The Twisted Sister co-founder and guitarist Jay Jay French said in an interview with Vinyl Ventures (Transcribed by Killer Guitar Rigs) that the Grateful Dead were the worst band he ever heard. The musician used to love them and went to see them over 20 times but he recalled that after he watched them sober he thought they were the worst band he ever seen.
Jay Jay French says Grateful Dead was the worst band he heard
“So I was a Grateful Dead freak, Allman Brothers freak. Believe it or not, I was in an Allman Brothers cover band in the summer of ’72. And I come back to the city — I was living in a commune in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania with a hippie band living on a drug dealers’ farm.”
He said that after he fell in love for the Glam Rock music that was coming from England, he started to drift away from Grateful Dead.
“I de-Grateful-Dead-ed myself, which is like removing yourself from a cult. I unplugged myself from the cult. And that basically caused a lot of problems because all my friends were Grateful Dead fanatics, and they basically thought I was out of my fucking mind.”
“I saw (them) 26 times on LSD — it was the greatest band I ever saw. But I saw them straight, and it was the worst fucking band I ever heard in my life,” Jay Jay French said.
The Grateful Dead are an interesting case of a cult-following band since they didn’t sold many records worldwide but are as successful as bands like The Rolling Stones when it comes to ticket sales. During their career almost every years they had one of the highest-grossing tours in the world.
They have sold an estimated amount of more than 35 million records worldwide, while Twisted Sister sold more than 12 million.