In the shadows of ominous redwood trees in Yosemite National Park, Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann and The Meters’ bassist George Porter Jr. discuss strategies for a late night set for their new band 7 Walkers. The show will run more than three straight hours and kiss the sunrise with a small, stunned audience in tow. Before they even hit the stage at the Las Tortugas Festival in Northern California at 3:30 a.m., the foursomes exude a palpable excitement with their animated gesturing and broad smiles.

Austin psychedelic blues-rocker Papa Mali watches the pair intently, tuning his guitar and smiling softly. Matt Hubbard, a longtime Willie Nelson collaborator and the final member of the Walkers, flits around like a bundle of appealing nervous energy as he checks his keyboards and tests the slide on his weathered trombone. When they assemble onstage, the four exchange a knowing nod as they embark on a journey into a roughshod mythology drawn from the Deep South, voodoo culture, primal rock and roll, crime novels and New Orleans.

“I’m not kind of in love with 7 Walkers; I’m totally in love with 7 Walkers,” says Kreutzmann. “This band is such a dream for me. I hate to put it into a genre or qualify it in any way. I want it to stay open. It reminds me of the Grateful Dead when we were first learning songs and how to play our instruments better. We were totally free and that’s what this band is – except we’ve all had a lot longer to learn how to play.”

7 Walkers released its self-titled debut in November, a thickly-knotted, swampy, beautiful record with lyrics by Dead scribe Robert Hunter. The record features bassist Reed Mathis (Tea Leaf Green), whose existing commitments kept him from becoming a full-fledged member. George Porter Jr. jumped at the chance to join, and the quartet recently finished its first national tour culminating at the aforementioned late night barnburner at the Las Tortugas.

What’s already apparent is that this is not a temporary distraction. Something deep and powerful stirs inside this quartet, drawing energy from all of its members’ various musical tributaries before forming a gloriously raging torrent.

“This band feels like something dreamed up in someone else’s imagination,” says Papa. “Like, ‘If you get this guy together with this other guy, it’ll be great!’ This is just something different. At this stage in the game, it’s amazing to remember what it felt like to first be in a band. Bill and George have seen and done it all, so it’s surprising to all of us that we’ve got this feeling of being a real band. It’s more than guys just getting together. It’s almost like being a kid again.”

It was Hunter who inspired the band’s name after delivering his first of seven songs to the group, “7 Walkers.” “The number seven is really important in mythology, in Indian culture and many different spiritual beliefs,” says Kreutzmann. “Recently, I was watching this guy explain String Theory and it’s very far out. He said the only way string theory can work is if there are more than three dimensions, and he maintains that there are seven dimensions. So, in order for unified field theory to work [which String Theory is an example of], there has to be more than three dimensions. I thought that was pretty cool: there are seven dimensions and I’m in 7 Walkers.” [Laughs.]

Photo by Dave Vann

The group’s studio debut swings all over the place, finding subterranean connections between the 1950s skip of “Sue from Bogalusa,” a bouncing grin-inducer like “New Orleans Crawl” and a meditative love song like “Evangeline” – fearlessly moving between divergent styles. Most of 7 Walkers was captured in first or second takes and that initial on-the-floor energy was massaged in post-production by Papa and Hubbard, who inserted dub ghosts, radio snippets, warming echoes and other small, inspired touches that develop a great deal of the album’s lingering atmosphere.

The four-piece configuration allows listeners to experience Kreutzmann’s playing in a much more direct way than at almost any time in his career save for the stretch in 1970s when drummer/percussionist Mickey Hart wasn’t playing with the Dead.

“I’m having a great time doing this,” enthuses Kreutzmann. “I’ve never gotten to play regularly with a New Orleans musician like George and this also fulfills my dream of playing music that feels like this. I love the speed of playing in a four-piece. In the early ‘70s, I could go in any direction I wanted and the music would change almost immediately. That was fun and this is even more pronounced in that way.”

7 Walkers is cut in the mold of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Little Feat, The Band and other late ‘60s/early ‘70s pioneers that persistently stretched rock’s boundaries, often veering wildly between styles on a single vinyl side, yet insisting that all of these elements are rock, in their own way.

“I never go in thinking, ‘This is a rock song,’ or God forbid, ‘This is a pop song,’” says Kreutzmann. “Pop music drives me nuts. I love in [the movie] The Big Lebowski when Jeff Bridges is in the back of the cab and says, ‘I fucking hate The Eagles.’ I’m all over Jeff. He’s got that right.” [Laughs.]

There’s a striking darkness to some of Robert Hunter’s lyrics for 7 Walkers. For instance, take the chorus to “King Cotton Blues,” which Willie Nelson sings on the album: “Shotgun is too merciful/ Hanging is too good/ Drowning too uncertain/ And poison is too slow/ To snuff a worthless widow’s son whose time has come to go.”

“The character in this song reminds me of a couple other characters in Hunter songs like ‘Loser’ and ‘Candyman,’” says Papa. “It’s great to inhabit these rogues. I’ve always loved murder ballads and the like. I always knew Johnny Cash was a good person, but it intrigued me when he’d sing about shooting somebody in Reno just to watch ‘em die.” [Laughs.]

These lonesome figures resonate for Papa as he left home at age 17 with a romanticized vision of being a worldly vagabond like Woody Guthrie or Bob Dylan. The charm of life on the road quickly wore off as he was repeatedly hustled, ripped off and roughed up. “Ultimately, it was a great experience but it showed me the world is full of unsavory characters, which toughened me up and made me streetwise,” he says of those days. “But, I’m still attracted to these grifters and rogues.” (His two favorite movies as a kid were Bonnie & Clyde and The Wild Bunch.)

“Robert [Hunter]’s imagination just seems vast and boundless,” he continues. “I’m constantly surprised at the way he views the world we live in and the fresh takes he comes up with on so many subjects. These songs lend themselves to grooves. All the best music has a swing to it.”

Kreutzmann describes the growth of the 7 Walkers’ song catalog and repertoire as entirely natural.

“Things just seem to come to us,” he says. “We haven’t had to make things happen. I love these [7 Walkers] songs because they’re all different. I put on records and I’m happy if there are two songs I like. I like this whole album. For me, the most interesting music isn’t played at the same volume or intensity – be it soft, slow, loud or hard. The best music is a combination of all of those different motifs and colors. I feel like Bob [Hunter] is writing Dead-esque songs for us, very much in the vein of ‘Loser’ and ‘Wharf Rat.’”

As the band tours, it’s been tackling many signature tunes from the members’ collective résumés, diving into Grateful Dead chestnuts like “Bertha,” “Wharf Rat” and “The Other One,” New Orleans staples such as “Hey Pocky Way” and “Iko Iko” along with choice pieces of Papa’s rich catalog. The group approaches each with an aggressive attitude that insists on originality even in the most familiar terrain.

“We’re all finding new ways to express these tunes, and I think Billy is largely responsible for that,” says Papa. “His drumming style is so unique that even if we launch into a New Orleans classic like ‘Junco Partner,’ Billy’s gonna bring his own feel to it, his own thing. He also encourages all of us to be very free, to move freely within the boundaries of the song form. It’s really an amazing thing.”

The drummer says much of the same of the group’s song catalog. “The old songs are gems and when you get to play with different musicians, all you need is commitment from everyone involved that they’ll play them the best that they can,” Kreutzmann says. “You’re playing the song, playing the changes, playing the groove, but because players are approaching it differently, new versions emerge. You never want to do a great song and not do it wonderfully. It makes these songs fresher playing them with 7 Walkers.”

Playing with a funk legend like Porter also offers Kreutzmann new musical landscapes to explore. “Being in the Grateful Dead, I never got to play the funk side of things much, so this is a treat,” he says. "I’ve always loved New Orleans music and always wanted to play more of it. In the Grateful Dead, we basically did three songs – that funny song ‘Man Smart/Woman Smarter,’ ‘Iko Iko’ and ‘Hey Pocky Way.’ But that was a teeny little piece and 7 Walkers is an opportunity to finally do more.

“With George, I can play anything,” Kreutzmann continues. “It’s a blessing that he and I play wonderfully together. He can live in the pocket and still be loose as can be. He’s always got the groove somewhere in his playing.”

By spending a few minutes around any of the Walkers, you can sense their excitement about the band is palpable. They rhapsodize about what’s coming next and exude an energy that lets you know that this is merely the first step of the journey.

“Initially, I insisted we lock ourselves in the studio and just play let the tape roll until we found a groove we locked into and we all agreed had something,” recalls Papa. “Next time around, it’s going to be different because we’ve road-tested our material and we know how to move together.”

The stage is where the band sees its immediate future. “That’s the priority right now,” confirms Kreutzmann. "What’s important about touring is it makes the band better. Musically, you get a lot stronger and you learn to abbreviate things that are often hard in life. If I get to travel around and play music with people that are making audiences happy, well, I’m happy.

“The whole idea is to get out of yourself and let the music transport you,” he says. “That’s what I’m doing when I’m playing with 7 Walkers, and hopefully, that’s what’s happening in the audience, too.”

While Papa agrees with Kreutzmann, he’s quick to underscore the enjoyment of the project. “The fun factor is so high for all of us and that’s important,” he says. “There are many things we could be doing but when we come together, it’s a profound reminder of how great it is to play music with people who really enjoy it. I think we found a chemistry we all want to settle into and explore.”