Friends of the Devil

I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be: a rip-roaring, kaleidoscopic deep dive into the mythos and songs of the Grateful Dead, with over one hundred vibrant, original paintings.

“A wildly original, audaciously funny tour of the Grateful Dead and the mythical world they built . . . Alexander Pappademas and Joan LeMay brilliantly explore the Dead’s genius.”—Rob Sheffield, author of Love Is a Mix Tape

Friends of the Devil invites you to plunge headfirst into the dreamworld of the Grateful Dead, where music and myth intertwine and history dissolves like a tab on your tongue. This captivating exploration brings to life not only the songs that have enchanted Deadheads for generations but the stranger-than-fiction stories behind them.

The gang’s all here: An anonymous female convict in America’s notorious prison and Playboy bunnies on acid. Joseph Campbell and the Zodiac Killer. College revolutionaries lost in the desert and Bob Dylan wandering in out of the cold. In these pages, the abstract epic “Dark Star” gives shape to a movie gone mad, and “Terrapin Station” winds its way to Robert Hunter’s brain from sixteenth-century France via the hollers of Kentucky.

With Joan LeMay's original paintings breathing fresh new life into the ramshackle, blacklight-ready aesthetic of the Grateful Dead, Friends of the Devil is a rich and rollicking journey—a gift for longtime fans and a delightful, informative, and often moving treat for anyone new to the band's wild magic. Join us in revisiting the past, where every page is a step back in time and a ripple in still water, and every story shines like a glimmering stone on the golden road.

Alex Pappademas is the author of Keanu Reeves: Most Triumphant—The Movies and Meaning of an Irrepressible Icon and the co-author, with Joan LeMay, of Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Soul Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan. He is a writer and editor at GQ, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Los Angeles Times, and Grantland. He lives in Los Angeles.

Joan LeMay's fine art has been shown internationally in galleries, alternative and institutional venues, and public spaces since the late 1990s. Her paintings have appeared in dozens of publications, books, and music videos and on album covers, band fliers, and posters for independent film. She is the co-author, with Alex Pappademas, of Quantum Criminals. LeMay plays bass in the bands Bull Thieves and Viennetta. She is based in New York City.