Complete List Of Dead And Company Band Members

Feature Photo: Sterling Munksgard / Shutterstock.com

In the expansive universe of rock and roll, few entities have demonstrated the cultural and musical endurance of the Grateful Dead. Following the 2015 “Fare Thee Well” concerts, which were billed as the final time the four surviving core members would perform together, a new chapter unexpectedly began. Dead & Company was formed in August of that year, uniting Grateful Dead founders Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann with a new generation of collaborators: Grammy-winning guitarist John Mayer, Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge, and veteran keyboardist Jeff Chimenti. The project’s genesis can be traced to a chance musical encounter between Mayer and Weir on The Late Late Show in February 2015, a performance that ignited a powerful chemistry and inspired Mayer to immerse himself in the Dead’s vast songbook. The band’s name itself was a clear signal of intent; this was not a reunion, but a continuation—an entity honoring the legacy (“The Dead”) while explicitly acknowledging its new partners (“& Company”).

From their inaugural show at Madison Square Garden on October 31, 2015, Dead & Company quickly became one of the most successful touring acts of the decade. The band embarked on a consistent schedule of summer and fall tours, selling out stadiums and arenas across the country, including iconic venues like Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, and the Hollywood Bowl. Their 2021 tour alone grossed over $50 million, a testament to their immense drawing power. In 2023, the band launched what it called “The Final Tour,” a coast-to-coast run that drew over 840,000 fans and was widely perceived as the group’s swan song. However, this marked not an end, but a strategic evolution. Faced with the physical rigors of cross-country travel, the band transitioned from traditional touring to a residency model, announcing a series of multi-weekend engagements at the technologically advanced Sphere in Las Vegas for 2024 and 2025, allowing the music to continue in a new, immersive format.

The band’s lineup has remained remarkably stable, with one significant change. The core sextet performed together for eight years before founding drummer Bill Kreutzmann departed in 2023, with Jay Lane officially taking over the drum chair. Unlike its predecessor, Dead & Company has not released any studio albums; its official discography is a living document comprised of high-quality live recordings of nearly every concert, made available to fans through digital downloads and streaming platforms. This practice has solidified their primary legacy: introducing the Grateful Dead’s songbook to a new, younger audience and ensuring that the band’s unique improvisational spirit continues to thrive in the 21st century.

Bob Weir

As a founding member of both the Grateful Dead and Dead & Company, guitarist and vocalist Bob Weir has been the central pillar of the band’s musical universe since its inception in August 2015 and remains a current member. The journey toward Dead & Company was sparked by his televised performance of “Althea” and “Truckin'” with John Mayer in February 2015, a collaboration that revealed an undeniable musical connection and set the stage for the new project. In his role as rhythm guitarist and a primary vocalist, Weir functions as the band’s musical director, his intricate and unconventional chord voicings providing the harmonic foundation upon which the improvisations are built. He carries the vocal duties for a large portion of the catalog, including signature songs he co-wrote, such as “Playing in the Band,” “Sugar Magnolia,” and “Jack Straw”.

Weir’s career outside of Dead & Company demonstrates his unwavering commitment to keeping the Grateful Dead’s music in live circulation. Following Jerry Garcia’s passing in 1995, he has been the most active and consistent of the original members in forming new ensembles to perform the songbook. He has led a variety of bands, including Kingfish and Bobby and the Midnites, but his most significant post-Dead projects were RatDog, which he formed in 1995, and Furthur, which he co-led with bassist Phil Lesh from 2009 to 2014. These bands served as crucial incubators, bringing musicians like Jeff Chimenti and Jay Lane into the extended Grateful Dead family. Weir has also released solo albums, including the 1972 classic Ace (essentially a Grateful Dead album in all but name) and the critically lauded 2016 album of original material, Blue Mountain. He currently tours with his trio, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros, which also features Dead & Company members Jay Lane and Jeff Chimenti. Beyond music, Weir is a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and a recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mickey Hart

Mickey Hart, a member of the Grateful Dead since 1967, is a founding member of Dead & Company and has been one of its two primary percussionists since the band’s formation in 2015. Along with Bill Kreutzmann, and now Jay Lane, he forms one half of the percussive duo famously known as the “Rhythm Devils.” Hart’s most significant contributions to the live show are the “Drums” and “Space” segments, a nightly ritual of free-form, textural improvisation that has been a hallmark of the Dead’s concerts for decades. During these segments, he employs a vast and eclectic collection of world percussion instruments and custom-made sound sculptures, most notably “The Beam,” an eight-foot-long monochord that produces deep, resonant tones. This part of the show is a direct reflection of his lifelong passion for exploring rhythm, allowing him to push the music beyond traditional rock into more experimental and avant-garde territories.

Hart’s work outside of the band is extensive and academically significant. He is a celebrated ethnomusicologist, author, and archivist dedicated to the preservation of global musical traditions. His solo project, Planet Drum, won the first-ever Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 1991, and he earned a second Grammy in the same category for Global Drum Project in 2009. He has collaborated extensively with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution on the “Endangered Music Project,” a mission to record and archive at-risk soundscapes from around the world. Hart has authored four books on the history and spiritual power of drumming and has been a pioneer in studying the therapeutic and neurological benefits of rhythm, work that was inspired by seeing his grandmother, who had Alzheimer’s, respond to his drumming. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 as a member of the Grateful Dead.

John Mayer

John Mayer, an acclaimed, multi-Grammy-winning artist, is a founding member of Dead & Company and has served as its lead guitarist and one of its primary vocalists since 2015. His path to the band was born of genuine fandom; after discovering the Grateful Dead’s song “Althea” on the streaming service Pandora in 2011, he developed a deep appreciation for their music. This passion led directly to him inviting Bob Weir to perform with him during a guest-hosting stint on The Late Late Show in 2015, an event that served as the direct catalyst for the band’s formation. Mayer’s role in the band is pivotal, as he was tasked with the monumental challenge of interpreting the lead guitar parts of the late, iconic Jerry Garcia. He is widely praised for his approach, which involves a deep and reverent study of Garcia’s phrasing and improvisational style without resorting to simple imitation, artfully blending his own blues-rooted sensibilities with the Dead’s unique brand of psychedelic exploration.

Before joining Dead & Company, Mayer was already a multi-platinum solo artist with seven Grammy Awards to his name, known for major hits like “Your Body Is a Wonderland” and “Gravity.” His musical direction had already begun to shift toward a more roots-oriented sound on his albums Born and Raised (2012) and Paradise Valley (2013), which featured folk and Americana influences that foreshadowed his work with the Dead. His involvement in Dead & Company has been a key factor in the band’s massive commercial success, as his mainstream stardom created a bridge that introduced the Grateful Dead’s music to a vast, younger audience, elevating the project to a stadium-level attraction and ensuring its cultural relevance for a new generation.

Oteil Burbridge

Oteil Burbridge joined Dead & Company as a founding member in 2015 and has been the band’s bassist and a contributing vocalist ever since. He was recruited for the project based on his extensive experience and stellar reputation in the American jam band scene. In his role, Burbridge provides the deep, fluid, and funky low-end that anchors the band’s improvisations. His style, rooted in jazz, funk, and R&B, offers a distinct rhythmic feel that is different from, yet complementary to, the approach of original Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. This reinterpretation of the bass role gives Dead & Company its own unique rhythmic signature. In addition to his bass playing, Burbridge contributes backing vocals and has become beloved by fans for his soulful lead vocal performances on Grateful Dead ballads like “High Time” and “China Doll”.

Burbridge is a two-time Grammy Award-winning musician whose career connects the two great pillars of American jam music. Prior to Dead & Company, he was a member of the legendary Allman Brothers Band from 1997 until their retirement in 2014, a 17-year tenure that made him their longest-serving bassist and earned him a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also a founding member of Colonel Bruce Hampton’s avant-garde Aquarium Rescue Unit, a band that was highly influential in the 1990s jam scene, and the Tedeschi Trucks Band, with whom he won a Grammy for Best Blues Album. Burbridge has also led his own band, Oteil & the Peacemakers, and since 2020 has co-hosted the podcast Comes a Time.

Jeff Chimenti

Jeff Chimenti has been the keyboardist for Dead & Company since its formation in 2015, bringing with him a long and storied history of playing with members of the Grateful Dead. His role is to provide the rich harmonic and melodic textures that are essential to the Dead’s sound, from the swirling Hammond B3 organ that defined songs like “Wharf Rat” to the grand piano that drives tunes like “Cassidy.” Having played alongside Bob Weir in various projects since 1997, Chimenti possesses a deep, almost telepathic understanding of the music’s complex structures and improvisational pathways, making him the longest-tenured keyboardist of any post-Garcia Grateful Dead ensemble.

Chimenti’s career has been inextricably linked to the Grateful Dead’s legacy for nearly three decades. He first joined Bob Weir’s band RatDog in 1997, a remarkable feat given that he admitted to not knowing a single Grateful Dead song at the time; he learned the catalog not from records, but by playing it night after night with the band’s leader. This deep immersion made him the go-to keyboardist for subsequent projects, and he went on to play in The Other Ones, The Dead, and Furthur before becoming a founding member of Dead & Company. His non-Dead related work includes playing with Primus frontman Les Claypool’s Frog Brigade and the supergroup Golden Gate Wingmen. This extensive experience makes him the indispensable musical weaver of the group, providing the stable and intuitive foundation that allows the other members the freedom to explore.

Bill Kreutzmann

Bill Kreutzmann was a founding member of both the Grateful Dead and Dead & Company, serving as one of the band’s two drummers from its inception in 2015 until he stepped away from the group in 2023. For eight years, he was one half of the “Rhythm Devils,” and his distinctive, swinging, jazz-inflected drumming style was a fundamental part of the band’s sound. His rhythmic interplay with Mickey Hart was a direct continuation of the percussive partnership that had propelled the Grateful Dead for nearly 30 years.

Kreutzmann’s departure came just before the band’s 2023 “Final Tour.” An official statement from the band explained the decision as “the culmination of a shift in creative direction”. This announcement followed several tours in 2021 and 2022 during which Kreutzmann had to miss a number of shows due to health-related issues, with Jay Lane filling in. His final performance with Dead & Company was at the “Playing in the Sand” destination event in Mexico in January 2023. Kreutzmann was the Grateful Dead’s sole drummer from their formation in 1965 until Hart joined in 1967, and he remained for their entire 30-year career. After 1995, he participated in reunion projects like The Other Ones and The Dead and has led his own groups, including Backbone, 7 Walkers, and most recently, the popular Billy & the Kids. He is also an accomplished visual artist and the author of the 2015 memoir, Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreaming, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead.

Jay Lane

Jay Lane officially became a member of Dead & Company in 2023, taking over the drum chair for the band’s “Final Tour” and remaining a current member. His integration into the lineup was a natural and seamless transition, as he had already served as the substitute drummer for Bill Kreutzmann on multiple occasions during the band’s 2021 and 2022 tours. As the band’s current drummer, Lane provides a powerful and precise backbeat that anchors the rhythm section and complements Mickey Hart’s more exploratory percussive work. His decades-long history of playing with Bob Weir ensures a rhythmic approach that is already deeply attuned to the band’s musical sensibilities.

Lane is a highly respected and versatile veteran of the San Francisco Bay Area music scene. His career is deeply intertwined with Bob Weir’s, as he was a founding member of both RatDog in the 1990s and, more recently, Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. This long-standing musical relationship positioned him as the clear successor when a permanent change in the drum chair was needed. Outside of the Grateful Dead world, Lane’s extensive resume includes two stints as the drummer for the influential funk-rock band Primus, as well as being a member of the Charlie Hunter Trio, the hip-hop/jazz collective Alphabet Soup, and Furthur, the band co-led by Weir and Phil Lesh. His official addition to Dead & Company represented a commitment to the band’s continued viability, ensuring a smooth rhythmic transition with a musician who was already a long-standing member of the extended family