Dead & Company’s Jay Lane Talks Primus Drummer Change & Grateful Dead

Drummer Jay Lane is gearing up to perform in front of over 60,000 fans each night this weekend when Dead & Company plays three shows in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The veteran Bay Area musician spoke about his connection to the Grateful Dead world and weighed in on his former Primus bandmates’ global drummer search in a new interview published by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Lane has a long history with Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir as a co-founding member of RatDog, Furthur and Wolf Bros. The drummer joined Dead & Company in 2023 as Bill Kreutzmann's replacement and has been behind the kit for the band’s final tour, consecutive residencies at the Las Vegas Sphere and now at Golden Gate Park, where the sextet will celebrate 60 years of Grateful Dead music.

While Jay Lane now has decades of experience playing Dead, it was initially his unfamiliarity with the band’s music that intrigued Bobby. “I wasn’t really a Deadhead,” Lane told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Aidin Vaziri. “I think that’s why I got the gig with Bob Weir. He wanted people that didn’t have their minds made up about how it was supposed to go. He wanted some fresh takes.”

Once Weir tapped Lane for RatDog, Jay came to appreciate the nuances of the Grateful Dead’s music. “I knew ‘Touch of Grey,’ but that was about it,” Lane said. “And then I started listening and I was like, oh man, this goes deep.”

The drummer became entranced after listening to recordings of the group’s historic Europe ’72 tour. “They were writing music together in real time,” Lane added. “It wasn’t about solos — it was like collective, improvised composition. That opened me up.”

Tickets to Dead & Company’s shows Friday, August 1 through Sunday, August 3 sold out quickly after going on sale. Livestreams are available for purchase via nugs, including opening sets by Billy Strings (August 1), Sturgill Simpson (August 2) and Trey Anastasio Band (August 3).

Dead & Company’s future remains unclear as no dates are on the books after this weekend. But don’t look to Lane for guidance on what lies ahead. “I wouldn’t know, man,” Jay said regarding the potential for more shows. “That might be it for this year. But you know, if they call, I’ll pick up.”

In 1988, Jay Lane became Primus’ fifth drummer for a period of eight months. Lane rejoined bassist Les Claypool and guitarist Larry “Ler” LaLonde from 2010 through 2013 after a short tenure in Furthur. Jay’s latest replacement, Tim “Herb” Alexander, quit Primus suddenly last fall. Claypool and LaLonde launched an exhaustive search for a new drummer and eventually selected John Hoffman.

Jay wasn’t surprised his former bandmates didn’t reach out to him about the gig. “Les knew better than to ask me,” Lane explained. “We’d been down that road before when the schedules conflicted between the two worlds. But he spoke pretty highly of me during the auditions. He kept mentioning my name as some sort of bar to meet — which is very humbling.”

Primus documented the audition process in their Interstellar Drum Derby video series. As Lane noted, Claypool often referred to “Jayski’s” drumming as the template for what he wanted behind the kit.

Head to the San Francisco Chronicle to read the full interview.