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Wrap

Text File | 1998-05-06 | 26KB | 504 lines

Downloaded from http://www.jamtv.com/xfiles/features/1998/issue27/042701/default.asp [ Jacked Home ][ New Releases ][ Daily JAM ][ Gallery ][ Charts ][ Reviews ][ Columns ] [Feature Article] [Vince Welnick] [Image] By Isaac Josephson [Image] [Im[Image] [Image] It's been nearly three years since [Image] the Grateful Dead's demise and [Image] Vince Welnick, their fourth and [Image] final keyboardist, is still living [Image] in the shadow of his former [Image] bandmates. [Image] [Image] Welnick, the former Tubes member [Image] who joined the Dead in 1990, may [Image] have filled the musical shoes of [Image] his legendary predecessors. But [Image] his five-year stint with the band (a mere one-sixth of the Dead's lifespan) did little to fill the emotional hole created by their departures, and Welnick never got past the "Johnny-come-lately" phase in the eyes of many in the Dead community. Now, in the sphere of post-Dead projects, Welnick is once more last to the game, his Missing Man Formation's recorded debut coming out this spring, just after percussionist Billy Kreutzmann's Backbone. Meanwhile, guitarist Bob Weir, percussionist Mickey Hart and bassist Phil Lesh, all long since occupied with their own highly visible musical endeavors, are preparing to come together on stage again under the "Other Ones" moniker. It's a Grateful Dead reunion of sorts -- one to which Kreutzmann was invited and politely declined. Welnick, on the other hand, was overlooked in favor of Bay-area keyboardist and sometimes Grateful Dead live guest, Bruce Hornsby. To say the least, he's disappointed. In some respects, Jerry Garcia's death and the subsequent dissolution of the Dead was harder on Welnick than the rest. The 48-year-old keyboardist strove constantly to prove his mettle, collaborating with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter more than any other band member in that time period, and picking up vocal duties on many of the newer songs. For Weir and the others, the Grateful Dead was a way of life. For Welnick, it was a surprise induction into a vast and mystical socio-historical force -- one which never fully embraced him. Like a little sibling, Welnick was constantly playing mojo catch-up to Garcia, Weir, Hart, Lesh and Kreutzmann, and the game ended before he'd made his mark. Perhaps Welnick will get another shot with Missing Man Formation. The band's lineup, which at different times has boasted the talents of guitarist Steve Kimlock, saxophonist Bobby Vega and ex-Tubes drummer Prairie Prince, delivers a sound not unlike the Dead. It's loose and flowing, with Welnick's resonant, slightly countrified vocals holding things together. Although they indulge concertgoers with Grateful Dead tunes, Missing Man Formation's self-titled album is composed solely of Welnick- and Welnick/Hunter-penned originals. Eager to chat with JAMTV about Missing Man, his days with the Dead and new bands on the scene, Welnick himself called from his California home half an hour before the interview was scheduled to make sure "all systems were go." The name "Missing Man Formation" has a peculiar, sad tone. I actually got the name Missing Man from my sister, Nancy. She overheard some surfer-Deadheads talking in this bar about life after Jerry's death and what the Grateful Dead's future might be like without Jerry. And one of the guys said it would be like a missing man formation. He went on with the conversation, but that name stuck in her mind. And it turned out to have a military meaning for that fly-by over a big monument where the head plane goes up into the sky and the empty space remains. Do you ever worry that the name emphasizes loss rather than life or creativity? I wouldn't be here if Jerry hadn't died. I'd still be playing with the Dead. There's some serious musicianship on the album. Do you feel like you're trying to live up to the standards set by the Dead? I'm trying to live up to the standards set by the Dead, particularly the ones set by Jerry -- the pure music, no politics, no bullshit. I think it's vital that somebody carries the flag, as many people as possible, to keep this thing going. Do you think Furthur Festival is doing that? I'd have hoped that it would this year. Because they keep saying, "Oh, we'll do it more Dead-like." I thought that they'd ask me and possibly Missing Man to come out this year. And eventually they thought it would be smart to get down to three bands, and they thought it would be smart if Bobby Weir would do more Grateful Dead songs. They eventually gravitated towards that stuff. Only hangup is, I didn't get invited and neither did Missing Man. So I think, personally, it's going to be slightly less Dead-like than it would be if I were there. For Chrissake, I am and always will be a member of the Grateful Dead. It's a lifetime thing that Jerry bestows upon a person. Are you disappointed that they didn't ask you to be in The Other Ones? Yeah, I'm not happy about it, but there's nothing I can do. Do you ever talk to the other surviving members of the Dead any more? Yeah, I just did a thing with Phil [Lesh]. Phil's been doing a benefit for the Unbroken Chain Foundation. Once a month he's been doing stuff, and I've been on two of those so far. We just did a great one. In fact, he brought Bobby Strickland on to play horns and sing. We actually rehearsed. I'd never seen Phil rehearse. Even with the Dead. We put in like, three big long days. Phil's great. He's taking voice lessons. He did a lot of Jerry songs, which was great. For a while there, I was afraid they were just going to say, "Well Jerry's dead. Let's not do his songs anymore." Do you have a lot of Dead songs in Missing Man's live set? I have a fair amount. I try to do my favorites and also ones that hadn't been done when I was in the band. I do "St. Stephen." Missing Man has played with String Cheese Incident and Leftover Salmon and a lot of the younger bands. Do you feel closer to them than the older fellows? I think String Cheese is a really great up-and-coming band. I actually played as a special guest with String Cheese and Leftover Salmon this past New Year's. What do you think of Phish? You know what? This is gonna be embarassing, but I don't think I've ever heard a single Phish tune. And it's not that I don't like them; it's just the way it turned out. It became pretty obvious that as soon as Jerry died and after they did the memorial issues on all the magazines, the Deadhead 'zines were shifting their coverage over to Phish. So it's pretty obvious that they locked into that scene. The only downside I've heard from other people is that maybe they're a little bit on the comical side. Some people take their music more spiritually or seriously. I don't know if you get the profound experience that you might get from a Dead show with Phish, but they're certainly keeping the party alive and that's important. My hat's off to them for keeping the scene alive, which is something that I wish the Grateful Dead would have done. As weird as it sounds, days after Jerry died, we should have gone out and fucking played. Was there anyone in particular who [Image] dropped the ball on that, or did everyone take it as an opportunity to go their separate ways? I don't think it was so much of an opportunity for people to go their separate ways. Definitely, the ball was dropped. Both of our balls got kicked in. Personally, I was unable to perform during that time out of sheer depression. If it would have been up to me, we would have never stopped. We would have gone right back out on that fall tour. I guess the band called it quits about four months after Jerry's death? Oh, boy, that was a bad night. It was December 7th, Pearl Harbor day. Tell me about the decision. I don't want to snitch on who let the air out of the tires, but it was decided by the time I got to the meeting. Did anyone ask you before making the decision? No. In fact I was out on the road with Ratdog, and we came in on our day off. We had to fly in from Phoenix or Vegas or somewhere. It was really inconvenient. I mean, if it was going to be that bad of news, I wish they would have told me over the telephone. But we flew out there, and I walked in, and that was the first thing on the table. I was dumbfounded. I just couldn't accept it in any shape or form. It had been bad enough that Jerry died. I wondered how much worse it could get, and that's how much worse it could get. Do you know how the decision was made to bring Bruce Hornsby in for the Other Ones? I would imagine that Bruce got together with Bobby and Phil and thought this thing up. Do you see yourself being a part of the reunion that's being talked about for the opening of the Interactive Museum in 1999? Yeah, I see myself as being a part of everything. I don't know if the museum's going to be up and running by then. We've kind of fallen behind schedule. Does the Missing Man formation audience extend beyond the Deadhead sphere? There's a slight Tubes and Todd Rungren contingent, it turns out. I'd be happy if even a fraction of the Deadheads took to the album. I think it can go beyond that, though. The music is pretty universal. Speaking of the Tubes, can you tell me about the difference in personality between the Tubes and the Dead? The Tubes were cynical and tongue-in-cheek, as opposed to spiritual. A whole lot of Tubes songs were written to go with skits. Like, when Fee Waybill would do [on-stage punk persona] Johnny Bugger. We called him Rod Planet at first. And then we just started making up songs that he could sing. Eventually [Tubes cult hit] "White Punks" became one of them. Didn't Fee Waybill break his leg doing that song in Europe? Yes, he walked off the end of the stage and broke his leg before he hit the ground. This was some serious stuff. This was back when the pyro guy used to go behind the curtain and plug the flashpots straight into the wall. And have no sight lines. So if someone wasn't on cue, they just went up in flames. That was it. We had jumpsuits with little Christmas Tree lights all over them that we plugged directly into the wall. And I remember a couple of gigs where I had to tear my suit off because it was getting too hot. That's some serious performance art. (laughing) Yeah, we even set fire to the fire curtain at one of our gigs. I hear there was a Grateful Dead album in the works when Jerry died. Do you remember what was supposed to be on it? There would have been "Liberty," "So Many Roads," "Days Between," "Samba in the Rain," "Way To Go," "Corrina," "Easy Answers." The problem was that Jerry sat out on some of the basic sessions. The only vocals that we got were the working vocals. There weren't even those on some of the songs. There was also very little guitar. We had just about finished the basics when Jerry checked out. It's a shame, because we spent a lot of time in there. But there's this dilemma about how we could ever salvage it. But the tapes are around, right? Has there been any mumbling about putting something together and releasing it? Oh yeah, the tapes are around. Thing is, the tapes are bad. There's a rehearsal tape of "Days Between" that sounds better than anything they'd ever salvage out of the tapes because Jerry actually sang it. So there's not what you would call a perfect take of that song. I think they'd have to find it from one of the show tapes. If you were to get all the verses the way Robert had written it, you might even have to splice between a couple of tapes. What do the rest of the guys think of Missing Man? Phil's the only one that's made a comment. He likes "Golden Days" and "True Blue" a lot. In fact, he learned both of those songs and we did them at the last "Unbroken Chain" concert. He also liked "It's Alive." But I haven't heard from Bobby, Mickey or Billy. Does anybody hear from Billy? I imagine someone does, but I don't know what's going on. I know he's hanging out in Kauai with Todd Rundgren. I heard he's threatening to come out here with his group, Backbone and play some gigs. In fact, we might be playing together at the Fillmore. I don't know yet. He asked to play, but I don't know if he's going to turn up or not. Billy is that way. I think he was invited on the Furthur tour and he declined. He said he didn't want to go on the road or something, right? Yep. And so it would be a little bit ironic that he would pass on that and then go out with Backbone. I hear tell that might happen. When the Dead was on tour, there were several buses. Did you share one with Jerry? There were seven tour buses, but we didn't bus. We had a private jet, thank you. We vanned a lot. The only time we took limos was to and from the airport and to gigs in the Bay area. The rest of the time, we were in vans. I vanned a lot with Jerry, especially on the summer gigs when the rest of the band would helicopter back and forth from sound check to the hotel and back to the gig again. Jerry and I did not ride in the copters. We would always van it. We didn't care if it was a four-hour drive. Sometimes it's nice to drive. It was a great time to hang with Jerry. We spent a lot of quality one-on-one time in the van. What do you think he would think of Missing Man Formation? I think he'd like us. I think he would have definitely wanted me to continue on and granted me permission to do any of his songs, because if he didn't want those songs done after his death, he wouldn't have let everybody in the goddamn world record them night after night. I think he had a definite wish to immortalize his music. And I aim to do that.