Deriving from New Hampshire, Roots of Creation has performed at festivals like Camp Bisco, Gathering of The Vibes, Jungle Jam, and Closer to the Sun. Embarking on a new project, Grateful Dub, they have combined their longtime love for reggae-dub style music and the Grateful Dead. On Wednesday, February 7, Roots of Creation performs Grateful Dub with a twist, celebrating the birthday of the legendary Bob Marley. In preparation, we sat down with Tal Pearson (keys) and Brett Wilson (vocals/guitar) to get an insight of what we can expect at their show.

First of all, congrats on having a portion of your Grateful Dub album funded with PledgeMusic! How and when did the idea for Grateful Dub come to be? How psyched were you when you saw the positive feedback?

We had been playing Row Jimmy and Sugaree in our set once in a while, and then decided to do sort of a Walking Dead / Grateful Dead mashup on Halloween a couple of years ago. We got a pretty positive response from that and really liked the way the Dead songs sounded when we played them in our reggae style, so we thought ‘maybe we could record a whole collection of songs like this’ and thus, Grateful Dub was born. -Tal Pearson (Keys)

Bob Marley's birthday is the day before your show, so we thought we'd celebrate by putting a reggae twist on our regular Wednesday Grateful Dead tribute night. What are some parallels that stand out to you when it comes to Bob Marley and Jerry Garcia?

The songwriting of both those acts and the way they have influenced music and world culture as a whole is almost unmatched. I mean I can’t remember one college dorm room back in the day not having either a Jerry or Bob poster in the room. As my buddy Papa Jake says: Every day a new teenage kid picks of a copy of "Legend" and his life is changed forever. I really like how the Marley estate has started to release more live shows. The Boston and Pittsburgh ones I have been bumpin' a ton on spotify. The best part about this tour is GRATEFUL DUB was engineered and mixed by Marley’s engineer Errol Brown. We are kickin' the tour off at Garcia’s, and we are hittin' Stephen Marley’s (who sang on the record) KAYA fest in Cali to play with all his brothers. It’s like both universes are colliding with this release and tour. It’s super exciting and seems meant to be. I am surrendering to the flow and it’s all happening. -Brett Wilson (Vocals/Guitar)

Where were you and how old were you when you truly listened to the Grateful Dead for the first time? How did discovering The Dead impact your musical career? We also saw that you played songs from Grateful Dub with Melvin Seals. What was that experience like?

I remember listening to the Dead a bit in high school, but not quite “getting it” yet. Then in college, Brett always let me borrow his jam band tapes, and there was some JGB stuff in there. Ruben and Cherise was the first song I really loved. It was Jerry’s voice and storytelling, and the musicality of it all, the singable melodies. They weren’t worried about fitting into some 3.5 minute song form. Jerry seemed to have an endless amount of good musical ideas to fit his format. I loved Phish, and gradually began to explore more of the Grateful Dead’s music, especially as we spent more and more time in the jam band scene. I think we have more of a reggae vibe now, but Brett kept showing me more and more songs he liked and I was fascinated by how many simply great songs they had. This is sort of what we decided to focus on with the Grateful Dub album - the songs; how good they are and how well they can be reworked into other styles and still stand up as great songs. -Tal Pearson (Keys)

Lastly, Garcia's is the first stop on your Grateful Dub tour, which has us super excited to christen your voyage into Dead and reggae waters! How will you open the tour with a bang at Garcia's?

We have a bunch of brand new stuff for our fans, including a shiny new intro - Garcia’s will literally be the first time we perform it! We also have some more new songs and Dead covers you can only catch at our live shows!... For now :) -Tal Pearson (Keys)