Dead & Company Talk American Express Sponsorship

Earlier today CNBC aired a feature on the new band Dead & Company. Within the three-minute piece, guitarist Bob Weir discussed the group’s partnership with American Express which includes the company sponsoring a free show at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

“It’s not like we’ve drawn the line and said no corporate sponsorship or anything like that but nobody’s come to us with something like this, with good ideas like this,” Weir told CNBC. “There are now enough people high up enough in American Express who get what we’re up to and want to try to spread that around a little bit. And they have the ability to do that.” 5,000 pairs of tickets will be given away for the November 7th show at MSG via an online lottery.

Fans who win tickets are urged to donate to the Robin Hood Foundation, which directs its efforts at fighting poverty in New York City. “Normally we don’t have corporate sponsorship but this isn’t 1967,” Mickey Hart added. “This is 2015. …. It’s a different environment and it’s for the good. (Robin Hood) has boots on the ground. They’re really helping people that are less fortunate.”

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Guitarist John Mayer also took part in the interview and mentioned how excited he is about the upcoming tour, “It’s a really great opportunity to step out of that sort of monological, soloist-artist thing. I wasn’t getting bored of it but I was running out of new colors of paint to use sonically and idea-wise.”

The CNBC feature follows two articles published today containing interviews with members of Dead & Company. The group kicks off its first-ever tour at the Times Union Center in Albany on October 29.