Bob's death? You know, I'm so sorry. I'm like, he's like number 17.

SPEAKER_03 47:07

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

You know, not that I'm not hurt by it.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

I'm just saying, you're like, how are you dealing with it? It's like, dude, it's in the queue. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

Oh my god, because you're still haven't dealt with this one.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Well, I am dealing with it, but you know what I mean, right? It's like you're still dealing with it, so it just gets added to the pot.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Exactly. To the pot.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

To the pot. And it's like, you know, with Bob, with older rock stars, I mean, people say Bob was young, he was 70. Bob's about 140, you know. Like so it's easier to process people's deaths when they're closer to the time of their natural when they would die anyway, you know? Um, but it's just a steady stream. And again, you know, I mean, I couldn't market it this way, but if I was truthful, I would have said, hey, everybody, if you're going through death, trauma, really hard time, that's what this album is for. But nobody wants to market it like that. You know, they want a girl in a bikini or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_03 48:16

Talk about that album for a minute. Well, they're all it was for Jerry and for Robert.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

Well, I did, I've started singing these Garcia Hunter ballads because I obviously wasn't gonna sing any of Bob's ballads.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Um But Mayer had this part of his vocal range that when he had vocal surgery got eliminated. So the most of these ballads are right in that range. So if he hadn't had that surgery, I never would have had the opportunity to sing any of these ballads. And I think China Doll was the first one.

SPEAKER_03 48:55

And it's funny because that is crazy incredible.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

It was just serendipity, it's so good. But it's also weird because I wasn't really into The Grateful Dead, and it was when I started really learning the tunes, it was the ballads that really gripped me. And China doll to this day, I'm gonna have to cut it with like Christian McBride or something, because I can hear Charles Mingus like soloing over it in my head, and that's when I went, oh wait a minute. So I was like, what do I keep hearing? And I was like, oh man, you're hearing acoustic bass like jazz, and then I connected to it, and then all the other ballads just and Bob's too, man. Looks like rain and black throated wind and lost sailor, and just like these ballads just grabbed me just by the neck, you know, and by the heart. And that's where I really plugged in to the dead. Well, then when fast forward and like John can't sing them, you know, and um Matt Bush, God bless his heart, he said, you know, I said one time I said I could sing it, you know, and it was just like crickets. Bobby called China doll, and we played through the whole thing, and he was like, John, you want to take this one? He's like, dude, that's right in the range where I can't, and uh, and then Bob didn't want to sing it. And I was like, Well, I can sing it. Crickets, and I was like, Okay, never mind, you know, and then Matt Bush told me, he goes, the way it works in the dead is you don't ask, just when there's a break, or at some point, just go up and start singing it. And I was like, Well, I need somebody to play, like I can't just sit here with my bass guitar and do it. And he's like, Well, ask Kameny, he knows them all. So there was a break, and I said, Hey, Kamini, can you just play China Doll with me for just a second? I just want to see if I can confirm that I can do it. So he we started singing it, and then I I don't know who came in first, but you know, like Billy, Bill Kreutzman came in and started playing, then Bob came in and started playing, then Mickey, then John, and then we got to the end of the song, and Bob goes, Well, I guess you're singing that one. And I was like, All right. That's amazing. And then Matt Bush goes, Comes a time would be a real good one that you know, because he's thinking of the fans, like they haven't heard, they would love to hear it comes a time. They would love to hear, like, if I had the world to give. So now I had this little space where I had created where O'Teal's gonna sing a Garcia Hunter ballad. They're all real sad songs, you know. But it's perfect for me because I'm Pisces Moon Cancer Rising, like all emotion. I cry at Harry Potter movies and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 51:45

When's your birthday?

SPEAKER_00 51:46

August 24th. So I'm Virgo, but with Pisces Moon, Cancer Rising, a lot of water. All earth and water, just emotion, fertile.

SPEAKER_03 51:58

It's so true. Adam's birthday's coming up March 3rd, and Pisces.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

All that water. Oh, Pisces is a and you know what's funny? I asked Bruce, I said, uh, what's the deal with Pisces? He goes, Pisces have lots of tragedies happen to them. And I thought about a girl that I knew in high school that was a Pisces that her parents had committed suicide or something, I think. And I was just like, wow, I started to think back. And I was like, okay, you know, um, yeah. But that I just little thing. He was so psychic, it was crazy, you know. So, but that album was basically I cried through doing the whole like all the the the singing tracks. I cut all the music first, and then the last two days I did all the vocals, and I just cried through the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 52:49

You did that over a few days?

SPEAKER_00 52:52

That record was done in nine days.

SPEAKER_03 52:55

Wow, and listen, to talk so I know you say you wouldn't want to market it like that, but I'd like to market it like that because Well, now I do. I'm saying when it came out, I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

But yeah, I've done it. I've said I'm a trauma therapy in a bunch of interviews. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

I I'm a therapist and I'm very much in the therapy world, and grief can and that can relate to so many different things, right? It's not just losing a person. And I absolutely can't wait to dig into that and share it and I tell people that that's what this record is for.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

If you got, if you need because we've this is a all this is another identity thing that we need to shed, is that men don't cry. That's why the world's so kidding. The Western world, anyway. Yeah. So um, yeah. Crying is one of the most powerful. You know, all these people are into psychedelics. Crying is one of the most powerful psychedelic experiences there are.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

I think everything is a psychedelic experience. It can be. Like, take uh pooping is a psychedelic experience. It is. If you really gotta go, like Janine's back there, go. I'm just saying, like, you know, it can be magical, it can be so magical, and you'll die if you don't do it, and you that's right, you feel it. You feel the whole like evacuate. Like, remember in Austin Powers where he's he's cryogenically froze frozen for a really long time, and then they unthaw him, and then he's like, the first thing he does is pee, you know? And I just think, man, you can just feel like tell me that's not so I think all these things we need to like embrace it, embrace the crying, embrace your sadness, like like just jump into the pool of it. Let yourself be laid out, let yourself cry, let yourself get it all. This is why so much great music comes from American, comes from the blues and from the blues and gossip.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

I hear you, yes.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

It's like, oh yeah, you want to be a great blues player. No, you don't. No, you don't. You don't want to be a slave, you don't want to be a sheer crawler, you don't want to go through what they went through to have to get that out, you know, and that's something that was a big turning point for me for Colonel Bruce when I was like, my dad's from New York, he was really into jazz and classical and all these things. And but his kind of one blind spot was like Delta Blues, and I think it reminded him too much of slavery, it was too close. And when I went, you know, I've lived in the deep south for like close to 40 years now. So um I was in Georgia, then uh Tennessee, then Alabama for like 18 years, then back to Georgia and now to Florida. And when I really got this Delta Blues thing and the bluegrass thing, I was like, oh, I see. These people are really downtrodden.

SPEAKER_03 56:05

When you said to me, tell me again his name, uh Roosevelt.

SPEAKER_00 56:09

Roosevelt Collier. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:11

Roosevelt Collier, and I said, What was that all about? Because I just saw you guys singing Sunday night at the Funky Biscuit, and I have to say, it was a spiritual experience. I mean, it was amazing. And you and I said, tell me about tell me about Roosevelt. He's just, I'm so fascinated. And you said it's like the Holy Spirit, and I was thinking about that, and I think you're right. And I mean, think about it. The way his the way he, I just can't even explain it.

SPEAKER_00 56:38

It's it's how black people survived America with the music, that expression. That's how black people survived America. It's the music and each other, but the music is a big it brings people together too. Well, it energizes, it inspires, it strengthens, yeah, it it flips negativity, it helps you endure, you know. Um, it helps you make it through to the other side, you know. And so, like I was raised against religion. My parents had a real bad experience with Catholicism. So we never went to church. I never had any my education was like against the Bible. Like, here's what's full of shit about it. My dad had a bunch of books about that. Oh, wow. And so when I bottomed out at one point in my life, I had a really spiritual experience where I heard voices talking to me, and they told me to go back and read the Bible, but not how my dad was reading it, to look for the truth in it, if it to look to see if there was truth in it. They didn't say look for the truth, they said look for truth in it.

SPEAKER_03 57:55

Well, they were saying get curious.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

And if you don't find it, fine, but give, you know, at least give it a clean slate, you know. So what as I've and this is how I ended up getting deep into theology, but never have guessed as a 17-year-old going off to college, that which I never did, I never went to college because I didn't know what I wanted to study, and I just wanted I knew I didn't need that to play music, and we didn't have the money for it, right? So I just well now I lost my train of thought. What were we saying before?

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Janine, what were we saying before about um the Bible?

SPEAKER_00 58:37

Oh, yes, yes. So when I had this experience, and they told me to go back and read it and look for truth, I was like, okay. And then I didn't, and I had all these questions. Fortunately, there was this guy, Jim Barnett, that I had to ask questions and he wouldn't give me bullshit answers. And I'll never forget the day that it hit me as the theology met my southern musical experience, and I went, oh that's how they got through slavery. And I went, Dad, you missed it. We all missed it. I almost missed it. He he got the musical part, but he missed the theological part and how it was tied to the music, which is just the spirit, it's for our spirit. Music was my dad's religion in place of religion.

SPEAKER_02 59:30

So is your dad alive?

SPEAKER_00 59:32

No, he passed at 91. Wow, but we had some really deep talks about this stuff. Really deep talks, because as I walked through this and I would send him the books, a lot of which he liked. I'll never forget. When my dad said, I said to my dad, um, what's your favorite book? And he goes, the screw tape letters. And I was like, wait a minute. Mr. Atheist, very well-read man, like highly intelligent man. I said, Your favorite book is written by arguably the greatest Christian writer, the most well-known Christian writer, C.S. Lewis. A book about the devil? What are you telling me right now? Right? Why? He goes, Because it's all about human nature. He said, and I've never seen a book cover it every facet, every witcher way, you know, that well. And I was like, Well, raise my rent. I was like, I can't believe you're saying this to me. So we do understand each other theologically, then, because if that's your favorite book, we're talking about the exact same thing. Wow. Now, this is why religions are important. Back to the materialist thing. The materialist says, I think reality is like this and it uses equations. And the right brain says, I think reality is like this and it uses stories. So when you look at them as stories, get rid of all the bureaucracy, get rid of this is what these voices told me.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:26

Just go read it as a story, just read it. Like take away the narrative that you can. Well, and I don't have any. Right, right. You didn't even know.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:33

I'm not born Jewish, I'm not born Christian. I'm not born any of that. Right, right, right. Just read it and do you think anything? I mean, I could read Harry Potter the same way, and I do not read Harry Potter the same way. I really or Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, or you know, the Chronicles of Narnia, which actually is Christianity hidden there, but they're all telling you.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:55

You are not speaking my language anymore. Do you know? I've never read Harry Potter ever.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:01

It's the same thing. It's just good and evil. The power of love, believing in magic, believe you can do miracles. Right? Potter doesn't find out that he's a magician. He finds out when he gets scared because something uh upset him and he did something magic that he didn't know he could do. Wow. He was actually in a zoo and he made the glass disappear, and this huge snake came out and freaked everybody out. And he didn't know that he didn't even realize. And then when when Hagrid tells him, he goes, he goes, You're a wizard. He's like, I'm not a wizard. What are you talking about? Wow. He goes, You ever do anything really crazy when you got scared or frightened or something? He was like, Well, there was this one time, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:48

Oh my gosh, that sounds fascinating. I may have to check that out. Okay, I want to talk about two things. Definitely, I want you to talk about Kofi Day of Service. And I definitely want you to talk about, did you notice what shirt I'm wearing? Kofi Day of Service and the foundation. I want you to talk about your podcast. And I have one more question for you. You told me that you were not really into The Grateful Dead, but I want to know being a part of Dead and Company, do you feel like you knew Jerry Garcia? Like, do you feel like he's alive when we all are playing? And do you feel like you know him?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:23

Yeah, everybody knows him.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:24

Well, yeah. But you have a more of an inside, you know, track. No, I don't. But you're playing his music.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

And you're listening to his music.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:33

Yeah. But he created it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:35

I didn't create it, he created it. Right. So we're all it's see, this is again this whole myth of separation. I know, I like what you're saying. Yeah, it's not. No, there's deadheads that have been deadheads since 1969 that are way or 65.

unknown 1:03:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

When they started, I was born in 64. Yeah, I was going to be able to do that. You're gonna tell me I'm closer to it than them? No. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I can learn many things and do daily, well, maybe weekly from deadheads that I didn't know about the The Grateful Dead.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:14

Did you say you get email?

unknown 1:04:15

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:16

What did you just say? You get emailed.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

I said I learned things daily. Oh maybe like weeks. Yes, yes, yes, I hear it. From the average deadhead, or not the average, but from a deep deadhead that knows they're way more close to it than I am.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:28

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:29

I just happen to play with those guys. I have done hundreds of shows now, and I did play with Bob, Bill, and Mickey for a decade. You know? Um, there is that. So, in that sense, yeah, I was closer to it, but you really had to be there at the beginning. They're probably telling you stories. They don't even ride together, they're very separate. They're like we're on like five, six different buses. Everybody's at different hotels.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:56

Yeah, people have this image hanging out after and talk about the show. No. Wait, I have to ask you a question. You don't have to answer. Are you guys friends?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:05

You know, when you work with somebody for that long, like I consider all of them friends, yeah. But it's like that with the Almond brothers.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:13

Would you call John Mayer and be like, dude, I have a situation?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:16

Yes. Oh, I definitely feel like I could call uh Bill or Mickey or John or you know. That's nice. Absolutely. Do you feel a brother button? You have to you have to understand, like, when a band has been together 40 years, 50 years, 60 years, a lot of times they hate each other's guts.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:36

Oh, I hope that's not the case. Please tell me that's not the case.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:39

I should say hate, but they don't want to really be around each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:43

Please tell me that's not the case with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

They rode on six different buses for a reason. They didn't stay at the same hotels for a reason. They didn't really want to hang out with each other anymore.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:53

You know Wow, but you guys create such magic. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:56

But that's a but that's a thing, it was the same with the Almond Brothers band. You know, like they didn't want to be around each other, but there's something, and this is where we talk about the magic again. They tried to play with other people, they were all I'm gonna play in my own band. Screw you guys, you know. Nobody shows up, it's not as good. Like for some reason, for some magical reason, when that group of people gets together, it oh my god, everybody knows it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:28

Yeah, that's crazy. Everybody knows it. Yeah, I have to know what's when when are you guys playing again? I don't even know. Do you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

It's over, as far as I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:36

No, come on. It we've been told it's over so many times.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

There was never one year that I played in the 10 years with Dead and Company that it was that I was told. I was like, so are we gonna be working next year? Not sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:50

But now you're being told it's over?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

No, I'm told the same thing. Well, I was never told. And then we had the final tour, and then we went and played two years after that. So Yeah, yeah, you don't know. I can't count on it. Yeah, I'm booking gigs right now. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:07

When are you playing again? Around here.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:10

Uh the 25th at Crazy Only. Oh, I love Laura Swass Band.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:16

Um, so yeah, I have to get on. I got kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

Kids to feed.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:22

Yeah, I just took a 75% pay cut. Like, I gotta work three times harder to make, you know. Yeah, and I can't work, I can't do that many dates. Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

So tell us about, tell us about I want to hear about your podcast, and I want to hear, I want you to tell everybody about Kofi Day of Service and the foundation and how we can help, how can we support? Please tell me.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:57

Uh participating, or you can sign up to participate in your city where it's already. It's a day of service. It's a day of service. They're all different. Every city's different.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:07

But talk about the foundation.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:09

No. Well, Laura Waldorf restarted this one here in Boca.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:14

No, no, no, but we're raising money for what?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:16

Oh, it was for that's what I want you to tell you. Oh, no, it was for a bunch of different things. So there was like, I think three or four foundations there that day. One was like food distribution, one was like uh they were visiting people that were sick or terminal in the hospital because the kids were writing cards to them. And uh what was the other? I don't remember all of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:42

I mean, it's a day of it's an act of it's a day of active service. It's not money that we're sending to a foundation. It's an active day of service. We're feeding people.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:51

We're yeah, each one is different. Right. So this one that Laura set up with Kindness Matters, which is her foundation. It was uh partnered with Kofi Day of Service and Kindness Matters and Boca. And then she brought in these other groups that do service work. I love this food and all the different things. Where would people want to get where would people reach out if they wanted to start ski trucks bands website or social media and or just look up Kofi Day of Service, Google it, I'm sure there's some way to and the name of your podcast? The name of our podcast is called Comes a Time, which is a lyric from the song Comes of Time by Garcia and Hunter.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:36

And um I love that they met in college.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:40

I thought I thought that was so cool. I was reading about that. That they met at the University of Connecticut.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:46

Thank God they came together. Like who knows? Thank God for that magical happening. But yeah, comes a time when the blind man takes your hand and says, Can't you see? Or don't you see? Oh my gosh, you gotta make it sometime. On the dreams, we still believe. Don't give it up. You've got an empty cup that only love can fill.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:14

I think we're gonna wrap right there. I don't even know if I can speak anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:19

Believe in magic, man. It's real. It's the only thing keeping all this going. What are people talking about? Come on.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

Oh, Teal, I just I can't thank you enough for being here. That I that I can't wait to replay that so many nuggets. I just want to thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:39

Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:40

I appreciate you so much and for so many reasons.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:44

You're very welcome, and thank you too.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:46

All right, peace out, my friends. And remember, folks, the Present Moment Project is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. The views and opinions shared by the host and guests are their own and do not constitute medical, legal, or professional advice. Please consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any medical or wellness decisions. This podcast is not a substitute for professional care, no matter how wise we may sound in this present moment.