Back in 2016, Bob Weir had a sudden out-of-body experience as John Mayer, Oteil Burbridge, and the rest of Dead & Company were gearing up to play a set one night. “Suddenly I was 20 feet behind my own head, looking at this and kind of happy with the way the song was shaping up,” Weir told Rolling Stone‘s David Fricke. “I started looking around, and it was 20 years later. John’s hair had turned gray. Oteil’s had turned white. I looked back at the drummers, and it was a couple of new guys. I looked back at myself, the back of my head, and it was a new guy. It changed my entire perception of what it is we’re up to.”
In other words, he envisioned Dead & Company carrying on after Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, and himself were no longer in the band. It was just a theoretical future at the time, but Kreutzmann retired in 2023, Weir’s death was announced this weekend, and the future of Dead & Co. — along with the wider universe of Dead-related bands — is at a major inflection point.
The only real parallel is back in 1995 when Jerry Garcia died, the Grateful Dead forever split as a touring entity, and the scene splintered. Still, the “core four” of Phil Lesh, Weir, Hart, and Kreutzmann were around to carry the torch. Today, Hart is the only active member of that unit. Nobody knows exactly where things will go from here, but we’ve considered six plausible scenarios.
Dead & Company carry on with John Mayer at the helm.
When Kreutzmann stepped aside, Dead & Company brought in Weir’s RatDog drummer Jay Lane to replace him and carried on with business as usual. It won’t be nearly as easy to replace Weir since he sang half the songs and was a pivotal musical and spiritual link to the Grateful Dead’s past. At the very least, they’d need to add another guitarist to fill Weir’s void.
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Still, John Mayer, against all odds, has been fully accepted by the Dead fan community, and he stands as the most likely candidate to carry the torch. He’s easily the most popular Jerry stand-in the band has ever used, and they went through quite a few people up until that point. If Mayer is willing to keep going, and find the right people to flesh out a lineup, Dead & Company could continue to be a formidable force on the road. It would never be the same, of course, and some OG Deadheads would stay home, but Dead & Co. could pack venues like Las Vegas’ Sphere whenever they felt like playing. Also, Hart’s presence would imbue them with more authenticity than other bands in the expanded Dead universe. (And, yes, Dead & Company technically went on a farewell tour in 2023. When has that ever stopped a band from continuing?)
Mayer moves on, and the Others bind together.
The continued existence of Dead & Company relies on John Mayer’s willingness to soldier on without Weir. If he decides to return to his solo career full-time, it’s unclear if the remaining members could even legally use the name. One option would be to bring in people like Warren Haynes and former Furthur/Dark Star Orchestra frontman John Kadlecik, change the band’s name, and see how the public responds. Over the years, various iterations of ex-members have toured as the Other Ones, the Dead, Furthur, and Dead & Company. What’s one more name? They likely wouldn’t be able to headline stadiums or arenas without Mayer, but it’d still be a major draw on the jam-band circuit.
Mayer, meanwhile, is indeed focused on his solo career. “It’s like pumping the brakes on an 18-wheeler to get a schedule in 2026 to be open enough to make an album,” he recently told Rolling Stone. “I have done that and part of being here [at my studio, Chaplin] and part of working every day for the last three months really is, like, to satisfy everybody’s request for what I already bought into doing with them, and saying no to everything else to basically keep a year open where my only role is to come into the studio and enter the mindset of being an artist.”
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Mayer exits and the Others split apart.
Bassist Oteil Burbridge, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, and drummer Jay Lane occupy very unique roles in the universe of classic rock. They weren’t members of the original group that they’re associated with, but the fan community embraces them like they were. It’s hard to think of any analogous situations with other bands. In the event that Mayer is indeed done with the Dead, they could all form their own groups with names like, say, Oteil and Friends, or Jeff Chimenti’s Dead Experience. All of them have put in their time, and this may be the opportunity to go out on their own. The fans would show up.
The torch is passed to Mickey Hart.
Hart’s various solo bands over the years have struggled to gain traction since he was always competing against more prominent acts like Phil Lesh and Friends, RatDog, and Furthur. But he’s suddenly the only active OG Dead member. This could be his chance to form something like Mickey Hart & Company. If he finds the right musicians, it could easily be successful since no other band will have an authentic member of the Grateful Dead in its lineup. Also, it’ll allow the sacred “Drums/Space” ritual to carry on.
Joe Russo’s Almost Dead grow even bigger.
Over the past 13 years, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead — led by former Furthur drummer Russo — has amassed an enormous audience on the road. To a very vocal contingent of Deadheads, they offer the closet approximation possible to an authentic Dead show. Many fans even preferred them to Dead & Company. And now that Dead & Company are likely a thing of the past, JRAD have an opportunity to really step up and become the dominant player in the game. They’ll likely never headline arenas or play venues like Sphere, but this is a band with a lineup — including singer-guitarist Tom Hamilton — as strong as its future.
In the aftermath of Weir’s death, Russo posted a touching tribute, explaining what a huge debut he owes him. “What I quickly realized is that he was an absolute genius and a master of his craft,” he wrote. “It was like hearing someone speak a language you’ve never heard before with absolute fluency and beauty.”
The Dead scene atomizes.
Perhaps the most likely scenario is that no single group occupies the place that Dead & Company once held, or even comes close. That’s because Bob Weir is a singular, irreplaceable force.
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That said, Phish cultivated a passionate community that grew tremendously after Garcia’s death in 1995, as many young fans gravitated toward their music. It’s possible that Phish will pick up even more Dead fans, with Goose, Lettuce, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, and other like-minded groups growing their bases as well.
And new Deadheads are born every single day, and they’ll always crave some sort of live experience. You can’t noodle-dance by yourself — it’s a communal activity. That’s why Burbridge, Chimenti, Russo, Lane, Kadlecik, and many other Dead-related artists will likely spend the rest of their lives keeping this music alive. And when they’re ready to move on, the people who played with them will keep it going. The Grateful Dead broke the laws of physics back in 1965 by creating a perpetual-motion machine of music. It’s going to last forever.
