When BERTHA: Grateful Drag brought its all-drag Grateful Dead tribute to Bearsville Theater on March 25, the performance blended improvisation, activism, and theatricality. After the show, Jacob Groopman—also known as Big Sissy Bertha—spoke about the band’s origins, politics, and what they hope audiences take away.
BERTHA has been described as the world’s first Grateful Dead Drag band—how did the concept first come together, and what did you want to add to the Grateful Dead tradition that wasn’t already there?
Melody and Caitlin (now known as Daddy and Mommy Bertha) originally were thinking about starting an all-girl Grateful Dead project in Nashville. Some of us guys heard about this and expressed interest in the project, so we joked that if everyone dressed in drag, it would still be an all-woman band. Around this time, Tennessee started passing the “slate of hate,” which was a series of anti-trans, anti-drag, and anti-LGBTQ legislation. As musicians, we stand with artists of all kinds. This was offensive to all artists in Nashville, so we decided to throw a protest benefit concert, get into drag and play some Grateful Dead music to raise money to fight this legislation. The show was such a huge success that we decided to repeat it, and repeat it again; here we are three years later.
Even though the Grateful Dead themselves always supported the queer community, there had never been an outwardly queer version of a Grateful Dead tribute band. We hope that our take on the Grateful Dead’s ethos of free expression adds to the musical tradition and the Deadhead community as a whole.
The Grateful Dead community has long embraced freedom and individuality, with a strong queer Deadhead community. How have Deadheads responded to BERTHA’s drag-forward reinterpretation of that culture?
The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Our audience has been an incredible mix of Deadheads of all types, and the vibes are high at the shows. We have definitely received pushback and hateful messages on social media from Deadheads and internet trolls alike, but so far that has been the minority. We do find the strings of vomit emojis people put in our comments very amusing. We always try to bring a local drag queen to perform in every city we visit to give our Deadhead audience a taste of more “traditional” drag, and that always goes over really well!
Hunter S. Thompson once said, “If every Deadhead voted, the country would be a different place.” In this cultural and political moment, a Grateful Dead cover band dressed in drag can feel inherently political, particularly as freedoms for queer people face challenges in parts of the country. Do you see BERTHA as making a political statement, are you registering fans to vote at shows, or does the music speak for itself?
We are absolutely a political band and have hosted voter drives at our shows in Nashville. We incorporate drag into every show as a political protest against not just our own state government, but any politician who wants to legislate morality in America. The band started as a political protest, so our mission is to bring our brand of activism through music and art across the country to raise awareness about the struggles of trans and queer folks in both the cities we play in and in Nashville, where we live. The Dead have a few politically leaning songs (Thanks Bobby!), but there’s very little question what they stood for when it came to minority communities and queer rights.
There’s a balance in BERTHA between humor, theatricality, and serious musicianship. How do you approach honoring the music while still making it unmistakably your own?
We’re all musicians first, and the Grateful Dead’s music and musicianship are very special and meaningful to all of us. However, they were masters at being the best band in the world while also not taking themselves too seriously. Musically, we’re just trying to make this band the Dead cover band we as individual musicians always wanted to see. It’s a wonderful combination of all our favorite parts of their music: the songs and songwriting, the dynamics, the free improvisation, and Phil’s “never play the same thing once” mentality.
What was it like bringing BERTHA to Bearsville, a place with such deep musical history in Woodstock and connections to the broader jam band world?
We had a blast Wednesday at Bearsville! We love playing in places that have deep Grateful Dead and musical history. You can feel it! The storied history of not only the town, but also that location in particular, was not lost on us. Since we are not a full-time band, finding the time to visit smaller cities and towns can be tricky, but we knew that we needed to come to Woodstock. I’m so glad we did.
Beyond the wigs and the story, what do you hope audiences take away from a BERTHA show, musically, culturally, or emotionally?
We want to provide a space where people leave feeling better than when they arrived. That can mean many things to many people. None of us ever got to experience a Grateful Dead show with Jerry. However, one of the best compliments we receive is that, for some people, our shows feel, not just sound, as close to an actual Dead show as they’ve felt since Jerry died. The “feel” of our shows is a big part of our objective. Dead shows were an authentic and unique musical, cultural and emotional experience. If we can deliver even a small slice of that experience to our audience, then we are doing something right.
Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.