Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann has a crazy story about LSD and playing for Playboy

The Grateful Dead once played for Playboy After Dark when the crew was tripping on LSD

(Image credit: Conan)

Whether or not you're a Deadhead, you'll want to check out Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann's madcap and highly entertaining story that he told on Conan about the time the Dead played a Hugh Hefner TV show on CBS, Playboy After Dark. As the band was setting up, Kreutzmann told Conan O'Brien, he started to hear crazy things from the TV crew, about cameras out of focus and mics not on. After looking around, "I had this strange suspicion," he said, and he finally figured out that famed LSD maker Owsley Stanley had dosed the 150-cup crew coffee pot. The entire crew was tripping on acid. "It wasn't illegal in 1967," Kreutzmann said when Conan suggested that must be some kind of crime.

Kreutzmann, who has a new memoir out, also discussed how Jerry Garcia came up with the name for The Grateful Dead, how everybody hated it, and geeked out on Dungeons & Dragons with Patton Oswald. Watch below. —Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.