The Grateful Dead’s five wildest drug stories
If you look at the Grateful Dead and try to make sense of them, you won’t succeed. No quick line is available that spells out who they are, what they stand for and the kind of music they make. They remain as elusive as they are inventive as they are divisive—music’s most extraordinary anomaly and a band that deserves unlimited praise.
Dennis McNally, the band’s publicist, commented on how difficult it was to sell the band because of how difficult they were to describe. “It was always a challenge because there’s so much distraction about them. But if you ignore the rabid fans and the expected facts of American entertainment, there’s a richness that fills your soul. They explored freedom and gave us a phenomenal revaluation of American values.”
What the Grateful Dead represent is music in one of its rawest forms. They harbour experience, creating music based on feeling and doing what feels right instead of what is right. Famed for their live shows, they would improvise and jam for hours on end, using their discography as a loose blueprint instead of a stiff backbone. A lot of this sound was influenced by musical ability, while drugs fuelled another significant element of it.
The band were notorious for taking acid before their shows, and the sound they produced acted as a creative reflection of whatever trip they were on. Most of the time, this makes exciting and innovative music. Equally, because of the band’s famed drug use, they also have some wild stories backed up from their time working and touring together. This article will look at some of their most fantastic stories and give you more insight into a musical outfit that, on the surface, doesn’t make sense.
Five wild Grateful Dead drug stories:
Cake gate
Jerry Garcia was famed for three things: loving music, loving drugs and loving food. One fan decided to capitalise on all three of these, so backstage at one of the Dead’s shows in San Francisco, they gave Garcia a cake that was laced with 800 hits of LSD.
Garcia recalled: “I’m looking at it, and looking at it, and looking at it. But it looks good! I’ll just take a little of the frosting here. I’ll just take a little snack. So I took this, and then someone comes in and says, ‘Yeah, we put about 800 hits of acid in that frosting.’ And I go, ‘D’oh, oh God, oh Jesus Christ, I’m going to be totally wiped out.’”
Backup singer Donna Jean once woke up on stage
We have all had those nights where we wake up somewhere we don’t remember going. Well, that’s precisely what happened to the band’s backup singer, Donna Jean, but her experience was viewed by more people than she would have liked, as she woke up on stage, mid-concert, underneath a piano.
“I was so stoned during one of the Paris shows that I found myself under [husband] Keith’s piano. And I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is really fantastic music!’ Then, ‘Oh, my gosh, I sing with this band!’ I don’t know how in the world I pressed through.”
Attempted drug bust, circa ’67
The Dead became infamous to several police departments due to their notorious relationship with drugs. In ’67, the San Francisco Police Department launched a full-scale drug deal on the band and that led to the San Francisco headline, ‘Rock Band Busted’. It described the drug bust and the subsequent arrests that were made.
It read: “The raid – on The Dead’s way-out, 13-room pad at 710 Ashbury Street – also led to the arrest of the group’s equipment manager, two business managers, and six girls, variously described as ‘friends,’ ‘visitors,’ and ‘just girls…’”
They got high…in Al Gore’s house…with Woody Harrelson
A lot of musicians, after stepping off stage following a big gig, say something along the lines of, “I never thought this would happen to me.” Well, the Grateful Dead probably had a similar feeling when they found themselves smoking weed in Al Gore’s house. Turns out Tipper Gore was a big fan, so they got invited around, and when the Gores left to prepare for an event, they stayed in the basement to smoke weed. Oh, Woody Harrelson was also there…
Road manager Cameron Sears said, “Al and Tipper were upstairs taking a shower while [the band and entourage] were down there hanging out in their house. Woody Harrelson had come with us, and he and Jerry had gone into the powder room and enjoyed a puff or two. There’s a Secret Service guy standing outside the door. They open the door, and it’s like a Cheech and Chong movie!”
A $50,000 LSD crystal led to their biggest hit
Though the Grateful Dead is commonly praised as a live band, that doesn’t mean they don’t have some studio hits. One of their most beloved tracks, ‘Black Peter’, was the by-product of Robert Hunter accidentally drinking a bottle of apple juice that had a $50,000 LSD crystal in it.
During his trip, Hunter saw the deaths of multiple historical figures, including Abraham Lincoln and JFK, which inspired the lyrics he ended up writing. He said, “All of my friends come to see me last night / I was lying in my bed and dying / Annie Beauneu from Saint Angel / Say ‘the weather down here so fine.’”
