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WACKY NORTHEASTERN FAVORITES WITH A WIDESPREAD MUSICAL VIEW
 February 11, 1993 - Music Players Magazine (Tampa)
 by Sheila Daughtry

"You just can't worry about trying to please people really. You've got to please yourself first, and *that* will translate to the people in the audience. That's the only way it's worked for so long for us," explains guitarist/lead vocalist Trey Anastasio of Phish.

"There's a lot of interconnection between us and our fans. We have a mailing list of over 25,000 people. Phish fans have set up a computer network called Phishnet, a pretty substantial thing. They set up tape trees and stuff, and everybody communicates through the Phishnet."

It's suggested that a computer network is very 90's...for a 70's style jam band.

"I don't really consider us a 70's jam band," Anastasio declares. "You have to make your own judgement."

Relatively few people in Florida had heard of the Vermont-based Phish until their third recording, A Picture of Nectar, came out last year on Electra Records. It was the band's major label debut. But this unusual quartet has already been performing for a decade-and without a single lineup change.

With the recent release of Rift, Phish has been maintaining a very hectic publicity schedule. "Was I supposed to talk to you at 1:00?" the eager Anastasio asks. "*Somebody* called and interviewed me at 1:00. I just assumed it was you. Nobody knows who it was."

A Picture of Nectar sparked interest among broadminded music fans though it received next to no radio airplay. The 16-song CD veers between Jazz, Latin music and various styles of rock-even bluegrass.

"I think A Picture of Nectar was sort of a coincidence, as much as anything," Anastasio reflects. "When A Picture of Nectar came out, we weren't setting out to do an album that swung back and forth between Jazz and Latin. When we went into the studio, that's the way it came out. It wasn't until after it was done that we sat down and said, `Wow, this really is a *rollercoaster*."

Anastasio, while not denigrating Nectar, is quick to point out the differences between it and the band's newest musical endeavor.

"Rift is much more cohesive-musically and especially lyrically. It doesn't seem to swing from style to style as much. I think it's more of a Phish style- more of a meld of our influences," he explains. The Phish style, as evidenced by Rift, turns out to be a rock and funk-oriented Chet Atkins and Pat Metheny- influenced classical/jazz meld-with a bit of bluegrass, King Crimson and Trip Shakespeare thrown in. It's also a thematic song cycle.

"The whole thing is based around this one night in this particular guy's life. He's drifting in and out of sleep, dreaming of this situation with a woman friend of his, in which they have experienced a rift-*thus* the name," Anastasio adds with a grand flourish.

As to whether the storyline is fictional, he chuckles,"Not completely." He and Tom Marshall, "the band's lyricist" (though he doesn't actually perform with them), wrote the songs together. "I have been in one situation, particularly, that one of the songs is real close to," Anastasio confesses. "Everybody in the band feels a connection to this particular album. Touring seven months out of the year is not great for relationships."

Anastasio is hard put to describe Rift's new sound-in fact, he talks *around* it. "It's so hard for me to say, because I'm involved in it. Nectar is very lighthearted. So I would say Rift is less lighthearted. More focused. Nectar was an extreme. If you went back and listened to our two albums before that, you'd know that the lyrics on Nectar were as extremely far in *that* direction as we go-whatever you call that direction.

"The focus of this album from day one was `lyrics and vocals first, song structure second.' The idea was a strong song supports a strong lyric- hopefully sung with the authority to carry the message.

"Even having said that, I think there's still going to be people out there who say, `*Are you kidding*?' he laughs. "I don't think this album is for everybody-including people who are into the band.

"The single (Fast Enough for You), in a sense, epitomizes what we're trying to accomplish, which was that I wanted to be able to write a song that could follow an Eric Clapton song on the radio and not sound embarrasing.

"I felt like we (accomplished that), though I'm thinking mostly of the single." "Fast Enough for You" is a sweet, slow ballad with lead guitar work in the finest Clapton/Derek and the Dominoes/Allman Brothers style.

"My favorite thing on the album," Anastasio comments, "might be the first song, which is `Rift.'" It's a fast-paced bluegrass-styled train song that turns into a guitar solo with echoes of Pat Metheny, backed by Claude Bolling- styled piano work. "In a way, it has most of what our strong points are- blended into one piece of music that is uniquely Phish. It feels like it's breaking some boundaries-which I like to do. Compositional boundaries and personal boundaries, playing-wise. It feels like it's pushing the envelope of what we can do."

The Phish quartet got together in college. "Three of us graduated from Goddard College, in Plainfield, Vermont," Anastasio explains. "There were 45 students on campus when I went there. It's an alternative, make-your own- agenda, no-grades, no-tests kind of place. I started off at UV (University of Vermont), and I met Mike (bassist Mike Gordon) and Fish (drummer Jon Fishman). And then I met Page, our keyboard player, at Goddard in September 1983."

The four basically learned to be a band on the job-"`*playing out*,' in heavy quotes," as Anastasio puts it.

"Our first gig was an ROTC dance," he continues. "We were doing a barrage of '70s hits because we had to put a songlist together in about a week. We did `Long Cool Woman' and `Heard it Through the Grapevine,' etc. etc. They *really* hated us. They turned the stereo on to Michael Jackson-Thriller was out at the time. But then we did another gig. It grew."

Phish recorded Junta while the members of the band were still working day jobs. "It came out, but it never really came *out*," Anastasio says of the band's jazzy, instrumental-oriented independent debut. "We hit the road weekends. And then, we were doing four days in a row. We were always *just* scraping by-driving to gigs and sleeping on floors and stuff.

"The day we quit our day jobs was big," he remembers. "We must have been touring for about four years, so maybe it was '88 or something. It was the day we felt we had *succeeded*. That was always our goal. We hadn't even thought about the whole record label thing-that was never our focus. It was always `play live, get our act together enough to have decent equipment, and be a touring band.' That was our first love."

Elektra picked Phish up after Absolute A Go Go's issue of Lawn Boy, the band's second release. "(Elektra) signed us on the basis of our success as a live touring act, as far as I'm concerned," Anastasio explains.

"We were touring the country and doing well in pretty much most of the markets we were playing in. It was really not much of a risk (for Elektra), and that was the main thing, I think. We had our shit together and we seemed to be successful-without any tour support.

"We went down South and played with Widespread Panic a long time ago. It was sort of a trade off-they were popular in the South, we were popular in the North. We went down there and played, they came up and played with us.

"And it's just been like that, growing slowly. Eventually, we were doing two-week tours, and then a little longer and a little longer. It's been almost ten years. Everything's been very slow-which is the way I've always wanted it."

The Phish-Widespread Panic connection eventually evolved into last year's "H.O.R.D.E. tour"-a five-band bill of Phish, Widespread Panic, Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler, and Col. Bruce Hampton and the Aquaium Rescue Unit.

The project was the brainchild of Blues Traveler's harmonica player, John Popper. "It was pretty much his baby," Anastasio explains. "He came up with the name-I think it was Horizons of Rock Developing Everywhere-or something."

Dismissed by some simply as an aggregation of "loose '70s jam bands," Anastasio finds the H.O.R.D.E. connection less easily explained-and the "70s jam band" label not accurate at all. "I think that the main connection is the love of the spontaneous moment and the energy-the interplay with the audience," he reflects. "Getting away from the pre-packaged, pre-fab show where you tell the same jokes between the same songs. The attitude that we have-and I think that all of these bands have-is that you're in a room with a bunch of people and you're all having a big party together-an event that involves all these people."

Still, some saw the lineup as a gathering of "Grateful Dead wannabees." Anastsio attributes most of this to ignorance. "The New York Times did an article some time ago, before H.O.R.D.E.-which turned out to be part of the impetus to do H.O.R.D.E. It said `Blues Traveler, Phish, Spin Doctors: The New Dead Thing.' And they labeled the pictures `Dead One, Dead Two, Dead Three.' I had never *met* the Spin Doctors and they're saying, `Here's this scene- Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, Phish.'

"My reaction when I was reading it was, `This guy has *never* listened to *any* of these bands.' Anybody that would put on the Spin Doctors' album and say, `Oh, these guys sound like the Dead'-it's like saying that Nirvana sounds like the Dead. You've got these high-energy, three-chord rock songs. Pearl Jam has more long-winded guitar solos than the Spin Doctors.

"I think there's a lot of stuff going on (in the music) that people are missing if they're just saying that. "It doesn't really matter," he adds. "First and foremost and most imp

ortantly, you absolutely cannot please everybody. A Picture of Nectar got voted one of the ten worst albums of the year by People Magazine. I was actually quite proud. And CD Review gave it five stars and said, `one of the best albums of the year.' And both those magazines came out in the same month. To me, that kind of says it all. You're gonna have people who absolutely hate you and people who absolutely love you, and that's just the way it goes."

Anastasio is philosophical about the ubiquitous '70s comparisons. "I can't really let it bother me," he shrugs, "I think that there's no question that a lot of that (has some basis in fact). I was thinking about the covers that we do. We were just joking that we want to do this Eno song from Another Green World. And we're doing an Elton John song now, `Captain Fantastic.' And we do `Lovin' Cup' by the Rolling Stones. A lot of the covers are from the 70s," he admits.

With all of Phish bandmembers in the 27-30 age group, they're not in a very strong position to take umbrage to "70s-influenced" comments. "It's not what I listen to," Anastasio defends. "But we can't deny that when we were 16, that was the kind of music that was around.

"I suppose the only negative thing that could come from people putting the Dead label on you is that it would turn certain people off who might have come and enjoyed the music.

"I think that people's impressions change after they hear us. I haven't been seeing too much (of the '70s/Dead comparison) in the Northeast anymore. It's kind of come around. I think that, for instance, the people that wrote `The Spin Doctors are the new Dead' aren't writing that anymore about them. MTV has helped them. We haven't had any interest in doing a video, so it's not going to have that effect on *us*," he laughs.

He and the band aren't eager to incur the big debts usual among "new acts" in the music business. "It's good to keep your head above water," he says simply. "We're in it for the long term."

Anastasio starts explaining the band's live philosophy matter-of-factly but his story gradually evolves into something straight out of Monty Python's Flying Circus.

"Spontaneity and interaction with the crowd is the key. How the audience is that particular night-each audience kind of has its own particular feel and mood-plays a lot in what happens. We have a pretty substantial songlist-over 100 songs. Sets run from somewhere between 75 minutes to 90 minutes-and we do two sets. And we generally do some kind of encore, unless they don't want us to.

"Last night was the first night of the tour, and we opened with `Lovin' Cup' off Exile on Main Street. We'd never played that song before last night but I've always wanted to play it. Page, our piano player said he'd never do it unless we started touring with a grand piano, because the whole thing is that intro with the grand piano. And we *are* now," Anastasio declares proudly. "Starting last night, we're bringing a seven-and-a-half foot grand. It's a struggle to keep it in tune, but there's nothing like it. He's got a (Hammond) B-3 (organ) as well-there's another thing people haven't done since the '70s. But it's such an incredible sound.

"We also do an a capella barbershop quartet thing, which we've been working on a lot and studying with a coach.

"Then there's the trampolines," he offers hesitantly. "We jump on these trampolines-mini trampolines. The whole crowd is going up and down.

"There's the vacuum cleaner. It's not *that* big a deal," Anastasio adds quickly-seeming to regret mentioning it in the first place. "Our drummer, Fish, plays the vacuum cleaner. He gets these tones out of it with his mouth. It's a '60s Electrolux. As a matter of fact, he's got a sponsorship. It's the only product we'll endorse. We usually let him sing one song, and then he'll do the vacuum thing.

"There's a lot of things like that. Beach Balls," he adds, cautioning, "you don't have to write about this stuff. Now it's sounding like I'm making a big deal out of it." After some gentle prodding, Anastasio continues. "There are four beach balls-different colors. One of them corresponds to eac

h band member. The crowd bounces them around, and each member is playing to a particular beach ball. They can get tossed out at any point during a jam. And the crowd is then *controlling* the music. If somebody grabs the beach ball and holds onto it, it's a sustained note (by that player)," he explains.

The band *doesn't* tell this to the crowd. "They all know," Anastasio says simply.

"The concept is that there's a lot of interplay between the audience and the band. That's what we're hoping for. This stuff grew from the audience. The ball thing was *started* by the audience. We were doing an Earth Day con- cert and the people in the audience had these inflatable Earths, and they start- ed bouncing them around in the middle of this jam. Page and I started jamming to these bouncing balls. It was a spontaneous thing. And last night, it was the audience who got the balls going-we weren't going to do it. The important thing to realize here is that...

"They've *got* our balls," Anastasio emphasizes, laughing.

He adds, "There's a language-we have signals within the music. I might play on my guitar, for instance, the signal where everyone in the room-audience and band alike-falls to the ground as if they've just been hit over the head with a giant hammer," Anastasio says matter-of-factly. "It can really be pretty bizarre. The jam is going along and *bang*-out of the blue, everybody just drops to the ground.

"It's different every night," he continues. "Really. The people that come to see us are responsible for a lot of this stuff."

When asked if he's tired of *fish* puns, Anastasio hesitates, and then declares, "Yes." He launches into a string of them. "`Swimming to the Surface. `I'm Hooked.' `Something Phishy comes to town on Wednesday,' they like to put the *ph* instead of the *f* on other things-`Phantastic Phish Phollowers Phlock Phor Gigs'-or whatever. There's not many new fish puns," sighs a guy who's lived through ten years of them so far.