JPG: When the limited edition sold out within, what was it less than a week?

DL: Less than a week, yeah. There was a weird ordering glitch but the bottom line is it sold out in less than a week.

JPG: When that happened did Mark or somebody else from Rhino send you a nice email that just said, “Wow!” or something like that?

DL: I think I sent it to them. I think as much as they might have done that, I was equally enthralled with what they had done in pulling the trigger on this. They stood to lose a heck of a lot of money if this thing wasn’t the success we all hoped it would be. There was a huge level of mutual respect when this happened and most certainly they were very grateful that I had the vision to do it, but I think more importantly, I was grateful that they had the faith to do it.

In this day and age, record companies…you know it’s tough to pull the trigger on something this huge and really back one horse. And that’s what we did, we backed it. It won for us. Again, all kudos to Rhino. Mark Pinkus, great guy and huge Deadhead. He’s not a micromanager. So, he understands. He has a great team around him. Mark is incredible at being able to view the Big Picture. I’m constantly impressed with the way that they view things. So far I have been working with Mark from about August of 2010. I work with him several times a day. We’re on the phone or by email. It’s a huge level of mutual respect. I’m very pleased with it. I loved the previous regime at Rhino as well. I really like those guys, too. A lot of good friends. But, you know I feel having a Deadhead in charge has been beneficial to the relationship.

JPG: Now, you have Mark and a core group of Deadheads that you discuss shows with and get their input. When it came to something like the limited edition version of “Europe ‘72” was it gut instinct or did you bring up to them the idea of, “We could put it out this way. Would you be willing to pay for this? But we could also do this, so would you be willing to pay this much more?”

DL: No, not really. I certainly didn’t. Even to me it was such a huge project that when we did the Fillmore West box, which was our first one where we did the multi-disc run of shows, that I did speak with a lot of people. “Look. Would you pay a hundred bucks for this?” And everyone of them said, “Yes.” I think we ended up selling it for $80. A few people who weren’t huge into the late ’60s said, “Look, I already have Live Dead, why would I want four versions of all this?” which to you or me that answer is obvious. There were people who said, “Yeah, I think it’s a great idea, but it’s just not for me.” And that’s why there are certain things that are for certain people.

The limited edition, we all hoped it would reach 7,200 units total, but I don’t know if we expected it. Certainly, you might remember when we put it on sale, we did announce that if it doesn’t sell 3,000 units, the project won’t happen. And it wasn’t a threat. It was just that without 3,000 units, economically, it’s just not feasible to do. The production costs on this were huuuge. They were just absolutely massive. That’s why we put it on pre-sale so early, so that if the project had to slow down, we could have.

I think 7,200 was exactly the right number. If we had done 10,000 or 12,000, I don’t if we would have sold out. Indications are we wouldn’t have based on music-only sales. We put the whole box on sale as music- only. Rhino nailed that number bang on. I give them full marks for having the faith that it would do well, but not expecting this to be a 25,000 seller. I think they did right. Not everybody’s going to want 22 shows from the same tour. Not everybody has $450. They definitely did research. This wasn’t a number they threw a dart at a dartboard and hit 7,200.

JPG: In that same vein, with the Dave’s Picks series. I’m reading that it’s a limited edition, so you can either do the subscription for all four or, correct me if I’m wrong, you can buy them individually.

DL: Yeah, if the subscriptions don’t sell out at 12,000, that’s the limit of how many CDs will be pressed. But if, 10,000 people subscribe then it means that 2,000 of each copy will go on sale when it’s put on sale.

It’s interesting when we say a number like 10,000. It’s kind of like season tickets for a sports team. Whatever isn’t sold through season tickets goes on sale for the public through the regular channels. So yeah, yes, absolutely people will be able to buy this a la carte, assuming the subscriptions don’t sell out at 12,000.

JPG: Again, is that something marketing-wise that Rhino had the sense that there’s interest, but there’s not that much interest after seeing the numbers that sold for the Road Trips series?

DL: I don’t pay attention to numbers. I really don’t. So, I don’t know how many of the Road Trips were selling, but I don’t think Rhino would have pegged this at 12,000 if they didn’t feel very confident that that was the right number. Which is to say I don’t know if that’s where the Road Trips are selling or not, but again, Rhino is going to do the research. If they felt that these could sell 25,000, they would have done 25,000. They’re not trying to create false demand, I don’t think. I’m certain they’re not. I think that they figured that this was the right number to do based on current sales of Road Trips and that kind of thing. Again, they are a very, very smart team and they know what they’re doing. They certainly did their homework. They wouldn’t just arbitrarily throw a number of 12,000 out there. It’s a number that was decided, I’m absolutely certain, based on a lot of research and past experience.

JPG: Now if you subscribe you’re supposed to get a collectible CD. Can you give any hint?

DL: I honestly can’t because it’s going to be coordinated with whatever Volume 2 is. It’ll be sent with Volume 2. I shouldn’t even say this for sure because I don’t know yet but chances are it’ll be something in the era of the Volume 2, but possibly not. There’s also a chance that we might have a great single disc from whatever year that would be a great bonus disc. The focus right now is to make it be a part of whatever Volume 2 is meaning the same tour, same era, whatever that is but things can change.

We don’t have to decide this soon, which is good. It gives us a lot of flexibility to find that right thing for a bonus disc. But, yeah, all subscribers will get that. It’s gonna be good. Our bonus discs are generally pretty darn great. That’s the way I see it. There’s no point in doing it, if it’s just gonna be filler. You do it because it’s going to be something special.

JPG: I didn’t know if it was going to be something like home demos of an album or rehearsal things or something like that.

DL: It wouldn’t be anything like that. No, something closer to a live show bonus disc; the kind of things we were doing with the first half dozen or dozen Road Trips. It’ll be closer to that. If we found some rehearsal stuff that was absolutely mindblowing performances, yeah, of course, it could be that. But right now, that’s not what we’re focusing on. It could be a compilation. We’ve done some great compilation bonus discs over the years. So, it could be any number of things. We’re actually keeping an eye out for an extra 80 minutes from that same tour of the three or four tours we’re looking at. And if it doesn’t happen, it just means we found something even better.

JPG: Speaking of rehearsals and unreleased years and eras, when the Dead played with Dylan, I traded for the rehearsals years ago, and I recall a lot of people were not too happy with the album that came out from those dates together. I always felt that the album, if it was a double album, and “Joey” was the beginning of side three on vinyl then maybe the whole thing would have moved along better. Is there any okay with Dylan’s people or any thoughts in your head of trying to release something better from that tour?

DL: There aren’t but that would really be up to Dylan to do. I’ve never spoken to his management, and I don’t know if they have any interest in it. I assume that here we are 24 years later and the fact that we haven’t got a call…I don’t think that he’s got that much interest in it. But I could be wrong. It could be just off his radar. I don’t want to speculate because I have no idea.

What might be interesting is one or two of the shows; they were pretty good, both the Dead sets and the Dead with Dylan sets. I think it would be very cool some day to do a complete thing. But that’s getting waaaay ahead of ourselves. Certainly, it’s nothing we’ve ever considered. It’s just something I thought would be cool. As far as the rehearsals go, I don’t think anything would be done with that. But again, things happen. Who knows?

JPG: I didn’t know how much control the Dead even have over those shows or if it was mainly Dylan having control …

DL: I think the Dead would be okay with it if he wanted to release them. It’s entirely up to him. I think the Dead, physically, own the tapes. Dylan, most certainly owns his performances. And there’s some very good stuff on there. I’ve heard a couple of the shows. I’ve heard audience tapes of a few of those six shows, and there’s some good stuff. There’s one version I listened to not too long ago of “I Want You” from the Oakland show. Bob Weir and Bob Dylan, they do this great harmonizing on it and they kind of do a co-lead vocal on it and the magic happens. It happened again at Giants Stadium. I think it’s during “Wicked Messenger” or something. And again, the magic clicks, both Dylan singing and playing and then the Dead’s performance. It’s just. The magic happens.

It’s so far off my radar. I really don’t have much of an answer for it except I was at one of the shows. I had a good time and the music was pretty good. Some definitely inspired stuff went on for sure. But you never know. That’s the one thing. We have no plans for a lot of things. If you asked me five years ago about Europe, I would have said, “No plans.” But things change.

JPG: With your deep involvement with the Vault and the production of these releases, does listening to the Dead ever become work, and you’re like, “Oh, I want to go home and listen to the Ramones or Dylan or something just to get away from this…”

DL: I do that. Sure. I get burned out on it. I never get burned out for long periods. Like, I’ll get burned out in a day where I’ll be listening from seven or eight in the morning until five or six at night and later. Then, I put something else on that’s dramatically different. Today, put on some Clash or David Bowie. It happens all the time. When I get burned out on it, it’s for an hour or two and it’s time to change.

Or maybe I’ll get burned out on an era. Maybe, I’ll get burned out on Summer ’85 and then I’ll go put on some Europe ’72. I listen to a heck of a lot non-Grateful Dead music and I think that’s what keeps it fresh. I’m not listening to the Dead 14 hours a day. Some days I do but for the most part not at all. I’ll pick a couple of shows a day to listen to and I’ll listen to them very, very closely. And if I happen to miss something because the postman is at the door or something, I’ll go back and play it so can I make sure that I paid attention to that version of “Loser” or whatever.

But then I listen to a heck of a lot of Dead still just for pleasure, where it has nothing to do with my work at all. I listen to a ton of Dead that’s completely for my own pleasure. Oh heck, even when I’m working it’s for my pleasure. But there’s times when I’m absolutely, most clearly, not working on a 1972 release thanks to Europe but I still, just the other day, I listened to some November ’72 two days ago. Listened to a whole lot of November ’72 just because I wanted to. That happens all the time or we’ve just picked this great show from May of ’77 to be released and here I’m listening to other shows from the very same tour for no reason except for I feel like it. They’re not going to be released any time soon and that’s a certainty. But you know, I feel like hearing it.

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