The Chez Ray Sewell Interview

​Impacted the World ​by Chez Rey Sewell ​The Pranksters were instrumental in changing the landscape from black-and-white to color in 1964 on their first journey out. It made people wake up and pay attention: “Wait a minute, there’s a lot more going on here to life.” On the heels of that, there were people like The Warlocks, who I saw in 1965 at The Cinnamon Tree teen club in San Carlos. They were, in a lot of ways, right in step with that whole movement that The Pranksters had pushed out there: this free-thinking kind of energy and this change up from what had to be to what can be? It just exploded into the possibilities, and they were endless and remain endless. ​The Warlocks went from the button-down look of American Bandstand’s bands to the free-flowing “Hair starts growing, so why am I cutting it, for you or for me?” ​All these statements are what The Pranksters had let out of the bag. They allowed people to start questioning things. What is really for me in this life, and what is really just for you in order to accept me? That became a pretty big door that opened up. God willing, it will remain open. These are times in history that need to be cherished and studied. ​When the Grateful Dead were The Warlocks, they were tight in a different sense. They were really fun. It was already an experience, because the look was different, and we were different at the same time. We were already enjoying the spoils of the new generation. It was a harmonious evolution that took place. They evolved with their capability; and as the experience evolved, they evolved within it and so did the audience. Everybody grew together: it wasn’t that they took off and left everyone else behind. That’s why it got so big. It was a movement in the same vein as The Prankster movement. It was a movement in the country that impacted the world.