Monday, July 13, 2026

Question: Before adopting the name the world knows them by, the Grateful Dead spent their first months in 1965 playing Bay Area bars and pizza parlors under a different name. What were they originally called?

Answer: The Warlocks. The future Grateful Dead came together in Palo Alto in early 1965 out of the remnants of a jug band, Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions, with Jerry Garcia leading the breakaway. They played their first show as the Warlocks at Magoo’s Pizza Parlor in Menlo Park on May 5, 1965, and dropped the name later that year after learning another band had already released a record as the Warlocks. Garcia later said he landed on “the Grateful Dead” by opening a dictionary.