A Quote by Colin Meloy

The jam stuff doesn't appeal to me in general. My newfound love for the Dead came from Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia's songwriting, not the elaborate guitar solos. I'm a song person. Once it starts to break out of that structure and become loopy, it's uninteresting to me.
I love the Dead. As far as Jerry Garcia, Jerry Garcia could walk on water. He could do anything any man could ever do. He's a prince.
I've been a part of a couple of Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia nights, and watching the Dead's fan base be so passionate reminds me of what Jerry was so much about, making the community a better place.
I can't try to write a song - songs come out of me. I have to play the guitar and if I jam a song, boom! That's a song.
'If Our Love Is Wrong' is, quite simply, my coming out song, as I was trying to wrap my head around my sexuality and was starting to learn about songwriting, and that my honesty and my authenticity came from my personal experiences and writing about stuff that genuinely bugged me or upset me.
Jerry [Garcia] got high and Jerry's dead. I went hunting and I'm still Ted.
There are no Jerry Garcias coming down the pike, anymore than there is a Jimi Hendrix or Bob Marley. They are all at the same level - the highest level that you strive to get to as a musician. Me and my friends - we'll all be long dead, people will still be trying to dig into what Jerry Garcia did.
Guitar solos, to me, should be a really articulate way to make fun of guitar solos.
Guitar solos bore the hell out of me. Only a few guitarists interest me, and it's not about the solos they play, it's about the grooves they create.
I believe I love my guitar more than the others love theirs. For John and Paul, songwriting is pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they're making up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar for a whole evening. I'm fascinated by new sounds I can get from different instruments I try out. I'm not sure that makes me particularly musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I'll be satisfied.
That is what intrigues me; songwriting and song structure and expression.
I don't really break into too many solos. But I've never been a super-big solo guy anyway. I like to make the main melody guitar lines of the songs as cool and interesting as possible without just strumming chords. I like to have chords intertwined with riffs here and there, but I'll do the riffs and the solos where the bottom will drop out. Basically, I do everything for the song, I don't do it for the solo glory. Kids aren't really into that anymore for some reason.
An important meeting point for me was realizing the similarity between a DJ set and a Grateful Dead set: I grew up listening to how the Dead would take a song and just jam on it, and then transition into another song.
'Entertainment Tonight' would send me out to do interviews with musicians like Sting and Coldplay, and I was able to watch how they plan their shows. The late Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead always had a game plan, but he also was flexible if he had to change something at the last minute.
My best capacity is to edit. If anything, I am a specialist at editing: my usual approach is to record a song very long. In the beginning just jam, jam on and on. Then break the song and play with it.
Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead did as much for mankind as any president.
My sister and I - she's a musician - we jam all the time. We always play around for giggles with stuff that seem unconventional or stuff that seems funny. A lot of the stuff sometimes is just a response from jam sessions in her room, so she'll be on the guitar or the keyboard, and we'll just start singing and doing stuff.
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