Listen to the Vince Welnick interview

Vince Welnick turns down the music so he can be heard. The Grateful Dead’s newest member has Bob Marley’s Exodus disc spinning on the CD player provided in his room at Washington, D.C.’s Four Seasons hotel.

“I’m trying to introduce Waiting in Vain to the band,” he explains. “They said, `You learn it first, and we’ll whip it out.’ It seems easy enough. Normally, we’d have to have a rehearsal, but we could maybe work it out during soundcheck because it’s not a difficult song.”

That willingness to experiment, Welnick says, is one of the many delights of being in the Grateful Dead.

During a 30-minute conversation, Welnick mentions several the reasons to be cheerful: artistic freedom; the comparatively light touring schedule; the chance to play different songs at every concert; the comfort of playing to sold-out houses at each stop.

He raves about the group’s new in-ear monitors, which make it easier for the band members to hear themselves on stage. Hey, he doesn’t even have to share a hotel room, the way he did for 17 years as a member of the Tubes.

All this makes Welnick one happy keyboard player. “Musically, it’s very fulfilling playing with the Grateful Dead because of the diversity and the fact that there’s more emphasis on the music. A lot of times, I was dancing instead of playing with the Tubes.

“The Tubes have great songs and the Dead have great songs, but the Dead change up every night, and that makes it ultimately more interesting, and it’s a little easier going for my 41-year-old bones to do under 100 gigs a year instead of 200 by bus.

The Tubes down the tubes

“I love them both. But you know, if Fee (Waybill, the singer) had not left the Tubes and if the things had not happened with the Tubes, I’d still be in that band because I would have been loyal to them to the bitter end.

“Fee left and we went on for years without him, but we couldn’t afford to do the show. Bad breaks, setbacks, management, all of the above. Then more people left the band, and it wasn’t the Tubes anymore. There was nothing I could do about it, so I went with Todd Rundgren for a couple of albums and a couple of tours.”

He played with Rundgren on the Nearly Human and Second Wind records and tours. Two years ago, when Brent Myland died of a drug overdose, Welwife found out about audition to replace the Dead’s keyboard player.

Growing up in Phoenix, Welnick , who started his music career playing in church at age 11, had idolized the Grateful Dead. He never envisioned himself in the band, but after hearing the Dead’s first record, in 1967, he hoped one day to be friends with the group. He decided to try out.

“I didn’t know if there’d be any chemistry there, but I wanted to see if maybe they wanted me to be in the band. As soon as I met Jerry (Garcia) and Bob (Weir), I decided I really wanted to be in the band. And I started checking out the music, so I could learn some songs for the audition. The thought of it was getting more fabulous.”

They gave him tapes and compact discs (he didn’t own a CD player) of live material. The audition consisted of eight songs. The competition included ex- Jefferson Starship member Pete Sears and ex-Dixie Dregs player T Lavitz.

Agonizing wait

“I sat by the phone for about a week, wondering how I did,” Welnick says. “Every day that went by seemed longer and longer. Then Bobby called me and said, `Is your insurance paid up?’ And then I knew I’d landed The Gig.”

Despite what Garcia told Rolling Stone magazine last October, “If you’re looking for comfort, join a club or something. The Grateful Dead is not where you’re going to find comfort, Welnick feels like he’s in “a big, wonderful family.”

He’s even co-written Way to Go Home, one of the new songs the group is working on. Other new tunes are Corrina, Wave to the Wind and So Many Roads, which are likely to be released next year on the Dead’s next studio album. “I feel fabulous,” Welnick says. “It’s a pretty wonderful thing. It’s kind of like a vision I had when I was a kid, when I was about 11: I saw a sea of people with their arms stretched out. And now I’m looking at it every night.”