Rockin’ with ROC and Grateful Dub

This Thursday, Jan 23. at 8 p.m., the Pickle Barrel hosts one of my top shows from last year, New Hampshire’s own Roots of Creation (original reggae), which will be opening up for themselves, so to speak. Their other band, Grateful Dub, is the headliner of the evening, and if you can’t guess, they do a reggae-infused tribute to the Grateful Dead. You get two bands for the price of one, but really three because, as a bonus, Paul Wolsencroft (keyboardist of Slightly Stoopid) is opening the show. Roots of Creation is going on 26 years, and 20 of those years were touring nationally. Grateful Dub is relatively new, starting in 2018, but has only been touring for the past three years. Last year, Roots of Creation had the Pickle reggae rockin’, and Grateful Dub had the place jammin’.

The lineup for the Pickle show is Brett Wilson (lead guitar/vocals), Christopher “Tal” Pearson (keyboards), Andrew “Dubking” Riordan (saxophone/vocals), Matthew “Dickey” James (bass), Brendan “Bdilla” Dillion (drums) and Kyle “Bobby” Bell (guitar/vocals). Pearson started the band with Wilson, and they’ve been jamming for over 20 years. Riordan has been with them for 12 years; the rest are relatively new. 

“They’re all super young and hungry. They have an amazing youthful energy. They’ve been with us for the past three to four years. It’s a cool combination of three people who’ve been focused and dedicated and three people who are bringing a new kind of fire and getting us excited for things,” Wilson said.

Last year, they did about 90 shows. Most recently, they performed two big shows for New Year’s and then took all of January off to focus on releasing new music. They’ve been recording all their live shows, mixing and releasing them on nugs.net. They’re working on releasing a Grateful Dub Studio Album Volume 2, with all new songs that weren’t on Volume 1, and an original studio album. 

“We got a lot of music going on, family, holidays, all that good stuff. We’re excited to get back out on the road; all the guys are itching. It just so happens the first show of the year is at the Pickle Barrel. It should be a lot of fun. Lots of our friends like to come up from New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to go skiing and snowboarding and see us. It’s a historic venue, and we’re excited to play there,” Wilson said.

They never intended to be a tribute band. They had been playing shows with a mix of ROC and Grateful Dub, but the original fans wanted more originals, and the Dead fans wanted more Dead. 

“We made the first Grateful Dub album in 2018 and just had a lot of fun with it. We broke the two projects into two separate things but then realized we can’t be in two places at once so we decided to open up for ourselves and play a set of each and have some fun with it. It’s kind of cool to have this new thing that’s catching fire. Our really amazing ROC family is growing,” Wilson said.

Lifetime, they have five studio albums, four live albums, and one live EP. You can find these on their website, rootsofcreation.com, and all the social platforms. 

Brett added, “My philosophy is to get as many people to listen to it as possible. If they really want to support us, they can buy a ticket to a show, and if they want to go above and beyond, they can buy our music on vinyl and CD, where it sounds a little bit better. I got into this because I love music so the more people that listen, the happier I am,” Wilson added.

Wilson appreciates fans coming out to their shows. “This day and age you’re competing with Netflix, and all these ways people have to relax at home. To get them out of their homes, and out of their seats and into their cars, and to get lodging and go out to dinner it’s  not easy to make all those things happen. So you have to put together a pretty compelling evening of fun, and if every show is different, we’re constantly being challenged but having a good time doing it. We’re giving them an original experience every time.” 

Last year, GD played at the Sugar Shack in Florida, where legendary acts play, in a really cool spot. You can check some of their videos on YouTube. There are plans to release that show on vinyl. GD Vol 2, which I mentioned earlier, will have a lot of special guests like G Love and Paul Wosencroft. They also released an original song, “Ride or Die Chick,” produced by Left Coast Sound and features Dave Foral from the Dirty Heads on bass, producing half of it with Jungle Josh and some friends from the band Kash’d Out. Josh and Dave have worked with Sublime, Wiz Khalifa, and others. Wilson said they have three more singles to drop, and then they’ll have a full album. 

“There’s a lot of music on the horizon for us,” Wilson said.

What Wilson loves best about playing the Pickle is getting people from all over in there.

“We’re not just getting people from Vermont, but from all over the Northeast and even the country. It’s nice to have a reunion of people you know and meet some people you don’t know from all those different areas. It’s a Vermont venue but also a national venue because so many people come from so many different places. We’re just trying to create a one-of-a-kind transcendent musical experience. I don’t really party or do drugs anymore, so for me, music is the drug.  It’s like a musical or spiritual orgasm is what we’re trying to bring to the crowd,” Wilson said.