John Mayer has looked back on his partnership with the late Bob Weir, recalling the early days of the pair’s professional relationship as Dead & Company bandmates.

Weir, who passed away last month, became one of Mayer’s closest collaborators during the latter half of his life. After the pair were put in touch with each other by producer Don Was, a mutual respect – and a love for Grateful Dead’s music – soon developed into something more.

The resulting Dead & Company project continued the jam band’s legacy, resulting in numerous tours that – with the help of Mayer’s contributions – brought its music to a new generation of fans and listeners.

It was a project that Mayer approached with the utmost respect, and took some time getting used to. Playing electric guitar with one of his heroes, after all, was both the opportunity of a lifetime – and rather daunting.

“I spent a lot of shows in the beginning wondering if he was upset,” Mayer remembers in a new interview with Rolling Stone. “I’d think: ‘I hope he’s happy. He might not be. Oh, he just went and turned his guitar amp up. Does that mean he thinks I’m too loud? Is someone going to come into my [dressing] room and say, “Hey, can you turn your guitar down?”’

“Then one day, you walk up onstage and there’s plexiglass between the amps and you go, ‘I have a feeling I’m a little too loud.’”

Mayer clearly learned to manage his insecurities. You don’t embark on global tours – and host two high-profile residencies at the Las Vegas Sphere – if you don’t.

“The first couple of tours were proving to the audience that I had a right to be there. And the rest of the tours were proving to Bobby that I meant well for everything I was trying to do,” Mayer continues when asked about when he finally felt comfortable sharing the stage with Weir.

“You got to understand, I never quantified it. And I don’t think Bob ever quantified it. Looking at it now, I think he never interacted with whatever that energy field was of adulation, or ‘Oh, my God, can you believe?’ He didn’t account for it. And oddly, I didn’t account for it – only when I heard what it meant to people.

“We never talked about it. But towards the end, maybe from ’23 on, and certainly the two Sphere runs, we had done it for so long. How did I read his signals? I just knew the way his head moved – we all do – and had an understanding of what his instincts were night after night. It got to the point where, in those last few tours, he knew when I would step forward and really hit the gas.

“And because I’d figured it out by then, I knew when to step back, look at Bobby and say, 'It’s yours again.' We were aligned. Bobby and I both had the same clock – where he knew what I was going to do, and he knew I’d give it back and go, 'All yours.' There were times where Bobby started singing as a way of letting me know, 'That’s the end of your solo, son.'”

Weir’s death prompted an outpouring of tributes from all corners of the music, with Mayer delivering a powerful and emotional eulogy during a public memorial.

Last year, both Mayer and Weir sat down with Guitar World to discuss their years-long collaboration and ever-evolving musical partnership.

John Mayer has paid an emotional tribute to the late Bob Weir, whose life and legacy was honored at a recent public memorial at the Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco on Saturday (January 17).

Weir, the counter-culture guitar icon who helped define the jam band movement with the Grateful Dead, died earlier this month at the age of 78, prompting an outpouring of tributes from the likes of Steve Vai, Trey Anastasio, Joe Bonamassa, Bob Dylan and more.

Mayer, who spent the past 10 years of his professional career playing alongside Weir in Dead & Company, was also among those to honor the guitar juggernaut’s memory, with an emotional post that read, “Thanks for letting me ride alongside you.”

As part of a public memorial service for Weir last weekend, Mayer followed his post with a touching speech that looked back on their bond, which first began when the two started performing Grateful Dead music under the Dead & Company banner back in 2016.

“Bob and I were born on the same day exactly 30 years apart. In the 30 years that had preceded me, Bob had become a counter-cultural icon,” Mayer begins. “I was a child of the 1980s. I come from a world of structural thinking. The concept, the theorizing, the reassessing, the perfecting.

“Bob learned early on that spirit, heat, soul, curiosity and fearlessness was the path to glory. We both found success with each of our templates and then we found each other.

“The echoes of the music Bobby and the Grateful Dead made would lead me to him, through whatever strange and nervy knack I have for sidling up next to the things I’m in awe of. What would follow would become the adventure of a lifetime for me.

“It’s hard to find the words to describe the relationship Bob and I had. We never really went looking for them. We didn’t need to. We stood side by side together in the music. That’s where those 30 years would melt away, and that Libra balance would kick in, and we’d become comrades, sometimes brothers, even if only by one shared parent.

“We were unlikely partners and that was part of our magic. Over the course of a decade we came to trust each other. He taught me, among many other things, to trust in the moment, and I’d like to think I taught him a little bit to rely on a plan.

“Not as a substitute for the divine moments, but as a way to lure them in a little closer. I guess maybe what I was really doing was showing him he could rely on me.

“Bob took a chance on me. He staked his entire reputation on my joining a band with him. He gave me musical community. He gave me this community.”

Mayer first crossed paths with Weir via Don Was around 2015. At the time, Mayer had set his sights on recording a followup to 2013’s Paradise Valley but after the opportunity to play with Weir came up, any plans for an imminent record were shelved.

Instead, Mayer and Weir embarked on a journey that will go on to largely define both of their careers, with highlights including a blockbuster Las Vegas Sphere residency and a worldwide farewell tour.

Last year, both Mayer and Weir caught up with Guitar World reflect on 10 years of Dead & Company and discuss their ever-evolving guitar partnership.

A myriad of guitarists from different walks of life have paid tribute to Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir, who has died aged 78, underscoring the scope of his influence and impact on American culture.

He co-founded the band, whose genre-fusing exploits earned them a status as one of America's greatest, amidst the burgeoning counterculture movement of the 1960s, and never slowed down. Just last year, his GD-adjacent group, Dead & Company, completed the longest residency at Las Vegas' immersive Sphere venue. There was also a cameo with Sammy Hagar’s band across town.

Weir was diagnosed with lung cancer in July, and continued to perform in light of the news, with his Dead & Company co-guitarist John Mayer leading the tributes.

“Okay, Bob. I’ll do it your way. Fkn’ A…” he writes on Instagram. “Thanks for letting me ride alongside you. It sure was a pleasure. If you say it’s not the end, then I’ll believe you. I’ll meet you in the music. Come find me anytime.”

Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, meanwhile, has reflected on his interactions with the man and what his passing means.

“There were times when I was talking to him when I thought he was the last actual hippie,” he says (via the Guardian). “Bobby was completely allergic to compliments in the most endearing way. I’d say, ‘Man, that guitar riff you were doing on that song sounded really killer,’ and he’d respond, ‘Well, I’m sure I’ll fuck it up next time.’ I loved that about him.”

Steve Vai, who had the “great fortune” of playing with Weir at a 2017 charity concert, says, “for a few sublime hours we just sat around and jammed backstage, earthy and inspired, opening up my ears in ways I’ll never forget.

“Bob was a sharp listener, and his choice of chords, melodies, and tempos created an aura that was at once cosmic and playful…where the lines between sound and spirit blur in the best possible way,” he adds. “It was an absolute honor to share these moments with him, and I’m grateful for every note of light he gave this world.”

Country star Margo Price, meanwhile, who has grown close to Weir over the past decade, compared him to one of Dr. Seuss’s most famous creations.

“He always had a twinkle in his eye,” she says. “Like a barefoot philosopher or the Lorax, he was mystical. The records he made with the Grateful Dead are woven into the tapestry of American music forever.”

The Eagles’ Don Felder says he was “blessed” to have him sing on his solo track, Rock You, and Brandi Carlisle wrote that “Bob had time for all of us. He came to our shows, helped us write songs, and got so many of us out on stage to jam and just stand in his light.”

In a move indicative of Weir’s widespread influence, a truly vast cross section of guitar talent including, Warren Haynes, Joe Bonamassa, Molly Tuttle, Alex Skolnick, Robb Flynn, Duane Betts, Scott Ian, Lee Ranaldo and Aaron Dessner have also expressed their love for Weir and his playing.

“I along with my friend James helped him find a bigsby equipped all gold parts 1956 Les Paul,” relays Bonamassa. “The guitar had a very old sticker of two aces on the original pick guard. He politely reminded me that his most successful solo album was called "Ace". Sometimes things are meant to be and the world works in mysterious ways.”

Meanwhile Bob Dylan simply posted a captionless image of the pair performing together, bluegrass virtuoso Billy Strings looked back on his interactions with the guitar hero.

“I’ll always cherish the memories I have of Bob,” he says. “Of hanging out in his hotel room and him showing me his record collection and mobile recording rig. Sitting there listening to Kind of Blue in silence. Soaking in the frequencies. Of him busting into When I Paint my Masterpiece at my wedding, and in an instant, he turned the place into a joyous musical celebration.”

Bob Weir is survived by his wife, Natascha, two children, Shala Monet and Chloe, and a sprawling discography that has forever changed the face of American music.

Grateful Dead guitarist and vocalist Bob Weir has passed away aged 78, according to a post on his social media channels.

The announcement, made on Saturday evening (January 10), says: “It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir. He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”

Weir was a founding member of the Grateful Dead, joining forces with his bandmates Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan, in the mid-’60s. The band initially went by the name The Warlocks, before settling on The Grateful Dead after Garcia found the reference in a folklore dictionary.

The group’s transition from a folksier outfit into a psychedelic juggernaut was a reaction to the rich soup of countercultural influences that swirled around their San Francisco base. (A recently electrified) Bob Dylan, the Beatles and the Lovin’ Spoonful provided the musical impetus, while their association with Ken Kesey, as the in-house band during the Acid Test period, brought in the chemical stimulus.

Weir was initially the rhythm guitarist, the youngest of the group and known for his role as a vocalist on many of the band’s rock and country numbers, including probably their best-known song Truckin’.

Across a period of 30 years, the group defined the jam band movement and became a byword for ’60s counterculture and the hippie scene, before Garcia passed away in 1995.

Across that time, Weir became a formidable guitarist and musician, renowned for what Phil Lesh termed his “quirky, whimsical” ear and ability to produce complex, piano-like chord voicings on the fretboard.

Dead historians will point to key moments in which is playing is said to have evolved significantly: notably, the early 1970s – when a creative spark was said to have been ignited by Garcia and Lesh’s decision to jam with other players in the late-’60s – or, again, toward the end of the decade, when he started to incorporate slide guitar parts, drawing on the likes of John Coltrane’s horn playing to influence his phrasing.

In truth, though, and in keeping with the spirit of the Grateful Dead, he never stopped evolving – in his playing, his gear choices, or his songwriting.

“I just keep changing,” Weir told Guitar World last year. “I wake up in the morning and I’m kind of different. You take all those mornings that I woke up kind of different and you add ’em together, and after a while, you start amounting to a different guy.”

Weir remained active following Garcia’s death, performing in various Grateful Dead offshoot groups, including the Others, The Dead and Furthur, plus his group Ratdog.

Despite playing thousands of gigs to enormous crowds across a period of 60 years, Weir once confessed to Guitar World that he still battled stage fright most nights.

“It’s the anticipation, the time before walking out. There is a moment onstage when I think, ‘Thank God, I’m out of here,’” he explained. “I can forget myself, leave the building and let the characters in the songs have my body, my spirit and everything else.”

In 2015, Weir joined forces with his remaining bandmates and John Mayer to form Dead and Company – across the group’s 10-year run he forged a significant playing relationship with Mayer.

“The thing I’ve learned from Bob is to let it breathe,” Mayer told GW last year. “And that’s changed my playing a lot. The two of us now have a very deep relationship. Almost like a telepathic relationship.

“I know where I stand with him in the best of ways. He knows where he stands with me in the best of ways. And we don’t have to talk about it.”

In July 2025, Weir was diagnosed with cancer, but continued to perform as much as possible around his treatment, continuing to play, to evolve, and to keep moving forward.

“There is no final curtain here, not really,” reads the statement following his death. “Only the sense of someone setting off again... we send him off the way he sent so many of us on our way: with a farewell that isn’t an ending, but a blessing. A reward for a life worth livin’.”

Weir is survived by his wife Natascha and daughters Monet and Chloe.

John Mayer named his favorite Grateful Dead tune to solo over during a recent Q&A on his radio show – and took the opportunity to play it live on air.

Since its inception back in November 2023, Life with John Mayer – the Sob Rock electric guitar star’s own exclusive year-round radio program on SiriusXM – has been a hotbed of insight, offering unique behind-the-scenes glimpses of Mayer’s creative activities.

Not only has he openly discussed his approach to songwriting, and named his favorite album from his own repertoire, in the past, he’s also used the channel to shine a light on emerging players, praising the likes of George Collins.

Now, in an on-air Q&A, he’s named his favorite Grateful Dead song to solo over.

“Well, I happen to have a guitar here. Do you know this song?” Mayer says in the studio in response to the question, before riffing through China Cat Sunflower – a track lifted from the band’s 1969 studio record, Aoxomoxoa.

Mayer takes a beat to explain why he likes China Cat Sunflower so much. Moving around the fretboard and flicking between rhythm and lead, he pulls out some of his go-to licks, including some tasty descending chromatic runs, which lead directly back into the main hook.

With some helpful narrative, it’s a useful insight into what goes through Mayer’s mind when he’s constructing a solo.

China Cat Sunflower is a particularly interesting ‘case study’ – Mayer always has his mind on Weir’s vocal melodies, and is aware of what’s going on around him, shaping the parts he plays in service of the song.

He's still completely in the zone, though. When he finishes the solo, he admits, “I step back and I’m like, ‘Don’t think about it. Maybe you nailed it, maybe you didn’t.’”

It helps that his phrasing is characteristically top notch, and that his tone and feel is impeccable. He could riff a rubber band over China Cat Sunflower and it would still sound good.

The best part of the clip? Funnily enough, it’s not Mayer’s playing. It’s the fact the person asking the question filmed their reaction to his answer – and the look they give when Mayer starts to solo away is priceless.

Mayer has spent the past 10 years playing with Bob Weir in Dead & Company, having formed the supergroup back in 2015. In that time, they’ve been honoring the music of Grateful Dead, but during an interview with Guitar World earlier this the pair hinted at the possibility of releasing new music together.

Bassist Oteil Burbridge is as in-demand to his fanbase as he is professionally. There's the muso crowd that laid early claim to him for his jazz and fusion-informed fingerboard feats and straight-to-the-heart, scat-'n'-play bass solos with Col. Bruce Hampton & the Aquarium Rescue Unit, followed by uber-respectable credits with the Jaco Pastorius Big Band, and Herbie Hancock.

There are the jam-band devotees who view him as a native son for his deep-grooving tenure with the Allman Brothers Band, and satellite projects with the Tedeschi Trucks Band, Vida Blue, Frogswings, BK3, Gov't Mule, members of Phish, and his own Peacemakers.

And now there are the adoring Deadheads, fit to be tie-dyed over their singing bass guitar hero in Dead & Company.

It was in 2015 that Burbridge was given the unenviable task of replacing Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh in a new incarnation of the band called Dead & Company.

“It’s so hard when you come in to bands like the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band where the fans actually care who the bassist is,” Burbridge told Billboard. “You don’t want to copy the original guy, but you feel obligated to honor what bass melodies the founding bass player crafted for the song.”

Lesh’s distinctive playing style defined many Grateful Dead songs, enabling the original lineup to roam freely from rock, blues and country through sprawling jams.

“Considering how brilliant Phil is and where he comes from conceptually, when you take that out of the mix, in a sense you don't have the Dead anymore,” said Burbridge in the February 2018 issue of Bass Player. “He's that big a part of their sound and feeling, and neither I nor anyone else can really replace him.”

How did you get the bass chair in Dead & Company, and how did you prepare?

I got a call from Bob Weir's manager, Matt Busch, asking me to come and play with the guys, because they were thinking about continuing on after their final show in summer 2015.

I had done BK3 with drummer Bill Kreutzmann and Scott Murawski, so Bill and I had developed a chemistry, and I had already played with Bob, Phil Lesh, and Jeff Chimenti, so it went well. Then I saw photos of Mike Gordon at the Dead's rehearsal space, so I figured he got the gig.

A couple of months later Matt called and said, ‘You're up.’ Apparently, Mike had to pass on the gig due to Phish and his solo album. I knew about 20 Dead songs from various projects I'd done, and I picked my favorite 50 out of what they seemed to be playing a lot. Then I called John Mayer, who was already onboard.

He knew 70 songs, so we compared lists, and I learned the extras, as well. By the end of rehearsals, we were up to 80 or 90 songs.

You've called the gig a revelation for you.

For sure. Friends have been trying to get me into the Dead since high school, but I had to be older and more mature, having attempted to write lyrics and sing, to fully appreciate their music.

There are two key elements. First, the gig is very challenging, because the music is quite intricate. As Bob said to me, ‘Oteil, we were not dabblers!’ It's like architecture the way the songs are crafted, between the lyrics, the melodies, the chords, the grooves, the odd meters, and the wide variety of influences.

There are tunes that seem like a jam, and all of a sudden, 15 minutes in, the first verse starts! Or a bridge will happen three-quarters of the way in, and never again. Or each verse of a song will switch one chord.

Like Box of Rain – you wouldn't believe how hard that song is. At the same time, you're under absolutely no obligation to execute the songs correctly.

Musically, I'm using everything I've ever learned; it's the ultimate gig for me. We cover as many styles as we did in the Allman Brothers, but with a wider scope of harmony, and the lyrics are farther out as well; these guys are poets.

The other key is that from their start, this is a band that rejected preconceptions. There were no rules, which connects them to my biggest influences, like Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Jimi Hendrix, P-Funk, and Col. Bruce.

I keep asking myself, Why didn't I recognize this sooner? In a way it feels like it was all supposed to happen for me.

How have you approached replacing Phil Lesh?

Phil's approach was to do the opposite of what the expectation was. As a result, there really aren't a lot of set basslines in the Dead's music. Truckin' has one, as does Shakedown Street and Dancin' in the Streets, but most tunes don't. So I got a clean slate, in a way.

I come from a more traditional way of bass playing, which is rooted in the African tradition of the groove. But what I didn't realize is a lot of the Dead's music comes out of the same tradition. Bob hears a lot of reggae and funky halftime bass grooves in his head. For example, on Estimated Prophet, Bob always wanted Phil to play that kind of bassline, and Phil wouldn't do it!

With my roots, I naturally played it that way, and Bob dug it. He's encouraged me to take that approach on everything – play what you are. As a result, I always say I won over the crowds‘ asses before I won over their ears.

On the other hand, your improvisational abilities seem to mesh with the Lesh template.

Absolutely. There's so much I relate to in Phil's playing. I try to cop his style on Bertha, but in my voice. In some ways he's like a rock 'n' roll James Jamerson, playing counterpoint melodies on the bass, and it's all improvised. Those are the areas where I can connect with him.

Plus, I get a solo spot on Eyes of the World, which I really don't need because there's so much improvising on the gig, but it does allow me to try some chord-melody ideas. So I'm playing the most stretched-out stuff I can think of... in stadiums! Are you kidding me?

And you're singing lead on some songs, as well.

“Can you believe it? I sing in stadiums and people dig it. It blows my mind. That's another part of my personal growth from this gig, thanks to the guys’ insistence that I sing some songs. I'm doing Comes a Time, China Doll, and If I Had the World to Give, and I'm sharing lead with John on Ship of Fools.”

How do you reflect on your time with the Allman Brothers?

The greatest gift from that experience was learning about rock 'n' roll and other genres from the people who created them. I learned so much that I didn't know about Black music, from a long-haired white guy who looked like a biker, in Gregg Allman.

He'd play me amazing recordings of old soul artists I had never heard. Like the Dead, the Allmans are a unique gumbo of styles, with the influences of jazz, blues, R&B, British Invasion rock, folk, country, bluegrass, New Orleans, and Latin music; it was all stirred together.

Plus, I got to play with an insane number of greats at our Beacon shows – Roy Haynes, Stanley Clarke, Taj Mahal, Levon Helm, Hubert Sumlin, Little Milton, Dr. John, and Billy Gibbons. I stepped into history with that band. Musically, it made me feel so patriotic. The Allman Brothers taught me to love America!

How about your Tedeschi Trucks Band stint?

For years, I thought Derek Trucks and his wife should have a band together, and for it to happen and to get to be in it with my brother Kofi was a blast. But when you have an 11-piece band like TTB, you have to gig a lot to keep it going.

I didn't want to be on the road that much, so I stepped away after two years and two albums. But all the miles and the hard work we put in, you can hear it in the music. The live album we did really captures the band firing on all pistons.

After 10 years of playing electric guitar together, John Mayer and Bob Weir have forged a truly formidable guitar partnership in Dead & Company – and they’ve learned a lot about one another in the process, too.

Now, as the dust on their second mega-selling Las Vegas Sphere residency settles, an interview clip of Don Was has resurfaced, with the revered producer and musician revealing how Mayer got the gig in the first place – and how he helped facilitate the group's formation.

Was' musical network stretches far and wide, and in 2015 he proved to be the missing link between Mayer and a band he grew up adoring.

Mayer and Was worked on two records prior to the onset of the Dead & Company days: 2012's Born and Raised and Paradise Valley, which arrived a year later. A third album together, Was says, was in the works, but ultimately got kicked to the curb when the opportunity of working with the Grateful Dead’s surviving members arose.

“He was a huge fan,” Was tells the Go with Elmo podcast. “I'd get in the car and drive him to the studio and stuff, and he always had the Grateful Dead channel and Sirius on. He could identify, ‘No, that's not ’78 because Jerry's playing through this pedal,’ or something like that.

“He'd locked out Capitol Studios with an eye towards making a new record, and Bobby and Mickey [Hart, drums] came to see me,” he continues. “So I called him up. I said, ‘You better come up here.’

“He was very eloquent about how much he loved the Grateful Dead and why. They were kind of taken aback, so they invited him to come on up and play sometime. When the opportunity cemented itself for him to go play with those guys, three months later, he shut down the record, cleared out all his stuff, went home, and cracked the code on the Grateful Dead.”

Anyone vaguely familiar with John Mayer’s work will know just how exacting a man he is. Just ask esteemed guitarist and educator Tomo Fujita, who had told him to quit Berklee and come back when he'd written a hit record. He took that advice to heart and carried it out to the letter.

To Mayer, this wasn’t just a chance to kick back and jam with his idols, it was a job interview, and he didn’t waste a moment preparing for it.

“Particularly,” Was says of Mayer's tone-cracking mission, “what was behind what Jerry [Garcia] was doing.

“He knew not to do karaoke. He really studied. I drove up there with him; we got a couple of airstreams, parked in the parking lot of Bobby’s studio, and we stayed about four days. At the end of the fourth day, they came in and said, ‘All right, let's do this. You'll be a partner. You'll be in the thing.

“That’s something I learned from John,” he concludes. “Don't go in unprepared.”

Dead & Company had played what was billed as their final-ever show back in 2023, but the prospect of a stint at Las Vegas’ ultra-futuristic Sphere venue brought the band out of retirement. Now, it seems those two residencies may serve as a prelude to a new era for the band, rather than a final swan song.

Bob Weir and John Mayer are leaving the door open to recording music together, and more gigs don’t seem out of the question either.

“The mission statement has always been forward-facing,” Mayer ascertains. “Whoever dreams up the next something incredible and wants us to be a part of it? I would never say no to that kind of experimentalism.”

A decade earlier, the prospect of him playing with an incarnation of the Grateful Dead would have sounded like wild fancy to Mayer. Was changed the course of the guitarist’s career by connecting them, but nailing the gig lay solely on his shoulders.

His tireless work ethic was shown again as he came towards the end of the first Sphere run. With a finger broken, he spent every day practicing guitar using the other three fingers as he looked to reconfigure his playing style.

Dead & Company’s second residency at the Las Vegas Sphere may be reaching the end, but Bob Weir and John Mayer recently offered fresh hope that the live entity could record new music together.

The band were formed in 2015, with Grateful Dead veteran Weir enlisting Mayer's ever-dazzling electric guitar chops for an elite-level Grateful Dead honoring project. The band was supposed to have played their last gig in 2023 but they reversed that decision when the opportunity to strut their stuff at Las Vegas' futuristic dome fell at their feet.

The final show of their second residency happens May 17, but in an interview with Guitar World earlier this year, Weir left the door open to studio projects – whether that be revisiting the songs they’ve been playing live, or penning original material.

“Oh, it's something I would still love to do,” Weir said at the time. “We've got our best guys on it.”

Answering the same question Mayer, who broke some fingers towards the end of their first residency, is a little more diplomatic. “It hasn't been discussed in a while,” he says. “But I have a boilerplate response to ideas like that. Which is: If Bobby and Mickey [Hart, drums, the band’s other original GD member] want to do it, I want to do it.

“I want to follow them where they want to go. So if that's something that naturally comes up and it starts to materialize, you won't see me being the one to say no.”

Weir, meanwhile, has other ambitions for the band that could well see them take to the stage many more times.

“I wouldn't mind taking it across the seas,” he extends. “This is quintessentially American music that we're doing, and I would love to play it for people everywhere. It would be nice to be able to do that because we put on a pretty tight show.

“And for what it's worth, these are the same songs we've been playing all along, but we've somehow learned to make it a little more accessible. So whereas people from other cultures may have heard us in the past and maybe were not really able to relate, I think we could do better now.”

For Mayer, there aren’t specific goals he’s aiming to smash with any sort of continuation of the band, but in the same breath, he says he’s an open book. He just wants to play.

“Well, right now someone somewhere is coming up with an idea that's so ahead of its time, I couldn't think of it,” he responds. “The mission statement has always been forward-facing. The music is so vast, they're who you'd want to use for whatever your technology is. So I think it made sense to do the Sphere. And whoever dreams up the next something incredible and wants us to be a part of it? I would never say no to that kind of experimentalism.”

The pair’s GW chat also saw them discuss what they’ve learned from one another during a decade of trading licks, which yielded some fascinating answers.

Dead & Company's twin Vegas residencies have been full of highlights, from Mayer playing Jeff Beck’s Custom Strat to his ingenious way of blasting his amps without upsetting the venue’s iron-fisted bosses.

And during a recent break in the band’s Vegas run, Weir made a surprise appearance across town with the Best of All Worlds band, playing a Montrose classic on Sammy Hagar’s Gibson Explorer.

The Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir recently made a surprise guest appearance with the Best of All Worlds band, playing Sammy Hagar's Gibson Explorer alongside Joe Satriani and co. for a rendition of Montrose's Bad Motor Scooter earlier this week (May 7).

The red rocker is in the middle of his Las Vegas residency with his Van Halen-honoring band – whose lineup comprises Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Kenny Aronoff – at the Park MGM. Weir and John Mayer, meanwhile, have been making The Sphere their second home during their second residency at the futuristic venue across the city.

Dead & Company have been enjoying some downtime recently, with their tour schedule set to resume tonight (May 9). However, Hagar wasted no time seizing the opportunity to get his long-time friend up on stage to play the Montrose classic.

“Bob is fearless,” Hagar wrote on Instagram after the event. “He’s always willing to take chances with music of any kind. This was a blast.”

The clip first shows the band running through the track backstage, with Weir playing a Les Paul. But it's Hagar's go-to Explorer that he takes to the stage, and which he uses to deliver an improvised, scrappy-in-a-joyfully-free-flowing-way, solo.

When they aren't supping tequila together, Hagar and Weir are always grabbing the chance to jam. In 2018, Weir joined Chickenfoot to jam Otis Redding with Taj Mahal and REO Speedwagon's Kevin Cronin during the Acoustic-4-a-Cure concert.

The 2023 edition of the event also saw the revival of the Hagar/Weir partnership, with Taj Mahal, Michael Anthony, and singer-songwriter Chris Isaak also present.

At 77, Hagar has said he prefers residencies to the rigors of touring city-to-city, which explains his current residency slot.

Weir’s own Las Vegas residencies haven’t been without note, either. John Mayer has played Jeff Beck’s Custom Strat at select shows, as well as an off-the-shelf Jerry Garcia Strat replica that was “too good to put down.”

In related news, Mayer also revealed the secret hiding place for his amps as he battles with the venue's stage volume limitations. During their first residency, a hand injury forced him to rethink his playing style.

Weir, who dropped his third signature D’Angelico last August, says he and Mayer have learned a lot about one another from a decade of guitar partnership, believing they now enjoy a “telepathic relationship.”

This year marks a decade since John Mayer teamed up with Grateful Dead singer and guitarist Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann to breathe new life into the band’s iconic catalog under the Dead & Company moniker.

At the time, it felt like a curious, if intriguing combination – a guitar prodigy with pop chops pairing with the legendary Dead members. But what has unfolded over the past 10 years is nothing short of remarkable.

The band, rounded out by bassist Oteil Burbridge, keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and, more recently, drummer Jay Lane (who stepped in full time for Kreutzmann in 2023), has transcended its incongruous origins and become a genuine force in its own right, establishing itself as a must-see summer stadium draw – one that’s kept the Grateful Dead’s exploratory, improvisatory and highly musical spirit alive while forging a path forward with an energy all its own.

In 2023, Dead & Company embarked on what was billed as the “Final Tour,” capping a years-long run that saw the group play to an estimated four million-plus fans since those first 2015 shows. But while it seemed like the ’23 outing was it for this other one, Dead & Company soon set out to explore a new frontier: a residency at Sphere, the cutting-edge Las Vegas venue known for its state-of-the-art technology.

Among its many innovations is a massive 160,000-square-foot LED screen that encircles both the audience and the band, along with an unparalleled sound system – the largest concert-grade audio setup in the world – featuring spatial audio, haptic technology and more than 167,000 individual speaker drivers.

At first glance, this ultra-modern setting might seem a mismatch for a legacy band with deep roots in traditional music. But it’s actually a perfect pairing. “We were doing liquid projections on screens and stuff like that, where the visuals could move in time with the music, back in the ‘Acid Test’ days,” Weir points out. Those days, it’s worth noting, were more than a half-century ago.

The Sphere residency, titled “Dead Forever,” spanned 30 shows from May to August in 2024. Mayer was the driving creative force behind the production, and the singer and guitarist skillfully balanced tradition and innovation, staying true to the band’s roots while embracing the futuristic nature of Sphere’s immersive visuals and sonics.

As he puts it to Guitar World, the goal was to find a sweet spot “between Monster Mash and 2001: A Space Odyssey.” It’s a fine line, but one he and the band navigated expertly. Sphere’s technology allowed Dead & Company to create breathtaking, dynamic visuals that amplified their performances, but Mayer and the band ensured the feeling stayed grounded – warm, human and connected to the core of their music.

Dead & Company’s run at Sphere was an incredible success, and it’s possible that of the handful of bands who have appeared there, they may have been the most effective at weaving the venue’s unique features into the fabric of their performance. So it wasn’t surprising that they decided to return.

In March of this year, the band launched a second Dead Forever residency, scheduled to run until May. This time, they’re coming in as Sphere veterans. “So we’ve already learned what we can get away with and what we can’t get away with,” Weir says.

For Mayer, it’s an opportunity to further the blend of “heritage and futurism” they explored last year. Sphere, he says, “really wants to be futuristic, so it’s cool to also pull the storytelling back into something really human.

”This run has even more beautiful, situational places to hang out under the Sphere; there’s a lot more feeling like you’re somewhere organic and warm. It’s an opportunity to make more worlds out of the ones we liked a lot and really fell in love with during the shows last year, where you go, ‘Ahh, here it is…’”

Ultimately, the Sphere shows are a natural extension of what Dead & Company is all about. “With this band, we’re able to open a portal,” Mayer says. “And if it’s not a portal to go back in time, it’s a portal to enter those feelings that you didn’t think you could go back and feel again.” Those feelings, much like the music, clearly still strike a deep chord with fans.

Prior to the kickoff of the current residency, Mayer and Weir sat down with Guitar World to discuss a range of topics, including adjusting to the audio and visual demands of the Sphere experience, their guitar playing and gear, and how their musical partnership has evolved over the past decade together.

They also touched on the possibility of, for the first time, bringing Dead & Company’s music from the stage to the studio. Two years after the Final Tour, it’s clear that the phrase “Dead Forever” continues to ring true.”

You’re back for Round 2 at Sphere. I can imagine that building and pulling off the shows last year was a massive undertaking. Did any lessons or insights from that experience shape how you approached this one?

John Mayer: “I suppose one thing I learned was that in terms of sensory experience, the audience can handle more. The first time through, I was being very careful about not disorienting anybody with what the Sphere does or can do.

“But I think I learned that having your senses pushed a little further, but not to the breaking point, the audience can handle it – and wants a little more of it. In terms of motion [of the visuals], you do have to keep it under a certain threshold. But as far as what kind of motion, I feel like people want a little bit of a thrill ride. So we’ll push that just a little bit more this time.”

The concert experience at Sphere is often looked at from the fan’s perspective, but I’m curious – what’s it like for you onstage, especially in comparison to a regular Dead & Company show?

Bob Weir: “As far as the experience of playing, I expect it is different, but I can’t really quantify or qualify how it’s different. We still have our sight lines. John and I still look at each other, we still take each other’s facial expressions into consideration when we’re playing something, all that stuff.

“For what it’s worth, I can’t see what everybody else is seeing of John, which is, you know, his head 30-feet wide on the screen behind me. [Laughs] That particular camera angle, that’s not how I’m seeing him. But that would be great if I could watch him like that, if I could see what everybody else is seeing…”

Is there anything unique about how you interact with the audience, or with the visuals?

Mayer: “The first show, I remember we played Mississippi Half-Step and the crowd was roaring. The energy really hyped us up – so much so that I think we kind of had a hard time putting the song where we wanted to put the song. But over the next two shows we began to learn that the Sphere is our friend. It’s our colleague.

“We know the crowd’s going to ooh and aah, so we don’t have to – we can continue to keep our energy where we want it. Then the Sphere becomes kind of like this big elephant at the circus that we work with. I think that’s a pretty fair metaphor. It’s this massive thing you have to respect, but it’s a part of our show. You almost want to pat the side of the Sphere and go, ‘Good girl, good girl.’

“So it took us about one weekend to learn how to keep our breathing slow, keep our tempo right, even though we know that what’s happening out there is incredibly dynamic. We had to learn to separate the musical dynamic from the visual dynamic.

“But when we figured that out, then things got sensational, because we could continue to make the music at our own tempo, in our own dynamic, knowing that it was merging with what was happening out there.”

Did you have a favorite moment in the show during the first run?

Mayer: “There are only a couple of times where I will let myself be a part of the experience the fans are having. One particular part that I was just so mesmerized by was when we return back to Earth [toward the end of the show], and we move through this particle field.

“I look up and feel it come over my head, and I take that time every night to be swept away by it. It’s like, for one moment I get high on my own supply. [Laughs] And then I go back to the thing.”

How about you, Bob? Are there times when you find yourself getting caught up in the visuals?

Weir: “Yes… but really, when I walk onstage, I walk into a hallucinogenic realm. I’m gone. I’m as out-there as a fellow gets, and I’m not sure I’m even going to notice the tech. We do have to watch the visuals at the beginning and the end of the show, because we have to time everything.

“But the visuals probably hit anybody else in that place harder than they do the people onstage, because the average guy onstage is in a hallucinogenic realm to begin with. That’s the nature of our business.”

What has been your experience from an audio perspective?

Weir: “Well, the sound is real good in there. But I did have to make my peace with in-ears. We have to use them, because the Sphere is basically the world’s largest hard, parabolic, reflective surface, and it’s all pointed directly back at you.

“And with that comes a report that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of a third of a second that’s every bit as loud as anything that happens onstage. And it’s almost always out of time with the song you’re playing. So there’s various things you can do.

“Overhead microphones, for instance, will hear nothing but slapback. And if you have them in your [onstage] mix, if you’re listening to the drums, for instance, you’re getting at least half slapback. And that’s not what you want to hear, because that slapback is almost always out of time with the song. So we went to electronic cymbals, and we didn’t have to deal with overhead microphones. And we went to in-ears.”

Other guitarists who’ve performed at Sphere, like the Edge and Phish’s Trey Anastasio, have noted that the venue’s unique design makes it challenging, and also somewhat unnecessary, to use traditional amps onstage. The Edge, in particular, mentioned switching from tube amps to Universal Audio amp sim pedals for his setup.

Weir: “Well, you know, at first I had all this stuff with me – an iso chamber with a guitar amp in it, all of that. But very quickly, I was done with it. It was just not necessary.

“Instead, I’ve been using the Universal Audio Ruby, which is basically a [Vox] AC30 in a stompbox. I couldn’t have imagined when I first walked in there that that was going to be pretty much all I’d need. It turns out it was pretty much all I needed. [Laughs]”

Was that a big change from, say, your rig on Dead & Company’s 2023 stadium tour?

Weir: “Actually, on that tour I was using the UA Ruby pretty predominantly, too. In fact, I might have been using it pretty much exclusively. Now, I use a little bit of signal processing, but not much.

“With the amount of high-end that I use on that Ruby, I find that signal processing in general is not a good idea, because I can articulate all the information from the string better if I just let the string speak.

“Other than that, I used compression – I have UA’s 1176 [Studio Compressor pedal], a tiny bit of reverb, and that’s pretty much it.”

John, you actually still had tube amps onstage with you during the first run at Sphere.

Mayer: “I grew up playing tube amps. I grew up feeling the combustion. I really like the UA Enigmatic [’82 Overdrive Special Amp] pedal, and I think if you’re a young guitar player, that’s money well spent. But my style of playing relies on a certain amount of pushback. I need shocks on the tires. And I think that can only come from the ignition inside of a tube.”

During last year’s residency, you shared a video on your socials that gained a lot of attention, showing your guitar sound coming from speaker cabinets inside a shipping crate on the loading dock of the Sphere, which was mic’d up so that the audience heard it as part of the band performance.

Mayer: “This is going to kind of merge into a very hot topic among guitar players – something they like to call ‘pushing air’. The Pushing Air Debate.

“For me, I know for a fact that I need a larger space for soundwaves to come out of a guitar amp and be caught a little bit further away than an iso box allows. There has to be more of a comet tail so that the note can bloom a little bit.

“So we had to devise a system that would give a little more space to the speakers. And what we decided to do was use shipping crates as much larger iso boxes – kind of a ‘mini room’. In fact, Jeremy Nielsen, my guitar tech, decorated the inside of the box as if it were a small-scale studio, because that’s how much of a genius he is.

“That gave us some dimension so that while I was playing, there was just that extra little bit of space for the note to grow. So my amps were onstage, but the speakers were in these boxes on the loading dock of the Sphere.”

It looked like you had a few Dumble amps onstage, as well as a Fender Twin Reverb.

Mayer: “Yeah. I really like the Small Special, and then there was an Overdrive Special and maybe a Dumble-modded Bandmaster, I believe. And the [Fender] Twin. Those are onstage, and the speaker cabinets are in the crates on the loading dock.

“Which… if you deduce from one more level of reasoning, the cabs onstage, let’s just say they’re there to help raise the heads of the amps so that I can reach them with my hand. [Laughs] Otherwise they’d be sitting on the ground.

“But if you walk through the back of the loading dock of the Sphere while the show is happening, you will hear my guitar blaring out of a pile of road cases. That’s what Derek [Featherstone, Dead & Company tour director/FOH engineer] is mic’ing up to use in the room.”

Bob, your main guitar lately has been a Fender Stratocaster. But back in the Grateful Dead days, you weren’t really known as a Strat player. What drew you to the Strat?

Weir: “The one I’m using is a ’64. As for what drew me to playing a Strat, I can’t really say. Every day your tastes change. And it was just one morning, I sort of woke up and I didn’t want to hear the double-coil sound anymore.

“I’d been playing humbucker guitars for a while, and then I woke up and I wanted to play on a single coil. And you know, single coils, they get interfered with and all that kind of stuff, but they are richer [sounding].”

At The Sphere you alternated the Strat with a few other guitars – your signature D’Angelico semi-hollowbody, for one, and several Gibson Les Pauls, including a goldtop and a Black Beauty.

Weir: “My D’Angelico – it’s rich, too. The pickups get good high end, and it’s pretty versatile. There’s a lot you can do with it, a lot of sounds you can pull out. And I’ve actually got three old goldtops and a few more black ones. The goldtops, Joe Bonamassa found one, maybe two of them, for me.

“And then the other one, I was talking to my luthier and he was touting the praises of Gibson’s reissue of the ’50s goldtop. And I just said to myself, ‘Okay, I’ve gotta see what this is all about.’ That was my first one. And I was smitten by the goldtop, especially with the P90s in it. So now I have that one and the two older ones.”

John, you pulled out several unique guitars during the first Sphere residency, including a Fender Custom Shop replica of Jerry Garcia’s famous modded “Alligator” Stratocaster and a white Custom Shop Strat that had previously belonged to Jeff Beck. But you stuck primarily to two trusty PRS models – a McCarty 594 and, mostly, the “Dead Spec” version of your signature Silver Sky.

Mayer: “Yes. Basically 90 percent of the show is handled by the Dead Spec, and then there’s particular cases for the 594. That guitar, I call it the blowtorch.

“When I want to do late-’60s-Fillmore-acid-test Grateful Dead, kind of SG/Les Paul-burning stuff, the 594 is perfect for that. It also has probably the best humbucker neck pickup I’ve ever played on a guitar. So when I want to do that barrelhouse thing, I pick up that guitar.”

The Dead Spec, of course, is a customized take on your signature guitar, drawing inspiration from Jerry’s original Alligator. Your model has several modifications, including an Alembic Blaster preamp that boosts the signal with 3-14 dB of gain, along with brass hardware to enhance brightness and resonance. Jerry’s tone is not an easy thing to approximate, but I imagine having this guitar helps.

Mayer: “There are certain inalienable details in Jerry’s playing that are part of the music. It’s like if you were going to play Miles Davis music you have to have a mute for your trumpet.

“You could say that’s just a gear thing, but it’s part of the vocabulary. So if you’re playing Jerry’s stuff, you’ve got to push the front end of the amp a little bit more than you normally would.

“And then you’ve got to get a little more accent on the high end so that you can really pick those notes. Because there’s so much nuance in what Jerry was doing; he would use dynamics as a way to create motifs, almost like a horn player. So what you have to do is put a certain amount of boost in your signal so that you’re giving the amp slightly more in the front end than the makers intended.

“If you play at, like, a five out of a 10, then the amp is happy. That’s where you get that 'steel drum' thing. And if you hit it a little hard, you’re pushing the amp more than it wants to be pushed. If you can get certain notes to hit the red, that’s the magic, man. That’s where you can really have a blast.”

I assume the Alembic boost helps with that.

Mayer: “Yes, but that little trim pot in there, it’s pretty low. Lower than you might think. You wouldn’t get your money’s worth if that was a boost pedal, because it’s very, very subtle. But it’s just enough to feed the amp a certain amount of level so that it kind of stays on its toes.

“And another thing is that, of course, Jerry’s guitar had so much brass on it. That’s why the Dead Spec has a brass nut, a brass retainer bar over the strings. It’s trying to get that string to pass over as much brass surface as possible to get that ring out. Because we started to learn that that brassiness in the tone comes from… brass. [Laughs]”

In a way, the Dead Spec Silver Sky represents a fusion of your guitar design with Jerry’s. There’s a similar balance you have to achieve in your playing – respecting Jerry’s legacy while still putting your own stamp on it.

My observation is that over the years with Dead & Company you’ve become more comfortable in this space, and now we hear more moments that break from what people might expect – guitar tapping in Slipknot! or St. Stephen, genuine shredding in All Along the Watchtower. Maybe you wouldn’t have done these things in 2015 or 2016.

Mayer: “That’s a really interesting observation. And the answer is very complicated because there are so many variables that were changing from year to year. Let me try to take you on a tour through them. Number one, my understanding of the music in terms of its arrangement, right?

“These song arrangements, early on I would start playing what I thought was the main full solo in a song. And then when I got to the end of that solo, I would realize, that’s the mini solo. [Laughs] Then Bob would go back and sing and I would go, ‘Oh, no, Bob thinks I wanted to take the mini solo and go that long on it. There’s still another solo to go, and that’s the big one.’ So that’s one of the things – understanding the arrangements.”

“Another thing is understanding the totality of the show in terms of the balance of what can be done. On a good night, I can earn myself the right to take one song, leave the [Grateful Dead] philosophy behind and go, you know, pure Jimi Hendrix on Watchtower. Because that’s a cover anyway, right?

“I definitely feel more latitude to do what I want to do on covers, because the main contributor to the style of that song isn’t Jerry Garcia. So I can step up and be me thinking about Jimi, which is, I think, the right thing to do. And it’s probably a good moment of release for the audience as well, because it opens up the vocabulary.

“Then you’ve got my interpretation of Jerry’s playing style, which took me at least four years to figure out how much was enough and how much was too much. When it came to subdividing the notes. When it came to how fast to play. This happens when you’re studying someone’s music and that music has existed for a period of time where there’s different approaches to that music.”

“The way Jerry played in ’69 is totally different than ’74. And ’74 is completely different from ’81. And ’81 is completely different from ’90. And then to add to that, there is the way in which his music, his guitar playing, has been interpreted since his passing. You have to take all of that into a ball, and then you go, ‘I’m gonna do my best.’

“And the constant here is that every tour I’ve ever done from 2015 on was the best I could have done at that moment. It was only after each tour was over that I would get back in the car and listen to more Grateful Dead recordings and realize I hadn’t come close.

“But the only way to realize you hadn’t come close is to have grown somewhere along the line, where you realize you now know better. So to me, every tour up until the Final Tour in ’23 was an opportunity to try to get it right, based on everything I had learned previously.”

Bob, has your guitar playing changed over the past 10 years with Dead & Company? And do you think having John as your guitar partner has led you to approach the music differently?

Weir: “Yes, but I always do that. And that, I think, is more on account of the fact that I just keep changing. I wake up in the morning and I’m kind of different. You take all those mornings that I woke up kind of different and you add ’em together, and after a while, you start amounting to a different guy. That’s kind of where I am now.

“So I’d be reluctant to say that anybody, whether it be Jerry or John or whoever, drew anything out of me that didn’t already want to come out. But one thing I will say about John is that he’s one of those deep blues guys.

“He can listen to a blues tune on a boombox and tell you who it is, who’s in the band, what era it’s from, who wrote the song, all that kind of stuff, just on a quick listen. He can dissect the music, the various styles of playing. That’s somewhere we haven’t been yet that I find very interesting.”

John, what is something that you’ve learned from Bob over the years?

Mayer: “That’s a good question. And don’t think my taking a while to answer it means I have to fight to come up with something. It’s just that there’s so much. But the thing I’ve learned from Bob is to let it breathe. And that’s changed my playing a lot.

“I feel like the two of us now have a very deep relationship, almost like a telepathic relationship. I know where I stand with him in the best of ways. He knows where he stands with me in the best of ways. And we don’t have to talk about it.”

Bob, what have you learned from John?

Weir: “‘Don’t sweat the small stuff.’ I don’t know if there’s more to it than that. I’m constantly evolving, and so is he. And I can’t tell if it’s on account of what I’m getting from him, or if it’s something he’s getting from me, but we sort of make room, make allowances, for those kinds of developments.

“And you know, he is a legendary guitarist. So I might be inclined to be a little bit under-spoken about what I express through my instrument. [pauses] But probably not.

“Because I remember the first night I played with him, when we were on TV. [In 2015, Mayer guest-hosted several episodes of The Late Late Show. During one of them, Weir, who was promoting the Grateful Dead’s upcoming Fare Thee Well concerts, appeared as a guest. Following an interview, the two performed a pair of Grateful Dead songs, Truckin’ and Althea together – a moment often credited with sparking the formation of Dead & Company.]

“I was surprised at how easy and how natural it was, right from the start. He had already mastered the kind of vocabulary I was used to on the instrument, to the point where we readily interacted. I don’t remember any moments where I was thinking to myself, what the hell is he trying to get at here?”

John, did you feel that in the moment?

Mayer: “Maybe with that song [Althea]. But there’s only about 140 other ones! [Laughs] I think anyone who plays Grateful Dead music could tell you, you may have one that you can make it through the gauntlet on. But then there’s another one waiting right around the corner that might take you another two years to get your head around. But I absolutely love the challenge.

“Before every show you will see me pacing my dressing room with Spotify open, with some version of some song I think is helpful for me to listen to before I go up to play the whole show, to just remind myself, ‘This is all it takes.’ Because I can overthink. You can hear me overthinking on the guitar sometimes.

“But every night I get to go onstage is a shot at pitching a perfect game. And I can tell you, when I try to pitch a perfect game, I lose my shutout in about the beginning of the second song. And I just love that moment where I go, ‘Whoops, not a perfect game. Have fun!’”

Up until now, Dead & Company has been strictly a live entity. But back in the early days of the band, 2016 or so, I recall interviews where Bob would talk about maybe going into the studio, either to record new material or to revisit songs that had only ever been played onstage by the Grateful Dead. Is this still a possibility?

Weir: “Oh, it’s something I would still love to do. We’ve got our best guys on it…”

Mayer: “It hasn’t been discussed in a while, but I have a boilerplate response to ideas like that. Which is, ‘If Bobby and Mickey want to do it, I want to do it.’ You know what I mean? I want to follow them where they want to go. So if that’s something that naturally comes up and it starts to materialize, you won’t see me being the one to say no.”

Clearly, you’re still up for anything. You did the Final Tour in 2023, and just a year later, reimagined the Dead & Company experience for the Sphere residency. Is there anything you’d still like to explore with this band?

Weir: “I wouldn’t mind taking it across the seas. This is a quintessentially American music that we’re doing, and I would love to play it for people everywhere. It would be nice to be able to do that. Because we put on a pretty tight show.

“And for what it’s worth, these are the same songs we’ve been playing all along, but we’ve somehow learned to make it a little more accessible. So whereas people from other cultures may have heard us in the past and maybe were not really able to relate, I think we could do better now.”

What about you, John? As the guy who took the lead in helping to manifest the Sphere experience, what’s the next frontier for Dead & Company?

Mayer: “Well, right now someone somewhere is coming up with an idea that’s so ahead of its time, I couldn’t think of it. But I like that they think of, and for the last 60 years have thought of, Grateful Dead – even though we’re not Grateful Dead, but Bob and Mickey represent that – as one of the first bands you would think to ask to be a part of these ideas.

“Because the mission statement has always been forward-facing. The music is so vast, they’re who you’d want to use for whatever your technology is. So I think it made sense to do the Sphere. And whoever dreams up the next something incredible and wants us to be a part of it? I would never say no to that kind of experimentalism.”

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Anytime you see John Mayer on stage, you're going to see a wall of guitar amps. John has insisted that his tone requires "pushing air" and that only real amps can cut it for his work with Dead & Company. Still, there's one modeler he names as worth your attention.

"I really like the UA Enigmatic pedal," Mayer reveals in a new interview with Guitar World. "I think if you’re a young guitar player, that’s money well spent."

The UA Enigmatic '82 Overdrive Special, to give it its full name, is undoubtedly a serious piece of kit. "That signature silky smooth distortion and surprisingly great clean channel make it a brilliant choice for a variety of guitarists," writes Guitar World reviewer Matt McCracken.

The pedal models the sound of the Dumble Overdrive Special, one of the world's rarest and most valuable boutique amps.

At $399, however, the Enigmatic may be out of reach of many young players. While we wouldn't question John's judgement on matters of tone, we think young players might be better with one of the more affordable modeling amps with built in speakers and a wider range of tones.

Still, if Mayer says the pedal sounds good, he should know. With Dead & Company he is using multiple Dumbles onstage: "I really like the Small Special," he explains, "and then there was an Overdrive Special and maybe a Dumble-modded Bandmaster, I believe."

Back in 2023, the Edge confirmed he had switched out his tube amps for Universal Audio’s UAFX pedals at U2’s Sphere residency.

It's been 10 years since John Mayer teamed up with Grateful Dead's Bob Weir and drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann – a curious pairing that many would perhaps have thought unlikely.

However, what transpired was a decade during which the Dead's repertoire was introduced to a whole new generation of fans – while also serving as an opportunity for the band to keep up with its experimental and exploratory ethos through their younger collaborator.

With the journey culminating in last year's spectacular residency at The Sphere, Las Vegas' cutting-edge venue, we wondered – what did the two guitarists who spearheaded this ambitious project learn from each other?

“It’s just that there's so much,” Mayer says in a new interview with Guitar World. “But the thing I've learned from Bob is to let it breathe. And that's changed my playing a lot.

“I feel like the two of us now have a very deep relationship, almost like a telepathic relationship. I know where I stand with him in the best of ways. He knows where he stands with me in the best of ways. And we don't have to talk about it.”

As for Weir? “‘Don't sweat the small stuff,’” he says matter-of-factly. “I don't know if there's more to it than that. I'm constantly evolving, and so is he. And I can't tell if it's on account of what I'm getting from him, or if it's something he's getting from me, but we sort of make room, make allowances, for those kinds of developments.”

And whether we can expect an actual studio album from Dead & Company, the two tease that it's definitely not off the table.

“It's something I would still love to do. We've got our best guys on it…” hints Weir.

“It hasn't been discussed in a while,” Mayer clarifies. “But I have a boilerplate response to ideas like that. Which is, ‘If Bobby and Mickey want to do it, I want to do it.’ I want to follow them where they want to go. So if that's something that naturally comes up and it starts to materialize, you won't see me being the one to say no.”

In other Dead & Company news, Mayer has recently opened up about his much-discussed amp setup at The Sphere – and how he still managed to crank his Dumble and Fender combos in the notoriously amp-hostile venue.

John Mayer has opened up on the much-discussed amp setup that he took to the Sphere during Dead & Company’s groundbreaking residency at the state-of-art venue in Las Vegas last year.

Owing to the unique obstacles that come with playing inside a wholly enclosed space that has been designed in the way the Sphere has, the venue has proven to be something of a problem area for guitar players and their rigs.

Trey Anastasio once explained to Guitar World that “no-one will ever have an amp on stage at the Sphere”, while The Edge famously overhauled his entire rig and ditched tube amps in favor of Universal Audio amp modelers.

Abandoning his own stable of amps, though, was never on the cards for Mayer, who instead developed a unique solution for running his prized Dumbles and Fenders as close to normal as possible: he stashed them backstage in shipping crates deep in the bowels of the venue.

In a new interview with Guitar World, Mayer explains why he went to such extremes in order to keep his physical amps, and why he opted against following The Edge’s precedent to switch to a modeler.

“I grew up playing tube amps. I grew up feeling the combustion,” he reflects. “I really like the UA Enigmatic [’82 Overdrive Special Amp] pedal, and I think if you’re a young guitar player, that’s money well spent.

“But my style of playing relies on a certain amount of pushback. I need shocks on the tires. And I think that can only come from the ignition inside of a tube.”

Mayer isn’t completely against using amp modelers, and has used them on multiple occasions both on stage in the studio – he recorded some of Sob Rock with a Fractal Axe-Fx, for example – but he has equally been critical of their shortcomings in the past. Using one for Dead & Company’s previous residency (and their upcoming 2025 shows at the Sphere), then, was never an option.

As for why he decided to stash the amps in the way that he had, Mayer goes on to explain it has something to do with a phenomenon that all guitar players are familiar with: “pushing air”.

“This is going to kind of merge into a very hot topic among guitar players – something they like to call ‘pushing air,’” he continues. “The Pushing Air Debate. For me, I know for a fact that I need a larger space for soundwaves to come out of a guitar amp and be caught a little bit further away than an iso box allows. There has to be more of a comet tail so that the note can bloom a little bit.

“So we had to devise a system that would give a little more space to the speakers. And what we decided to do was use shipping crates as much larger iso boxes – kind of a ‘mini room.’’

Mayer recently shared a picture of that ‘mini room’ on his Instagram channel, which showed how his guitar tech Jeremy Nielsen had decorated the innards of the DIY iso box to make it look like the inside of a studio – couch and all.

“That gave us some dimension so that while I was playing, there was just that extra little bit of space for the note to grow,” Mayer notes. “So my amps were onstage, but the speakers were in these boxes on the loading dock of the Sphere.”

So, Mayer has his amps onstage and the speakers locked away in a cosy room somewhere in the back of the Sphere, but what about the cabs that are onstage? The answer to that, it seems, is pretty straightforward.

“The cabs onstage, let’s just say they’re there to help raise the heads of the amps so that I can reach them with my hand,” he reveals. “Otherwise they’d be sitting on the ground.”

D’Angelico has rekindled its relationship with Grateful Dead legend Bobby Weir for a new signature guitar that has been dubbed the pair’s finest collaborative creation yet.

Officially named the Deluxe Bobby Weir 3, the supremely classy electric guitar is the direct result of years of development and rigorous road-testing, having already seen action onstage during Dead & Company’s ongoing Sphere residency.

The semi-hollow stunner has also been tested in various iterations throughout the years, with Weir putting D’Angelico’s creations through their paces on various tours with Wolf Brothers.

Now, the fruits of their labor has been released, with the Deluxe Weir 3 serving as D’Angelico’s “best work yet”.

Available in Satin Trans Wine and Matte Stone, the single-cut sports a laminated maple body with five-ply binding, and a C-shape maple/walnut/maple neck that’s topped with a 16”-radius ebony fingerboard.

There are a pair of TV Jones DA-Tron pickups which, thanks to four push-pull pots, can produce a huge array of sounds. Among them is “Weir’s notoriously slinky tones”.

These four pots – two volume and two tone knobs – are joined by a three-way selector switch and a master volume control located on the upper bout.

“I’ve been on an endless quest to find a tone that makes me really sit up and beg,” Weir says of his newest D’Angelico. “I don’t remember where it was, but I was on stage at a soundcheck. I plugged it in, cranked it up, and said ‘This is it –this is what I’m looking for.’ I knew it.”

Weir’s new signature guitar also looks as good as it apparently sounds. The thing is dripping in gold hardware, flashing a D’Angelico Shield tremolo, locking Grover Super Rotomatic tuners and a Skyscraper truss rod cover.

There’s also a Graph Tech Tusq nut, Mother of Pearl Split Block inlays, 22 Jescar frets and a five-ply Tortoise Scalini five-ply pickguard.

“Bobby is forever driven to go deeper and deeper into the mystery that is great guitar tone,” says Ryan Kershaw, EVP of Product Development. “Over the years, we’ve been incredibly fortunate to join him on his never-ending journey.

“I’m thrilled with the results that we got this time around. There’s no doubt that this is our best work yet – I hope it’s an inspiration to many players.”

A limited run of 10 hand-signed models will be launched to celebrate the release. Furthermore, two examples will be auctioned for Headcount – a nonpartisan organization that promotes democratic participation through music.

The D’Angelico Deluxe Bobby Weir 3 is available now for $2,199.

Head over to D’Angelico for more info.

Last week, John Mayer revealed he’d been forced to alter his guitar playing going into Dead & Company's final remaining shows in Las Vegas after injuring one of his fingers.

Footage from Mayer’s first three shows post-injury has now emerged online, highlighting the extent to which he’s had to shift his usual approach to fretting as a result of the incapacitated index finger of his left hand.

At the time of the injury, Mayer dubbed that particular digit as “the team captain of my fretting hand”, and he’d be without it heading into the supergroup’s final few shows, which kicked off last Thursday (August 1).

However, despite the setback, Mayer announced he’d been valiantly attempting to figure out a workaround that would involve him instead relying on the other three fingers to carry him through the shows.

And carry them they did. In footage from Dead & Company's triple-header of shows last week, Mayer’s middle and ring fingers can be seen working overtime to cover the extra ground, with his pinky also seeing more action than usual.

If you closed your eyes and listened to his solo effort in Bertha, or his rhythmic chordal contributions in Brokedown Palace, you’d be forgiven for completely forgetting that Mayer had an injury altogether.

Likewise, his snappy chops on They Love Each Other betrayed no sign of any potential discomfort despite the serious injury.

Whatever he did in the week leading up to the show last Thursday seems to have worked wonders for Mayer’s playing, and his three working fingers were clearly well-oiled and well-drilled for what were three intense evenings of guitar playing.

Fortunately, those three digits had help: according to Live for Live Music – who attended the show on August 2 – Mayer delivered a “killer solo” on St. Stephen, which included a “heaping helping of clever tapping”.

What was rather interesting, as well as Mayer’s adapted playing style, was his guitar of choice. At least for the Friday and Saturday shows (August 2 and 3), the guitarist looked to have favored Brent Mason’s signature Fender Telecaster, which was drafted in over his PRS Silver Sky signature guitar.

Sure, the Silver Sky did feature – Mayer took it for a spin on Mississippi Half Step and numerous other tracks – but the Tele featured heavily across the band’s sets, and seemingly took preference.

Whether that’s because it’s a more comfortable instrument to navigate with just three fingers is unclear, but the Custom Shop version of Mason’s model – which looks to be the chosen guitar here, given its aged finish – also has a Joe Glaser B–Bender fitted.

That no doubt gives Mayer (who isn’t a natural B-Bender player by any means) even more options when it comes to squeezing out extra flavor while the team captain of his left hand recovers.

And, judging by the guitar’s strap position in Bertha, Mayer clearly did have the B-Bender on his mind while playing at certain points.

Though the Mason Telecaster has been used by Mayer before – most notably during the Rise for the River concerts back in 2022 – it wouldn’t be considered a Dead & Company staple, so it’s interesting to see Mayer bring it out for the group’s last-ever live shows.

Dead & Company will conclude their epic live career with three more shows later this week. It remains to be seen whether Mayer will have his out-of-action finger in working order by then, but even if he doesn’t, it doesn’t seem to be an issue.

If the shows last week were anything to go by, Mayer will have no problem delivering the guitar goods to help close out the residency.

John Mayer has revealed that he has injured one of his fingers, forcing him to shift his guitar-playing approach. This announcement came amid his shows with Dead & Company for their Las Vegas residency.

“Last Thursday, I injured my left index finger (truck door), and the first thing that went through my mind was ‘I really need that finger in a week,’” he confessed on social media.

“I need all my fingers, but the left index is the team captain of my fretting hand. It will heal just fine but will be out of commission for a while. In the meantime, I have spent every day practicing guitar using the other three fingers and I think I have it sounding pretty good!

“I’ve always felt like every part of me belongs to these shows, and it’s my responsibility to return to the stage each night without screwing up the equipment, and I’m sorry for the misadventure here. The power of the music and the love for these shows will prevail! See ya tonight.”

Mayer has been involved with Grateful Dead tribute Dead & Company since 2015. The band's current lineup includes Grateful Dead members Bob Weir (on vocals and guitar) and Mickey Hart (drums), alongside Otel Burbridge (bass, vocals and percussion), Jay Lane (drums) and Jeff Chimenti (keyboards).

The Dead Forever Live at Sphere Las Vegas is a months-long residency and immersive experience that celebrates the legacy of the Grateful Dead's music, enhanced by the Sphere's next-level technical capabilities.

Speaking about the Vegas shows to GQ, Mayer said, “To me, I wanted a message of metaphysical hope and optimism. And the show is called Dead Forever, and the end of the show [depicts] the beginning of the Grateful Dead. And there's a very interdimensional optimism that somewhere, somehow, this is all just getting started, and we got to visit for just one second at the very end.”

In other John Mayer news, the PRS guitar star recently divulged that all the amps he's using for the residency are being housed off-stage.

John Mayer is continuing his gear love-in as part of Dead & Company’s Las Vegas residency at The Sphere.

Having played Jeff Beck’s Strat during a show last month – a fact Joe Bonamassa confirmed – he has now paid homage to Jerry Garcia by sporting a replica of his famous Alligator guitar.

As YouTuber Justin Jeske astutely points out, the guitar was, this time, not the real deal, but a rather convincing Fender Custom Shop reproduction.

Posting an Instagram story before Dead & Company’s July 11 show, Mayer said: “Gonna play this for a couple of tunes tonight... it's a replica. I was practicing with it in the dressing room and it was feeling too good to put down. Don't wanna pull a sneak on ya.”

Jeske also adds that Mayer's PRS Dead Spec Silver Sky mirrors a number of the Alligator's key specs. That includes three vintage-voiced single-coil pickups and a brass-plate Alembic Blaster preamp inspired by Garcia's in-built clean boost. Clearly, Mayer has been chasing a little of the Grateful Dead guitarist's tonal magic.

The eagle-eyed YouTuber also speculates that the guitar has been his green room practice guitar for a little while now, as it was spotted in the background of a photo Train's Scott Underwood posted online, presumably taken in Mayer's green room.

The guitar was seen sitting alongside a rack-mounted Kemper modeling amp and a cab – possibly a Vox – as a practice set up for the guitarist before curtain call. But the replica has proven so good, it's made its way onto The Sphere's futuristic stage.

Replica or not, however, the guitar isn't exactly falling under the budget banner anytime soon. The Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt Jerry Garcia Alligator Stratocaster – to use its Sunday name – is currently listed online for prices ranging from $20,000 to $25,000.

Mayer used it for I Need a Miracle, the opening song of the night, and tonally, it sounded as supple as they come, practically purring through the song's lead lines.

Though, Mayer later returned to Instagram for some post-match analysis, noting, “I forgot that the output on this guitar is *hot* and my rig wasn't dialed in for the unbridled fury of Jerry's guitar tone.”

Mayer's live rig is perpetually under scrutiny from gear lovers – and gear snobs – and he's been the subject of recent speculation surrounding his amp choice for the residency shows.

Some feared he'd switched to digital amps. But it turns out Mayer has a secret hiding place for his amps as he works around the venue's stringent volume rules.

John Mayer has spilled the secrets behind the peculiar onstage setup he’s currently using for Dead & Company’s The Sphere residency, quashing mounting speculation he’s ditched amps altogether.

The revelation also shone the light on Mayer’s unorthodox amp placement, which would have been nigh-on impossible to guess. Unless you had, erm, a pass to The Sphere’s loading dock.

Mayer’s current circulation of guitar gear is largely recognized for two things: his PRS Silver Sky signature guitar and a crop of highly desirable vintage tube amps.

Sure, he’s dabbled with a Fractal in the past, but his live arsenal has largely comprised any number of Fender and Dumble guitar amps alongside a fully stocked pedalboard.

However, during Dead & Company’s tour last year, his onstage amp was curiously hidden behind a velvet curtain – and for the group’s ongoing The Sphere residency, said amps were removed from the stage altogether.

Mayer gear fans wondered whether this was evidence the guitarist had ditched amps, and had instead followed the precedent set by The Edge, who made the high-profile switch from genuine valve amps for Universal Audio amp simulators for U2’s own The Sphere shows.

In an Instagram post, Mayer confirmed he was in fact using amps, but they had been mic’d up somewhere behind the stage. Of course, off-stage amps aren’t a new practice, but Mayer has gone one step further.

It turns out the amps are secured in wooden shipping crates, hidden among a wilderness of roadcases and cardboard PRS boxes deep in the venue’s loading area.

“File under ‘whatever it takes,’” Mayer reveals. “This shipping crate stashed behind some road cases in the loading dock of The Sphere houses a couple of my guitar amps that are mic’d up and being heard with the rest of Dead & Company.

“If you happen to be walking through, you’ve got no choice but to hear it!”

We’re not 100% sure what “whatever it takes” means here – those amps are really tucked away back there – but some commenters have theorized it could have something to do with the venue itself.

As some have pointed out, The Sphere reportedly doesn’t allow for a particularly loud stage volume, and since Mayer needs to really drive his amps to get his desired tones, bundling them away where they won’t cause any bother seems to be the only solution.

Whatever the case, Mayer’s post helpfully demonstrates the amps in action in their comfy new home, as he improvised through Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.

Visit Dead & Company's website for a list of upcoming The Sphere residency dates.

It's not the only gear quirk Mayer has been noted for during the groups' current string of shows. Recently, he was spotted playing a Fender Stratocaster that Joe Bonamassa confirmed had once belonged to Jeff Beck.

Ever since he departed Fender and joined the PRS family, John Mayer has, for the most part, been unwaveringly loyal to his Silver Sky signature guitar.

Having said that, recent months have seen Mayer flick through his wider electric guitar collection. This has resulted in him bringing some old favorites back to stage – including a couple of his prized Fenders, such as the Black1 and Monterey models.

Now, Mayer has been spotted playing yet another Fender Stratocaster on stage… but this time, there’s a bit of a twist.

Back in May this year, Mayer was pictured playing a Custom Shop Strat that once belonged to the late Jeff Beck – a fact that has been confirmed by Joe Bonamassa.

As reported by YouTuber Justin Jeske and Instagram account JohnMayerGear, Mayer used the eye-catching Strat during Dead & Company’s residency at The Sphere, with many spectators sharing snaps of the mystery model.

JohnMayerGear hypothesized the guitar resembled a Jeff Beck Strat with a reverse headstock, complete with a split roller nut, block saddles and a two-point bridge.

The account then went on to note the guitar in question was similar to the reverse headstock-equipped Strat the Fender Custom Shop had built Beck around 2014, and theorized this was another custom model commissioned specifically for Mayer.

However, Bonamassa – whose eye for guitar identification is world-renowned – then confirmed it wasn’t a copy, but the exact model. As it turns out, Mayer has been lent the guitar for a few of the Dead & Company shows, and it looks like he's been putting it to good use.

According to the post, he played Black Peter and Days Between using Beck’s Strat. And, through the clips shared by Jeske, it’s clear Mayer looked to double-down on the Beck vibe by fingerpicking his way through some solo licks, all while enthusiastically waggling the whammy bar.

Mayer’s respect for Beck’s playing is well-documented, so it’s no surprise he’d seize the opportunity to pay homage to one of his biggest heroes.

As Jeske notes, Mayer previously used a Jeff Beck Master Built Strat to perform his track Heartbreak Warfare. This time, though, he’s got his hands on “a guitar of one of his heroes”, which is the real deal.

Earlier this year, Mayer discussed his adoration for Beck, telling Conan O’Brien how Beck’s presence allowed him to finally relax about his guitar playing, saying, “Jeff Beck was in the room – and I was relaxed!

“It was like, ‘Oh, [for once] I don’t have to think about how I play the guitar, because the best is in the room. And it’s not me!’”

When he's not using Beck's Strat during Dead & Company's Sphere residency, Mayer has been playing his Dead Spec Silver Sky, which is inspired by Jerry Garcia's Alligator guitar.

John Mayer quoted the Grateful Dead’s track Throwing Stones as he announced that Dead & Company will return to the stage for a six-week residency at the MSG Sphere in Las Vegas. 

A total of 18 shows between May 16 and June 22 will see John Mayer and former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart return to the stage. The news, which will be a delightful shock to many, comes despite the band having previously stated that 2023's extensive run of dates would be their last.

“Picture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning free. Dizzy with eternity,” Mayer's post begins, announcing the residency at the ultra-futuristic, 18,600-capacity arena. The band follows in the steps of U2, who called the venue home for a 40-show residency celebrating Achtung Baby last year.

Reacting to the post, once commenter claimed: “This is the Super Bowl of trips for the lifelong Dead Heads.” 

The Grateful Dead offshoot had made its 'final' show a major spectacle last year, with a 22-song set including classics Truckin' and Brokedown Palace, as well as a passionate performance of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away. Under the immersive 360-degree experience of the MSG Sphere, which is the largest spherical structure on the planet, the band will surely leave that extravaganza paling in comparison.

John Mayer formed Dead & Company back in 2015, with the band’s touring line-up completed by Oteil Burbridge, Jay Lane, and Jeff Chimenti. Mayer had become obsessed with the Grateful Dead back in 2011 after discovering the song Althea on Pandora. His 2012 album, Born and Raised carried that obsession, with a "subtle but abundant" array of 'Dead influences.

After just shy of a decade of success, the band had supposedly played its swan song at that San Francisco date last summer, which capped off a tour that entertained 840,000 Grateful Dead and Mayer fans.

As such, it's shaping up to be another busy year for Mayer, who had an especially action-packed 2023. Last year saw the guitarist embark on an acoustic tour, which saw him test-drive new material, and reprise his blues power trio for the first time in six years. 

The MSG Sphere, meanwhile, is doing its best to become the eighth wonder of the modern world. Officially opened in September 2023 after a four-year construction, beneath its dome fans are treated to an immersive 16k experience delivered by its wraparound LED screens, space-age audio tech and 4D physical effects.

Screenings of Director Darren Aronofsky's docu-film, Postcard from Earth, followed U2's grand opening residency, for which the Edge revealed he'd ditched tube amps. Instead, he opted for Universal Audio amp emulator pedals, with the chosen trio replicating the characteristics of a ‘55 Fender 5E3 Deluxe Tweed, Vox AC30 and AC30 Top Boost, and ‘65 Fender Deluxe Reverb.

Advance presale registration for the Dead & Company residency is now available. Tickets go on general sale February 9 at 10am PT.  

For more information, head to DeadandCompany.com.

PRS has unveiled the next evolution of John Mayer’s hugely popular Silver Sky signature guitar – the limited-edition ‘Dead Spec’ Silver Sky.

Said to be sonically inspired by the iconic Alligator Stratocaster once owned by late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, the Dead Spec variant was purpose built for Mayer’s most recent Dead & Company tour, and is the first-ever model to deviate from the flagship template that was first introduced in 2018.

For those who kept an eye on this year’s Dead & Company farewell tour, the Dead Spec Silver Sky will no doubt be a familiar sight: since it was quite literally designed for the live shows, it’s seen plenty of stage action.

After the model was given one of its very first outings back in April, Mayer then made headlines when he once again wielded the “Advance Research Division” prototype model for a knockout guitar-swapping solo.

Naturally, its early appearances prompted an outpouring of speculation, with many Mayer fans theorizing that the blues-rock ace was in fact road-testing a new version of his Strat-a-like signature model.

While this, strictly speaking, might not have been the plan from the outset, it soon became clear to both Mayer and PRS that the Dead Spec Silver Sky was simply too versatile to keep away from fans – especially those keen on Mayer’s Dead & Company material.

As Mayer explains, “After playing the Silver Sky designed for the 2023 Dead & Company summer tour, I realized the guitar was special. It quickly became apparent this wasn’t just a tool for one particular job but could be extremely versatile in other players’ hands.”

At first glance, it looks to be a newly finished Silver Sky model, but upon closer inspection the suite of Dead & Company-specific updates can be found. At its core, a lightweight swamp ash body has been drafted in to replace the original's alder appointment, which in turn has been finished with an ultra-thin version of the Moc Sand colorway.

The Dead Spec design is also hardtail, meaning that although a modified version of the original’s bridge system is retained, it doesn’t function as a tremolo as the body itself has no room for a spring cavity, rendering the Gen III as a string-through bridge.

Having said that, the brass block of the bridge – which runs through the depth of the body – is still there, though is kept in place by a smaller cavity. This, according to PRS, “adds a musical warmth”, and works alongside a brass nut and string retainer bar that adds to the resonance and tone.

This deceptive spec lines up alongside arguably the Dead Spec’s most notable new appointment: a brass-plate Alembic Blaster preamp.

When early images of the six-string first surfaced, many spectators believed this was in fact the case, and now it is confirmed. Unlike the standard Silver Sky guitars, the Dead Spec version has an Alembic Blaster that adds the option of having a straight boost (thanks to the additional switch). There’s also an internal pot for adding 3-14dB of extra gain.

This directly pays homage to the same spec that was equipped to the original Alligator, and in practice is said to offer added punch and definitive note separation, as well as compensating for signal dips over long stage cables.

“We made this non-tremolo guitar with a lot of brass, which gave the guitar [a] beautiful warm midrange, and the Alembic Blaster switch that cleared everything up and gave the guitar some courage,” said Smith, who also revealed the first prototype took around five days to build.

“The first time I played it, I was smiling – I really like it,” he went on. “The other thing I love about this guitar is that the finish sinks into the wood. It’s part of the guitar, so the guitar feels alive in your hands. That’s really cool.”

With all that said and done, we have but one question: since the Dead Spec was specifically built for Dead & Company’s tour, and since that group has played their final tour, what does the future hold for Mayer’s own personal model?

Will he start using it during his own headline shows, or will it be removed from his guitar rotation entirely? Well, Mayer has left the door open for future shows with Bob Weir and co, so we imagine it will still come in handy at some point down the line.

Only 1,000 units of the Dead Spec Silver Sky will be made, and are available to preorder now for $3,350 each. Head over to PRS Guitars to find out more information.

John Mayer is enjoying a strong streak of signature guitar releases. A few months ago, he and Martin celebrated 20 years of signature models with two Gray Sunburst acoustic guitars.

Last Sunday (July 16), Dead & Company – the Grateful Dead offshoot led by electric guitar heroes John Mayer and Bob Weir – played their final show at Oracle Park in the Dead's hometown of San Francisco.

It was quite the spectacle, with a massive crowd – reportedly over 40,000 people – taking in the epic, 22-song set. 

Thankfully, a few folks in the enormous crowd had the foresight to capture parts of the historic set, particularly the band's three-song encore – made up of the Dead classics Truckin' and Brokedown Palace, and a spirited cover of Buddy Holly's early rock and roll classic, Not Fade Away.

You can see fan-filmed footage of the first two songs below, and the entire encore further down.

As he has for years with Dead & Co., Mayer demonstrates his versatility on Truckin', lending slinky lead lines that – in the vein of late Dead frontman and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia – incorporate blues, country, jazz, and folk stylings. 

Mayer then helps close out the band's stately, emotional version of Brokedown Palace with an absolute stunner of a slow-burning solo.

Finally, the band rolls into a loose, appropriately jam-y take on Not Fade Away – the song with which they opened their tour-closing three-night stand at Oracle Park – with ample assistance from the devoted crowd.

It's not the first time on the tour that Dead & Company closed out proceedings with Not Fade Away, though. Earlier this month, the band ended their third and final show at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado with a version of Not Fade Away that featured some acoustic assistance from none other than Dave Matthews.

Though Dead & Company's arc has seemingly run its course, Mayer will almost certainly find ways to keep himself busy. This year alone, he's already embarked on an acoustic tour, and reunited onstage with his blues power trio for the first time in six years. 

On Monday (July 3), John Mayer and the rest of the Dead & Company crew were joined by Dave Matthews for a four-song set closer that saw the group temporarily transform into a classic rock covers band.

The show – Dead & Co’s third and final evening at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado – was business as usual for most of the set, but the script was well and truly flipped when Matthews emerged to help with covers of All Along the Watchtower, Not Fade Away, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door and The Weight.

Footage of Matthews' acoustic guitar cameo from the night has made its way online, with one attendee capturing the band’s energetic rendition of All Along the Watchtower – the first song to kick off the classic rock covers set.

The presence of Matthews’ acoustic meant the performance was rooted in the spirit of Bob Dylan’s original cut, though Mayer brought a suitable amount of Jimi Hendrix flair via the fretboard of his prototype PRS Silver Sky.

Blistering pentatonic runs and a tweaked take on Jimi’s high-octane solo were the order of business for Mayer, whose tightly compressed tone helped carry the song to its grand finale.

A similarly show-stopping cover of Buddy Holly's Not Fade Away brought the first set to a close, though Mayer, Matthews, Bob Weir, and the rest of the band soon returned for another Dylan track: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

With a soulful injection of six-string action and plenty of hair-raising harmonies, the lineup left any whiff of Guns N’ Roses out the picture, preferring instead to lean into a sultry slow dance vibe.

Again, Mayer’s Mayerisms were out in full force – a flurry of pentatonic flourishes here, a delicate ricochet of box-breaking runs there – with some fiddles on the volume control lending itself to some especially dynamic lead work.

The Band’s The Weight was last up on the agenda, throwing up a host of tasty fretboard interactions between Weir and Mayer – the latter of whom could be seen donning the over-the-ear headphones he said helped him become a more dynamic player.

Taking to Instagram after the show, Mayer wrote, “It doesn’t get better than three nights at Folsom Field in Boulder with @deadandcompany. Oh wait no yes it does… it gets way better when Dave Matthews shows up and for four songs makes everyone believe they’re dreaming. The afterglow is still shining bright.”

His sentiments were echoed by Dead & Company, who wrote on their own page, “Our time in Boulder was beyond special! We won’t forget it. Big thank you to Dave Matthews for joining in on Watchtower, NFA, Knockin’, and The Weight to help close out night three!”

Mayer has had his work cut out over the past few days. Despite currently being in the midst of Dead & Company’s last-ever tour, he found time to open for Ed Sheeran and join the singer-songwriter for a performance of his chart-smashing single, Thinking Out Loud.

Head over to Dead & Company's website to browse the band's remaining tour dates.

While he’s best known for his blues chops, John Mayer can lend his enviable abilities to most genres, and at Dead & Company’s recent show at Wrigley Field, Chicago, he evidenced this by flexing not only his diverse chops, but also his varied arsenal of electric guitars.

The twist? He managed to do it all during one guitar solo, which featured during an epic cover of Bob Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower.

Taking place during the band’s show last Saturday (June 10), the solo – which was spotted by YouTuber Justin Jeske – saw the Sob Rock star pull out a truly seamless six-string switcheroo, delivering two very different vibes during the length of just one lead effort.

Though his playing has now become synonymous with his PRS Silver Sky signature guitar, it was Mayer’s custom Charvel San Dimas model – reportedly inspired by a skateboard deck the guitarist owned as a youngster – that took the lead.

The Floyd Rose-equipped, EVH Wolfgang humbucker-loaded model showcased a more explosive side to Mayer’s playing, accommodating not only his familiar pentatonic flair but also a suite of Beck-esque fingerstyle bends, off-kilter whammy bar warbles and two-hand tapping runs.

Of course, Mayer is well-versed in the ways of the two-hand taps, having unleashed his inner Eddie Van Halen in the summer of ‘08 for a string of Panama covers, executed via the fretboard of a Frankenstein guitar.

A modest divebomb brings an end to the role of the Charvel, which is whisked away for Mayer’s Advanced Research Division PRS Silver Sky prototype – the same model that was spotted on stage earlier in the Dead & Company tour.

Clearly a stunt planned well in advance, the seamless six-string switch goes off without a hitch, and before you know it Mayer is back in more familiar territory, squeezing out every ounce of tone from the single coils of his unique hardtail, Alembic Blaster-equipped Silver Sky.

The solo can be seen in the video above at the 4:50 mark.

The guitar switch wasn’t just for show: the effort was effectively a two-in-one solo, combining the chops that Mayer usually reserves solely for the stage with the sort of blues noodling that’s littered throughout his post-Continuum discography.

Another notable aspect of Mayer’s solo – and, indeed, the rest of the show – was the presence of the over-the-ear monitor headphones he was flaunting.

“I’m actually more connected to the band, the music and the moment this way,” Mayer said of his decision to adopt them back in 2021. “I’ve got a pair of stereo mics that pick up everything around me. And I’m getting the front-of-house feed. I’m IN the live recording!”

Mayer and Dead & Company are currently in the midst of their last-ever tour, which will conclude July 16. For a full list of tour dates, head over to Dead & Company’s website.

Since it arrived back in 2018, John Mayer’s PRS Silver Sky signature guitar has been the recipient of very few functional tweaks. 

Indeed, a suite of fresh colorways have been introduced over the years – and a maple fretboard version was thrown into the mix – but apart from that, the Silver Sky has remained largely faithful to its flagship spec sheet.

Until now, that is – John Mayer has been spotted playing a unique, newly spec’d model that turns some of the Silver Sky’s most fundamental appointments completely on their head.

Taking to the stage with the “Advanced Research Division” creation during Dead & Company’s recent farewell tour show, Mayer showcased what could be the Silver Sky 2.0, which features a hardtail design, revamped output jack section, fresh see-through finish, brass nut, and retainer bar on the headstock.

The prototype Silver Sky can be seen in action around the 19:30 mark in the video below.

The see-through finish alone would be enough to get guitar fans talking, not least because of Mayer’s well-documented affinity for modern block colorways and desire to steer the Silver Sky away from vintage themes.

But the translucent Moc Sand colorway is just part of a much bigger picture, with the guitar’s most eyebrow-raising appointment arriving in the form of a switch-loaded output jack.

As speculated by Instagram account John Mayer Gear, the switch itself looks to be a factory Alembic Blaster – or Strat-o-blaster – FET-based boost, a mod that can also be found built into the pickguard of Jerry Garcia’s Alligator Stratocaster.

In practice, the Alembic Blaster engages a higher output ceiling, letting users experiment with the volume knob without affecting the overall tone.

That Mayer may have drawn inspiration from Garcia’s guitars makes sense, especially after the Sob Rock star was captured playing a prototype replica of the late guitarist's Wolf model during a Dead & Company gig late last year.

The electronics department isn’t the only thing that Mayer has tweaked, though. A further nod to the Alligator can be found on the headstock, which has been fitted with a brass nut – replacing the original’s bone alternative – as well as a new-for-Silver Sky retainer bar.

Some more fundamental changes can be found, too. A convenient picture of the rear of the guitar shows a Silver Sky body that has no spring cavity for a tremolo system, meaning despite the presence of a standard PRS tremolo bridge, this Silver Sky is in fact a hardtail model.

Owing to the fact this particular Silver Sky derives from PRS’s Advanced Research Division, we don’t imagine it will be receiving a standard release, with the guitar likely set to remain as Mayer’s own one-off creation.

With that in mind, the body sticker on the guitar does confirm this particular example is still just a prototype, so we’d wager a few more Silver Sky iterations will be seeing some onstage action in the coming weeks.

Although Mayer is seemingly late to the game, the Silver Sky has turned out to be a pretty popular modding platform. Neal Schon, for example, turned his Nebula example into a Floyd Rose-equipped HSS shredding machine, while guitarist Jannik Köhler created the John DeLonge – a single-pickup version that paid homage to Tom DeLonge’s signature Strat.

John Mayer has unveiled the latest addition to his enviable electric guitar collection – an all-new prototype replica of Jerry Garcia’s iconic Wolf guitar, which the Sob Rock star has taken on the road for Dead & Company’s last-ever tour.

Flexing his latest piece on Instagram, Mayer said he wanted to give fans a glimpse of the guitar prior to the supergroup’s first gig of 2023 last Saturday (January 14) so that those who attended didn’t mistake it for the real deal.

Built by Bill Asher of Asher Guitars, the replica Wolf was commissioned by Doug Irwin, the mastermind behind Garcia’s original guitar, and was reproduced with access to all of Irwin’s original design blueprints.

“I’m honored to have received the prototype of a very special guitar,” wrote Mayer. “Doug Irwin, the luthier who built Jerry Garcia’s famous 'Wolf' guitar, commissioned the great Bill Asher to faithfully recreate the original using all of Doug’s original drawings and templates. 

“The result is pretty unbelievable,” he continued. “How unbelievable? I have to make sure to post this before tonight’s Dead & Company show to make sure people don’t mistake it for the real thing!”

Mayer is a particular authority on the Wolf guitar and one of the best players to test-drive Asher’s replica, having played Garcia’s original axe in 2019. Though the guitar was sold at auction in 2017 for $1,900,000, Mayer was given the opportunity to play it to honor Grateful Dead’s music two years later.

“I can confidently say Doug and Bill nailed it,” Mayer concluded. “It shall always be played with love for this music and a culture that’s accepted me with open arms. See ya on stage…”

True to his word, Mayer gave Asher’s Wolf replica plenty of action during the band’s gig at last Saturday’s Playing In The Sand festival in Cancun, Mexico. In fact, he used it right from the off, starting the set with a cover of Grateful Dead’s Sugar Magnolia.

Preview footage from the band’s two sets can be found on Dead & Company’s official YouTube account – the whole set can be purchased from nugs.net – with footage also showcasing Mayer using Wolf 2.0 for a rendition of St. Stephen.

In some photos from the event, Mayer can also be seen donning his over-the-ear headphones, which he started using during Dead & Company gigs in 2021 as they gave him “more of a dynamic touch on the guitar”.

Since the replica is identical to the original 1974 Wolf, that means it features a purple heart body with bookmatched curly western maple on the top and back. Elsewhere the fiddleback maple and purpleheart neck runs through the length of the body, with the original’s removable pickup plate also returning.

Mayer’s example is one of only 10 replicas to be made by Asher and, owing to the guitar’s heritage, it comes as no surprise that all 10 have already been sold.

“The Irwin-Asher 'Wolf' guitar, limited to only 10 masterfully built instruments, will be among the finest replication of this iconic guitar played by Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead,” a statement on Asher Guitars reads. “Using Irwin's original templates and drawings, 'Wolf' will also be crafted from Irwin's private 30-year-old stash of figured maple. 

“This replica will embody all the classic tones, contours, and details of Jerry's original, combined with Asher's unique artistry and craftsmanship,” it continued. “Limited to only 10 builds, which sold out in a matter of days, each will be accompanied by a signed Certificate Of Authenticity, as well as a hard-cover pictorial book of the Irwin-Asher journey.”

To find out more about the replica, head over to Asher Guitars.

Dead & Company’s current tour will be their last one ever, after it was announced that the group will be disbanding later in 2023. The tour will bring about an end to the project after eight years, which have seen Mayer share the stage with Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann.

Visit Dead & Company’s website for a full list of upcoming dates.

Dead & Company, the spin-off supergroup that features John Mayer and members of The Grateful Dead, have announced they will be disbanding next year.

It’s also been revealed the popular offshoot, which also features Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Oteil Burbridge and Jeff Chimenti, will perform their final shows in summer 2023 before calling it a day for good.

Announcing the news via social media, the band said a full list of dates for what will be their farewell tour will be announced in the future.

A statement read, “As we put the finishing touches on booking venues, and understanding that word travels fast, we wanted to be the first to let you know that Dead & Company will be hitting the road next summer for what will be our final tour. 

“Stay tuned for a full list of dates for what will surely be an exciting, celebratory, and heartfelt last run of shows.”

Dead & Company was first conceived back in 2015, when John Mayer – who at the time was serving as guest host for The Late Late Show – invited Bob Weir onstage to perform Althea: one of the first Grateful Dead tracks that Mayer had ever heard when he first discovered the band on Pandora.

After impressing with his performance, Mayer was then invited to join Weir in Dead & Company, which was formed from Grateful Dead members Weird, Hart and Kreutzmann, as well as guest musicians Chimenti and Burbridge.

Mayer has been kept plenty busy by Dead & Company over the past seven years, touring annually while still updating his solo repertoire with the releases of The Search for Everything and Sob Rock.

The new band experience was also an opportunity for him to experiment with his rig and setup. 2015 more or less coincided with Mayer’s switch to PRS, with whom he developed the Super Eagle II – the guitar that initially became his main touring instrument.

Mayer also started using headphones while playing live with Dead & Company, as he said they helped him become a more dynamic guitar player.

The guitarist has developed a strong connection with his Dead & Company bandmates, particularly Weir, who recently joined Mayer for the latter’s Rise for the River charity concerts.

In his own statement, Weir wrote on Twitter, “Well it looks like that’s it for this outfit; but don’t worry we will all be out there in one form or another until we drop…”

Visit Dead & Company to keep up to date with future tour announcements.

John Mayer and Grateful Dead founder Bob Weir brought the house down on Monday (Aug 8) when they took to the state at Pine Creek Lodge, in Livingston, Montana for an intimate open air acoustic guitar set.

The duo are more commonly found packing out ballparks and stadia across the country with Dead & Company, but this performance under the trees was a special occasion. 

It was the first of a trio of Rise for the River benefit shows scheduled by Mayer to raise money for those affected by June 13 flooding of the Yellowstone River, which damaged homes and impacted jobs across Park County, where Mayer has called home for over a decade. 

The flooding closed the entrance to the park, devastating an economy that is reliant on tourism, with hotels reporting that between 50 and 70 per cent of reservations have been canceled. 

Mayer and Weir opened with Friend of the Devil, taken from the Grateful Dead’s 1970 album American Beauty, and played 13 tracks in total, including Dead classics such as Bertha, Uncle John’s Band, Jack Straw, Terrapin Station, Eye of the World and a bravura run-through of Brown-Eyed Women.

• John Mayer’s 2021 Dead & Company pedalboard has been revealed – but what’s that mystery pedal?

All of these tracks are firmly in both players’ wheelhouses, but there was something about the stripped-down acoustic arrangements that afforded Mayer a little extra room, setting the tone for what was a special evening – a Dead & Company show of sorts, albeit with a difference.

There were a few firsts, with Mayer performing Jerry Garcia’s Loser and Marty Robbins’s classic western ballad El Paso for the first time. The pair rounded out the set with a cover of the Crickets' seminal rock 'n' roll hit Not Fade Away.

Mayer and Weir’s performance was livestreamed on the on the PPV Nugs platform, with highlights from their performance on both artists’ YouTube channels. The fundraising efforts were supported by a range of John and Bobby merch items.

You can watch highlights of Mayer and Weir’s set above (and on fan-shot video below), and the full performance is currently on demand via Rise for the River on Nugs.net, priced $20, where it will be available until Aug 28. 

Mayer will next take to the stage with the comedian Dave Chapelle, before playing a headline set on August 21. That solo headline performance will also be available on the Nugs platform for a similar price.

Donate to the Southwest Montana Flood Relief Fund.

John Mayer has been out with the annual Dead & Company summer tour for almost a month now and, in what has become a tradition in itself now, internet gear sleuths have been hard at work identifying his 2022 Dead & Company pedalboard. 

The award for the most definitive rundown we’ve seen so far has to go to the excellent John Mayer Gear (JMG) Instagram, which has put together an extensive list of his electric guitars, rack gear, guitar amps, and, of course, pedalboard for his 2022 outing.

The most notable change from Mayer’s 2021 Dead & Company ‘board is the sheer size and variety, upsizing from a relatively restrained 16 pedals to the full 21-pedal triple-rack Trailer Trash setup that’s normally reserved for his solo shows. 

The full list includes several obscured or disguised pedals ‘blacked-out’ with tape or paint, and includes the following: Ernie Ball VP Jr., Xotic Effects XW-1 wah pedal, TC Electronic Polytune, Xotic Super Clean Buffer, JHS mystery pedal, JHS Prestige, Mesa Boogie Flux-Five, Ibanez TS10, Moog EP-3, Origin Effects SlideRIG, EHX Q-Tron+, Way Huge Aqua-Puss Mkii, Klon Centaur [blacked out], 29 Pedals EUNA, Source Audio Programmable EQ, Boss OC-3, MXR Phase 90, Boss CE-2 [blacked out], Providence Chrono Delay DLY-4, Strymon Flint, Boss TU-3.

As per usual, the TC Electronic Polytune and Boss TU-3 guitar tuners are there to handle electric and acoustic duties, respectively. 

Meanwhile, the JHS ‘mystery pedal’, which we first spotted on Mayer’s ‘board last year remains, though JMG is speculating that is likely a clone of a Dumble pedal known variously as the Box-A-Later / Box Of Later / A Box Later.

Mayer once posted a long since-deleted pic of an original unit to his Tumblr [remember Tumblr!?] – and described it as such:  

“One of a kind ‘a box later’ (box-a-lator?) by Howard Dumble… An external effects loop that also acts as a line buffer/clean boost.”

Elsewhere, Mayer’s main amp set up for the current run includes his Dumbleland Overdrive Special head (paired with a 1x12 Dumble cab) and a Fender Deluxe Reverb. 

Guitar-wise, you won’t be surprised to hear that Silver Sky is in rotation, but Mayer’s been taking a break from the Roxy Pink model he relied on for a large chunk of his Sob Rock dates in favor of a more muted Moc Sand finish with a rosewood fretboard.

JMG is also reporting heavy use of his triple-pickup McCarty 594 Honey and use of a silver McCarty, too, while his 1952 Fender Telecaster has also been used at more recent shows (as evidenced below, albeit at a distance)...

Finally, Mayer’s rack hosts a UA Golden Reverberator, Xotic X-Blender, Boss GE-7, Leslie Combo Preamp, Radial’s Headbone VT, JD7 and JX44 V2, plus a Dumblelator II and Stereo Dumblelator (tube-buffered effects loops, similar to the Box-A-Lator but rack-mounted). 

Despite the setbacks of recent years, the tour has gone largely to plan thus far. However, Mayer was forced to cancel the band’s appearance in Saratoga Springs this Wednesday (July 6), after his father was taken to the ER with an unspecified medical emergency.

The guitarist updated fans via Instagram Stories, saying his father, Richard Mayer, 94, was taken to hospital that morning. 

"This morning, my father suffered a medical emergency and was and was transported to the ER where he received much-needed and great care,” said Mayer. “He is now fairly stable, and will continue to undergo some procedures, but as you can understand, I have to stay in NYC and can’t play tonight’s show in Saratoga Springs.”

The Dead & Company also posted an update, offering fans a free online replay of their full Wrigley Field, Chicago, IL show from June 25 by way of temporary recompense.

Last year – in advance of Dead & Company's 2021 tour – contemporary artist Mister E customized five D'Angelico Deluxe Bob Weir Bedford electric guitars. 

The guitars were subsequently auctioned off during the John Mayer-fronted band's trek that summer and fall, raising over $160,000 for HeadCount, Reverb (an environmental sustainability-minded non-profit, not to be confused with Reverb.com), and a variety of other Dead & Company-endorsed charities.

Now, ahead of their 2022 summer tour, Dead & Company – in partnership with HeadCount, a non-profit that promotes voter registration and civic participation – have commissioned artist AJ Masthay to customize six Premier SS models for the same purpose.

Just as was the case last year, the guitars will be auctioned off throughout the tour, with fans able to place bids at the "Participation Row activism village" and "Loose Lucy’s VIP lounge" at each concert.

One of the guitars, a Premier SS in Ocean Turquoise, commemorates the entire tour, while others salute specific two-night stops on the trek – San Francisco, Chicago, New York City and Boulder. The city-specific guitars boast a “Vote” fretboard inlay, and HeadCount’s logo on the headstock.

“I'm a firm believer that if our democracy is going to function as intended, we all as citizens have an obligation to be informed and participate in said democracy, that’s why I am and will continue to be a supporter of HeadCount and their mission," Masthay – who's also done work for the likes of Black Sabbath, Foo Fighters, Widespread Panic, Umphrey’s McGee – said of his participation in the project in a statement. 

"My relationship with HeadCount started over a decade ago and out of our partnership has come some of the most cherished pieces in my portfolio – including the Bridge Session edition for Bob Weir and the 'US Blues' piece from a few years ago, and of course this year's guitar series.”

Dead & Company's 2022 summer tour begins this weekend (June 11) at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, and runs through July 16, when it will conclude a show at Citi Field in New York City.

For tickets and more info on the tour, visit Dead & Company's website.

John Mayer has canceled his forthcoming appearances with Dead & Company at Mexico's Playing in the Sand festival after testing positive for Covid-19. The band have confirmed that Mayer will be sitting out the festival in a new post on Instagram.

“Today, just prior to leaving for Mexico, per his physician, John Mayer tested positive for Covid-19 and will be unable to perform at the upcoming Playing in the Sand event in Riviera Cancun January 7-10,” the band write.

The weekend will now feature a lineup of Mickey Hart, Bob Weir, Jeff Chimenti, Oteil Burbridge, Jay Lane, Tom Hamilton Jr, Margo Price and others. 

Earlier this week, drummer Bill Kreutzmann announced that he would also miss the Mexico shows due to health concerns regarding his heart.

“After a lifetime of playing special beats, it’s almost no wonder that my heart came up with its own idea of rhythm,” he wrote on Twitter. “All jokes aside, my doctor has ordered me to take it easy and stay safe through the end of January so that I can continue to drum and play for you for many tours to come. 

• How John Mayer came to join Dead & Company

“I have a lot of music left in me and there’s no stopping me from playing it. I’ve never been one to obey orders or play by the rules, but in the interest of longevity, I hope you’ll understand.”

The band conclude in their Instagram post: “We came down here to have fun. Unfortunately some of our brothers cannot make it but fun is what we're going to have. In these unprecedented times fans should expect many rare and different tunes.”

Back in August last year, YouTuber Justin Jeske gave us a comprehensive rundown of John Mayer's Dead & Company guitar rig, though we were stumped as to the nature of a mysterious JHS pedal lurking on his pedalboard...

Dead & Company have auctioned off five customised D’Angelico Deluxe Bob Weir Bedford signature models, raising over $160,000 in the process. 

Each of the five instruments features a custom paint job from artist mister e, commemorating gigs in Boston, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles and the ‘Full Tour’.

Alongside painting, mister e used a collage technique to decorate the instruments, including scraps of Grateful Dead songbooks, Dancing Bear stamps and even selected lyrics from Truckin’.

“As an artist it's an honor to paint these guitars to raise money for a great cause,” said mister e. “But as a guitar player and fan of the Dead for years, it is truly humbling to be working with Bob Weir and Dead & Co.”

The guitar auctions – in aid of the charities HeadCount, Reverb and a variety of Dead Family Non-Profits - raised a grand total of $163,750. The ‘Full Tour’ guitar sold for the largest amount, representing almost a third of the final total, at $52,000.

For more information on the auction, head to the D’Angelico site.

It's perhaps a performing guitarist’s worst nightmare: to be mid-song in front of a live audience, gearing up to launch into some fretboard fireworks on your electric guitar, only to find your guitar amp has completely packed it in. Kaput. Dead. Finished.

For amateurs and semi-pros, the ensuing response would probably be something similar. A few stressful moments of shock, followed by some frantic, last-ditch attempt to salvage your sound from the jaws of defeat.

For John Mayer, however, it was a totally different tale, one that he was forced to experience during a gig with Dead & Company when his $200,000 pride-and-joy Dumble inexplicably broke on stage.

As discussed by YouTuber Justin Jeske, the concert in question took place on September 17 earlier this year, during Dead & Company’s gig at Wrigley Field, Chicago. After flexing some supremely dynamic playing on the ‘board of his PRS Silver Sky for Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo, Mayer can be seen momentarily rolling down his volume knob for some vocal passages.

Upon cranking his volume back up, however, an audible pop precedes a few moments of panic for Mayer, who quickly comes to terms with the predicament he’s in: his Dumbleland Overdrive Special, serial number 006, has bowed out for the evening.

How does Mayer respond to the setback? By keeping proceedings as professional as ever, of course. Oh, and by having a spare Dumble handy, ready to be brought onto the stage. That also helped.

After summoning his guitar tech Jeremy Nielsen to appraise the situation, the pair make the decision to whisk off the Overdrive Special and replace it with another Dumbleland, which sported the serial number 009.

The amp wasn’t the only piece of gear that was swapped out, either, with Mayer also deciding to briefly hang up his PRS Silver Sky in favor of his PRS McCarty 594 “Honey”, before reverting back to the Silver Sky for the remainder of the track.

We know we described having an amp break mid-gig as a guitarist’s worst nightmare – but the knowledge you have a high-end Dumble waiting in the wings probably makes the situation ever-so-slightly less traumatic.

To be fair, Nielsen could have brought on a Roland combo and Mayer still would have sounded spectacular. After all, the Sob Rock mastermind was recently spotted playing an Epiphone Les Paul through that exact amp, and it sounded, well, exactly like Mayer.

John Mayer’s discovery of the Grateful Dead happened by chance. In 2011, while listening to random suggestions on Pandora, he heard the Dead classic Althea, and with that he fell hard and fast. Taking a deep-dive into the band’s vast back catalogue, he became a committed ‘Deadhead’, leading to a remarkable chapter in his career. 

The first evidence of the Dead’s influence on Mayer came with his 2012 album Born And Raised and 2013 follow-up Paradise Valley. Both albums marked incrementally intensifying departures from polished pop, with Mayer doing and playing exactly what he pleased. And both contained subtle but abundant Grateful Dead influences.

Queen Of California, the opening track from Born And Raised, was in tune with the folksy, acoustic numbers that abound on the Dead’s two albums from 1970, American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead.  

In the second verse from Queen Of California, Mayer also made a reference to Neil Young’s After The Goldrush, before a lengthy pedal steel-driven outro took hold over a bedrock of Dead-esque repeating chords.

Another connection was made in this album’s title track. Jerry Garcia – the founding member and de facto leader of the Grateful Dead as vocalist, lead guitarist and principal songwriter – had played pedal steel on the song Teach Your Children from Déjà Vu, the first album featuring Neil Young in the '70s supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. For the song Born And Raised, Mayer had David Crosby and Graham Nash on backing vocals.

And in Wildfire, the first track on Paradise Valley, a comparatively jam-based number with an outdoorsy feel, Mayer sang: “We can dance with the dead/You can rest your head.” Which – depending on how deeply you like to read into things – may well be a reference to the band. 

Fast-forward to 2015, and while appearing as a guest host on The Late Late Show, Mayer was presented with the opportunity to perform with another founding member of the Dead, rhythm guitarist Bob Weir.

The song they played together was Althea. A bond was formed between them, and by the end of that year, Mayer was invited to join Weir in Dead & Company, a touring outfit also featuring Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, two drummers who played together in the Dead for many years. 

For all Mayer’s success, this was a challenge – not only to step out of his pop-meets-blues box into the realm of the jam band, but also to take the place of Jerry Garcia, the talismanic figure who died in 1995 at the age of 53.

With a vast repertoire to learn and a comparatively unstructured style of playing to get to grips with, Mayer entered a bootcamp for the role with all the reverence and sincerity a Deadhead could hope for. 

He wrote on Instagram, alongside a 1970s era photo of Garcia: “I’m only here as an interpreter of a master. I play in constant emotional, psychological and musical deference to Jerry Garcia.”

This being said, long-time Deadheads could be forgiven for reacting with some scepticism to the news that the man behind hits such as Daughters and Waiting On The World To Change could be right for the job – especially as more likely jam band candidates such as Warren Haynes and Phish’s Trey Anastasio had already tried out and then withdrawn from the position.

But Mayer was nothing if not thorough about taking on the role. As he stated in a 2016 SiriusXM Radio interview regarding his training for playing one of rock’s most expansive repertoires: “I’m naturally obsessive anyway, so it suited my way of life.”

Further to the material itself, Mayer went all-in on gear to make his transition to fronting Dead & Company as seamless as possible. 

Jerry Garcia’s tone was made unique by the pioneering addition of in-built pre-amps and effects loops to his custom-made Doug Irwin ‘Wolf’ and ‘Tiger’ guitars. Mayer teamed up with PRS to create the Super Eagle II – a guitar which became his main touring instrument with Dead & Company - and which comes in a super duper trippy hemp green finish.

The Super Eagle II features specially-wound 58/15 JM treble and bass pickups with a Narrowfield JM pickup in the middle position (with three individual coil-tap mini-switches), and a JCF Audio preamp – a layout and design very similar to Garcia’s instruments.

When it comes to playing live, the jam band environment seems to bring out the team-player in Mayer. After-all, Dead & Company is the first band he’s played in where the songs and the spotlight are not all his. Certain songs have bluesy in-roads and Mayer employs his well-honed chops to bring flamboyant interpretations to the music.

Elsewhere, the more psychedelic material leaves room for wandering melodic noodles where the destination may be predetermined, but the route to finding it is a little (or a lot) more flexible. Embracing simple, scale-based melodies without the large leaps and bends associated with blues soloing, Mayer is able to meander rather than race and, with trademark chromatic passages, channels Garcia effectively and respectfully.

On stage, Bob Weir looks like a cross between a wise mentor and a proud father figure as he and Mayer trade looks and licks. Back in 2016, alongside a snap of the band, Mayer posted on Instagram, “I grew up a lone wolf in my bedroom practicing my guitar, and all I ever really craved was a community.”

This is perhaps what best sums up the effect that joining Dead & Company has had on Mayer’s musical outlook. As a band who were able to draw the same crowd night after night in a country-wide “long strange trip”, the idea of community will not be alien to any long-serving Deadhead. Thanks to Mayer, the live experience that captivated fans for decades is far from dead.

John Mayer is currently taking a break from any Sob Rock-related activities, and is instead working his way through the opening dates of his most recent tour with Dead & Company. And, in the few shows the group have played so far, Mayer looks to be rocking a permanent new addition to his live rig: some over-the-ear headphone monitors.

Though the move carries the obvious benefit of protecting his hearing, the electric guitar icon has also revealed that using headphones has a number of knock-on effects – ones that directly impact his playing and supposedly make his live performances even better. 

“I’ve started wearing headphones on stage, which has several benefits, among them being able to have more of a dynamic touch on the guitar,” wrote Mayer on social media after the band’s gig in New York and Pennsylvania. 

“I’m actually more connected to the band, the music and the moment this way,” he added.

When asked by a fan during an Instagram Q&A whether his Audio-Technica ATH-M70x headphones had any impact on limiting his audience interaction, the PRS Silver Sky signature artist rebutted, “Not at all!

“I’ve got a pair of stereo mics that pick up everything around me. And I’m getting the front-of-house feed,” he elaborated. “I’m IN the live recording!”

It remains to be seen whether Mayer will incorporate this new-look live setup into his own solo sets when his Sob Rock tour kicks off later this year, though one thing is certain: for now, while the Dead & Company gigs continue, the headphones aren’t going anywhere.

Plus, if Mayer is correct in saying headphones make his already-expertly-dynamic playing even better, those with tickets to one of his upcoming gigs are sure to be in for a treat.

The Audio-Technicas are the most recent addition to Mayer’s Dead & Company rig, which was the subject of a recent in-depth pedalboard breakdown by YouTube channel Justin’s Gear Corner.

Highlights from Mayer’s Gear Acquisition Syndrome-inducing ‘board include an Xotic Effects XW-1 wah pedal and a Boss OC-3 octave pedal, as well as his favored Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron+ and Ibanez TS10 Tube Screamer.

Mister E – a Florida-based contemporary artist who has designed work for the likes of Floyd Mayweather, Miley Cyrus and Dana White – has customized five Dead & Company-branded electric guitars to celebrate the rock outfit's in-progress US tour.

With one model commemorating the tour as a whole, and the other four marking the band's forthcoming stops in Boston, Chicago, Denver and Los Angeles, the quintet of six-strings – all D'Angelico Deluxe Bob Weir Bedfords – are signed by each member of Dead & Company, and are adorned with songbook imagery and colorful Dancing Bear stamps.

Additionally, each guitar features a custom-engraved backplate with the lyric “What a long strange trip it’s been," taken from The Grateful Dead's 1970 track, Truckin'.

“As an artist it's an honor to paint these guitars to raise money for a great cause, but as a guitar player and fan of the Dead for years, it is truly humbling to be working with Bob Weir and Dead & Co,” says Mister E.

Adds Andy Bernstein, HeadCount's executive director: “These custom guitars have fast become a tradition on Dead & Company tours, but Mister E's designs have taken it to a whole new level. This is one of the most creative and rewarding ways to raise funds, both for ourselves and the other Dead Family charities.”

Proceeds from the sales of the guitars will go to HeadCount – an organization which uses the power of music to “promote participation in democracy” – Reverb – a charity which partners with musicians, festivals and venues to help events become more climate-friendly – and the “Dead Family” charities.

Bids will be accepted on the guitars throughout the tour both remotely, and in the HeadCount Participation Row Activism Village and Loose Lucy's VIP lounge.

Auctioning off guitars has been a Dead & Company tradition since the band's first tour in 2015. Thus far, the auctions have raised over $1.3 million for the “Dead Family” charities.

When it comes to John Mayer one thing’s for sure: for a guitar player, he gives a good interview. 

Just the other day we reported on his conversation with Dean Delray for the Let the Be Talk podcast, during which Mayer affirmed his love for all things Strat-like – so much so that he says it hindered his ability to be a bigger Led Zeppelin fan, whose Jimmy Page mostly played Gibsons. 

Now we’ve unearthed another electric guitar nugget from Mayer’s Let There Be Talk appearance, and this one has to do with the six-string that, he says, “changed him forever.”

And not only is he not referring to a Fender Strat, he also doesn’t mean his beloved PRS signature model, the hotly debated Silver Sky, or the PRS Super Eagle II, his main instrument for Dead & Company performances.  

Rather, Mayer is referring to Jerry Garcia’s Wolf guitar, custom built for Jerry by luthier Doug Irwin, and which sold at auction in 2017 for a cool $1.9 million.

Mayer played Wolf live onstage with Dead & Company this past June during a gig at New York's Citi Field, and, he recalled to Delray, "Here's what changed me forever: the tone of this guitar was so good. It's the one that's married to those songs. You don't even know if an EMI console sounds good or not; The Beatles recorded on it, it sounded good.”

"We don't know because that board made Abbey Road, it sounds good because it sounds like Abbey Road. So, this guitar sounds good because it sounds like Jerry, right?

"And all of a sudden, all I have to do is go 'bomp-bap-bomp-bap,' single notes, and I'm in heaven. And I realize, 'You got to get a guitar where the single notes make you happy.' You don't have to play that much at all."

Of course, as Mayer went on to explain, in the quest for good tone, one factor that doesn’t hurt is to just be, well, a good guitar player.

"Jerry Garcia played the guitar in this lighter way,” Mayer said. “It wasn't fiery, it was beautiful, it was bird-like; like birds are playing the guitar, and that has something to do wanting to hear it all the time because it's not adrenalized, it's a great way to look at it. I had to look it, like, 'Oh, a lot of these tones are quite pure, they're not in-between two pickups.'

"It's the way he played the guitar. If you're a good guitar player, you don't even need a good-sounding guitar, you'll find the one millimeter on the string over the pickup."

During Dead & Company's show at New York's Citi Field this past Sunday night, June 23, John Mayer abandoned his usual PRS in favor of a decidedly more iconic instrument. 

For the performance, Mayer used Jerry Garcia's legendary "Wolf" guitar, which is currently on display at the Play It Loud: Instruments of Rock and Roll exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

You can watch Mayer play a few Grateful Dead classics on the guitar, including "St. Stephen" and "High Time," in the pro-shot livestream below.

Back in 2017, the Wolf guitar made headlines when it was sold for $1.9 million at auction, making it one of the most valuable guitars ever sold at the time.

Customized by luthier Doug Irwin, and labeled “D. Irwin 001," Wolf was first played by Garcia at a 1973 New York City performance the Grateful Dead gave for the Hell’s Angels. Garcia went on to use the guitar for countless performances and recordings over the following two decades. 

D’Angelico has announced the Deluxe Bob Weir Bedford, the company’s first solid body signature model. The guitar features an all-basswood body, a C-shape maple/walnut/maple neck with a natural satin finish and a pau ferro fingerboard with mother of pearl/abalone split block inlays.

Pickups are Seymour Duncan D-90 STK P-90-style single coils in the neck and bridge positions, and a Lollar Blonde single coil in the middle, controlled via a five-way toggle and a blend pot for mixing in whichever pickup isn’t selected.

Other features include a gold Tune-O-Matic bridge, a gold 6-point Wilkinson tremolo and Grover locking tuners.

The Deluxe Bob Weir Bedford is the Dead & Company guitarist’s second signature model with D’Angelico, following the semi-hollow Premier Bob Weir SS in 2017.

The D'Angelico Deluxe Bob Weir Bedford is being offered in a Matte Stone finish for $1,999. 

For more information, head to D’Angelico. 

John Mayer has announced new North American dates to his 2019 World Tour. The run begins in Albany, New York, on July 19, and wraps September 14 at the Forum in Los Angeles.

Tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning Friday, February 1, at noon local time through Ticketmaster.com.

In addition to his solo world tour, Mayer is also touring North America with Dead & Company from May 31 to July 6.

Check out the full itinerary below. 

For more information, head over to JohnMayer.com.

John Mayer Summer 2019 tour dates:

July 19 – Albany, NY @ Times Union Center
July 20 – Providence, RI @ Dunkin’ Donuts Center
July 22 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
July 23 – Washington D.C. @ Capital One Arena
July 26 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
July 26 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
July 28 – Pittsburgh, PA @ PPG Paints Arena
July 30 – Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena
August 2 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
August 3 – Columbus, OH @ Schottenstein Center
August 5 – St. Paul, MN @ Xcel Energy Center
August 6 – Milwaukee, WI @ Fiserv Forum
August 8 – Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
August 9 – Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
August 11 – Atlanta, GA @ State Farm Arena
August 12 – Indianapolis, IN @ Bankers Life Fieldhouse
August 14 – Chicago, IL @ United Center
August 31 – Snowmass Village, CO @ Snowmass Mountain
September 2 – Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center
September 3 – St. Louis, MO @ Enterprise Center
September 5 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
September 7 – San Antonio, TX @ AT&T Center
September 8 – Houston, TX @ Toyota Center
September 10 – Phoenix, AZ @ Talking Stick Resort Arena
September 11 – San Diego, CA @ Viejas Arena
September 13– Inglewood, CA @ The Forum

September 14 – Inglewood, CA @ The Forum

Dead and Company have announced a 2019 American tour.

The Grateful Dead offshoot—comprised of John Mayer, former Grateful Dead members Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, former Allman Brothers Band bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti—will hit the road on May 31, and tour the country until July 6.

The band's itinerary, which you can check out in full below, includes two shows each at Chicago's Wrigley Field, Los Angeles' Hollywood Bowl, Boulder, CO's Folsom Field and The Gorge Amphitheatre in George, WA.

For tickets and more info, head on over to deadandcompany.com.

Dead and Company 2018 tour dates:

May 31 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
June 1 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheatre
June 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl
June 4 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl
June 7 – George, WA @ The Gorge Amphitheatre
June 8 – George, WA @ The Gorge Amphitheatre
June 12 – Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center
June 14 – Chicago, IL @ Wrigley Field
June 15 – Chicago, IL @ Wrigley Field
June 18 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
June 20 – Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion
June 22 – Foxborough, MA @ Gillette Stadium
June 23 – New York, NY @ Citi Field
June 26 – Bristow, VA @ Jiffy Lube Live
June 28 – Charlotte, NC @ PNC Music Pavilion
June 29 – Atlanta, GA @ Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood
July 2 – Dallas, TX @ Dos Equis Pavilion
July 5 – Boulder, CO @ Folsom Field
July 6 – Boulder, CO @ Folsom Field

Deadheads have a lot to look forward to in 2018.

Last month, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh announced that—in the spring—they would embark on their first ever tour as a duo, playing back-to-back sets of acoustic and electric versions of Grateful Dead classics. Now, Dead & Company—the Grateful Dead offshoot comprised of Weir, drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti—have announced a summer tour that will take the band to stadiums and amphitheaters across America.

The tour is set to begin May 30 at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts, and will run through mid July, when it will close with a two-night stand at Folsom Field in Boulder, Colorado. The tour also notably includes two nights at Citi Field in New York City and one night at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.

You can check out the band's full summer itinerary below.

For tickets and more information, stop by deadandcompany.com.

Dead & Company 2018 Tour Dates

• May 30 – Mansfield, MA @ Xfinity Center
• June 1 – Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion
• June 2 – Camden, NJ @ BB&T Pavilion
• June 4 – Cincinnati, OH @ Riverbend Music Center
• June 6 – Noblesville, IN @ Ruoff Home Mortgage Music Center
• June 8 – Atlanta, GA @ Cellairis Amphitheatre at Lakewood
• June 9 – Raleigh, NC @ Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek
• June 11 – Saratoga Springs, NY @ Saratoga Performing Arts Center
• June 13 – Hartford, CT @ XFINITY Theatre
• June 15 – New York, NY @ Citi Field
• June 16 – New York, NY @ Citi Field
• June 19 – Darien Center, NY @ Darien Lake Amphitheater
• June 20 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH @ Blossom Music Center
• June 22 – East Troy, WI @ Alpine Valley Music Theatre
• June 23 – East Troy, WI @ Alpine Valley Music Theatre
• June 29 – George, WA @ Gorge Amphitheatre
• June 30 – Eugene, OR @ Autzen Stadium
• July 2 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheater
• July 3 – Mountain View, CA @ Shoreline Amphitheater
• July 6 – Chula Vista, CA @ Mattress Firm Amphitheatre
• July 7 – Los Angeles, CA @ Dodger Stadium
• July 11 – Albuquerque, NM @ Isleta Amphitheater
• July 13 – Boulder, CO @ Folsom Field
• July 14 – Boulder, CO @ Folsom Field

The Grateful Dead offshoot group Dead & Company have announced a fall North American tour.

The tour, which follows their extensive jaunt through North America this summer, begins with a two-night stand at New York City's Madison Square Garden on November 12 and 14, and rolls mostly through the East Coast, with a few scattered stops in the South. You can see the full itinerary below.

"It’s been great all around and we’re starting to navigate uncharted waters, which was the whole idea of the endeavor from the beginning," Weir told Guitar Worldlast year about Dead & Company's inaugural summer tour. "We’re just now getting there, but the band was spitting fire all summer."

For more info, stop by deadandcompany.com.

Dead & Company Fall Tour Dates

November 12 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
November 14 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden
November 16 – Philadelphia, PA @ Wells Fargo Center
November 17 – Boston, MA @ TD Garden
November 21 – Washington D.C. @ Capital One Arena
November 22 – Hartford, CT @ XL Center
November 24 – Detroit, MI @ Little Caesars Arena
November 25 – Columbus, OH @ Nationwide Arena
November 28 – Charlotte, NC @ Spectrum Center
November 29 – Atlanta, GA @ Philips Arena
December 1 – Dallas, TX @ American Airlines Center
December 2 – Austin, TX @ Frank Erwin Center
December 5 – New Orleans, LA @ Smoothie King Center
December 7 – Orlando, FL @ Amway Center
December 8 – Sunrise, FL @ BB&T Center

Bob Weir is on quite a roll. The release of Blue Mountain, his first solo album in 10 years—and his first collection of entirely new material in three decades—is the culmination of 18 very active months for the founding member of the Grateful Dead.

It started in the summer of 2015 when the Dead’s surviving Core Four—Weir, bassist Phil Lesh and drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart—played Fare Thee Well, five shows in California and Chicago which they said would be their final performances together.

Joined by Phish’s Trey Anastasio and keyboardists Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti, the group sold out Levi’s Stadium and Soldier Field, while thrilling legions of Deadheads around the world who watched live feeds in theaters and at home. It was the kind of triumph that was impossible to imagine when Jerry Garcia died in 1995. The Grateful Dead broke up a few months later but over the ensuing years began to regroup in various configurations.

The “final” Fare Thee Well shows were once again, predictably, not the end of the story. Soon after, Weir, Kreutzmann and Hart announced the formation of a new band, Dead & Company, joined by Chimenti and two unlikely new members: bassist Oteil Burbridge, fresh off 16 years in the Allman Brothers Band, and singer/guitarist John Mayer, best known for his pop songs and Stevie Ray Vaughan-inspired blues playing.

A new group in the shadow of the much-hyped final shows raised some critical hackles, but the fans never blinked. They understood that this was an entirely different venture. And indeed the group has reinterpreted the Dead’s vast, treasured catalog of music, with Mayer, Burbridge and Chimenti adding a more straightforward swing and youthful vitality. The band has been another big hit, selling out stadiums and amphitheaters filled with a mix of old Deadheads thrilled for another ride and a new generation of fans. Weir looks reborn with his new younger mates, singing and playing with vim and vigor.

“It’s a wonderful environment to just go for it,” says Burbridge. “It’s not about the execution. It’s about trying to find something new. The Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins and a really good jam where you go someplace you’ve never gone before will erase any mistake. That is the mindset of both the fans and the band. And Bobby is such an interesting player, who is so much fun to work with. Maybe because Jerry was playing long solos, Bobby found a really in-depth approach to rhythm playing, laying into chords all the way up and down the neck. He’s also a very underrated singer, with a pleading quality that really connects.”

Weir has always been a peculiarly underrated, sometimes even disrespected, guitar legend. Maybe it was his lack of soloing, the fact that the Dead’s soundman spent years mixing him too low or that he was always the clean cut handsome guy in a band of grizzled hippies. Probably it had more to do with three decades spent serving as a low-key sidekick to a revered guitar hero. But the mere fact that Garcia chose Weir as his foil and wanted him by his side for all those years speaks for itself.

And Garcia was never shy about discussing his appreciation for Weir, noting in 1982 that his partner was “an extraordinarily original player in a world full of people who sound like each other.

“I don’t know anyone else who plays guitar the way he does, with the kind of approach he has,” Garcia continued.

Like Dead & Company, Blue Mountain pairs Weir with a younger generation of admirers, in this case a core of Brooklyn-based musicians orbiting around the band the National. Weir co-produced with Josh Kaufman, co-wrote much of the material with Josh Ritter and is backed by the National’s Aaron Dessner and Bryce Dessner on guitar and Scott Devendorf on bass.

Enjoy this excerpt from the December 2016 issue of Guitar World. For the full interview, plus our official Bob Weir Axology, check out the new issue of Guitar World.

Your collaborators on Blue Mountain feel like a left turn. How did you hook up with these guys?
our or five years ago we did a web broadcast from my studio [TRI] celebrating Jerry’s 70th birthday and we assembled a crew of young bucks to focus on Jerry’s songs, and the Devendorfs and their Brooklyn crew showed up in spades and we got along real well. I was impressed by how hard they listened and how economical they were in what they offered. A couple of years later they called, said that they had been talking amongst themselves and come up with the notion of doing a record of cowboy tunes with me. And that seemed like a great idea, like something right up my alley.

What about cowboy songs appeals to you?
Cowboy songs have always had an allure to me. I spent time as a kid, a young teen, in a bunkhouse kind of living that life. I’d spend my evenings with these old guys who had grown up in an era before radio had reached the nether regions of Wyoming and their notion of what to do for an evening was to tell stories and sing songs. I was the kid with a guitar so I became the accompanist and I learned a bunch of the tunes and the delivery and the esthetic—the ethos, if you will.

And is that where you learned country songs you brought to the Dead, like Marty Robbins’ “El Paso” and Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried”?
Yes, more or less. I heard that stuff and developed an affinity for it and an understanding about how to approach it. Not necessarily those exact songs, but I could hear where they were coming from and understand their value.

You sing these songs like they are from the bottom of your heart. How difficult was it to develop that level of sync with a songwriter like Josh Ritter whom you had not known before?
He’s a gifted songwriter and there was actually a lot of back and forth. There weren’t all that many tunes that he offered that we did straight the same way. He’d come up with a line and I’d say, “Now how about this?” One thing tripped something else in my thinking and so forth. We went back and forth and I definitely had a feeling of collaboration on the songs—and that’s always been my preferred way of collaborating with guys like John Perry Barlow and Robert Hunter.

This album is so different from the Grateful Dead. That’s how you approached solo projects throughout the Dead’s prime—for instance, Heaven Help the Fool (1978) and Bobby and the Midnites. Ratdog became very Dead-like, so in a way this is more of a throwback.
Well, yeah! That’s really what I like to do because otherwise it’s not a vacation. If I’m going to use the same approaches and methods then I might as well do it with the guys I’m used to doing it with because we have that worked out. No one’s going to do it better with me. If I’m going to go exploring, then all bets are off and let’s just see what we turn up.

So is the goal finding a balance between Dead Bob and solo Bob?
[laughs] Yes! That’s what I’m always working toward.

“Ki-Yi Bossie” is one you wrote with your guitar tech, AJ Santella, and it’s a very interesting tune, addressing a 12-step program in the context of a real cowboy song. Did you set out looking to write a song about the program?
It’s rarely that direct! I don’t know how I found myself there. I had a notion for what the song was going to be about, that it would end with a guy who’s punching cows, which is his refuge from another existence. So I wanted to go to another existence first and I thought I better start out real bleak—and that took me to a basement room and a 12-step program. I took the 12-step to be literal and the cow punching to be a metaphor for chord punching—being saved by music. Well, yeah. That’s it.

The guy could have ended up in a monastery but then he wouldn’t have ended up on a cowboy record. I should make mention that Lukas Nelson kicked me along while I was developing the song and he had a lot to do with the setting—the rhythm, the key, the tonalities. This totally slipped my mind when I was doing the credits!

Will Dead & Company work up and play any of these songs?
I’m not sure that they work in that context. The bulk of them don’t lend themselves to what Dead & Company do. I’m hugely looking forward to playing these songs live with this band on tour this fall. They’re all good players and the places we’re playing are fun places that we’ve carefully chosen. We’re gonna have some fun on this tour.

I assume that’s what it’s all about for you at this stage of your career. Would you do anything that didn’t seem like it would be fun?
No. [laughs] I can happily say that I’ve come to the point in my life where the stuff that I do is the stuff that what I want to do.

Did you enjoy the summer Dead & Company tour as much as you seemed to onstage? The whole vibe was as positive and upbeat as anything I recall in Dead world for a long time.
Yeah. It’s been great all around and we’re starting to navigate uncharted waters, which was the whole idea of the endeavor from the beginning. We’re just now getting there, but the band was spitting fire all summer.

For the full interview, check out the December 2016 issue of Guitar World.