Neither Phish nor fowl November 8, 2001 - Times Union (Albany, NY) by Greg Kot Three rock stars unite to prove the supergroup can work The history of the rock supergroup is not a particularly distinguished one. It typically involves throwing a bunch of established stars into a recording studio to produce an album that often promises more than it delivers. For every Cream there are a half-dozen Damn Yankees, because in the clash of rock-star egos that such collaborations usually foster, more often produces less. Such is the daunting history that faced Trey Anastasio of Phish, Les Claypool of Primus and Stewart Copeland of the defunct Police when they first entered Anastasio's recording studio last April to record what would become "The Grand Pecking Order" (Elektra), the debut album by the group they would dub Oysterhead. "We were definitely aware that most of these things are cheeseball," Claypool says of the supergroup legacy. "If we get compared to Asia or the Damn Yankees, I'd have to quit." Anastasio, in a separate interview, says he knows exactly why so many supergroups don't work: "Ego. Big ego problems. We all watch 'Behind the Music' (the VH1 series that chronicles the soap-opera tales that undermined many of rock's greatest bands). We realize it's an experiment, and we all are aware of the pitfalls." So far, the experiment sounds like it's working, enough so that Oysterhead is touring North America. There's no concert slated for the immediate Capital Region, but the trio will be making a tour stop at the not-too-far-afield Memorial Auditorium in Utica on Friday night. Though "The Grand Pecking Order" is by no stretch a masterpiece, it brims with more quirky personality and daring music than many supergroup projects. It also has its moments of self-indulgence and solo noodling, but most of the instrumental flourishes are folded into the songs, which rarely overstay their welcome. Yet even as the tunes embrace concise pop length and listener-friendly melodies, they flirt with avant-garde voicings and arrangement ideas. There's an atmosphere of mischief and adventurousness, of three talented musicians goofing and jousting with nothing to lose. "It seems to be a record without any categories," Copeland says. "And that's because this album isn't central to our livelihoods. We have come together only for artistic amusement and we can pretty much ignore any market considerations. We don't have any idea what radio stations will play such a record or even who will like it apart from the three of us, and we are all in a position where we don't have to care." The trio initially got together for a one-off show in New Orleans in May 2000, which was organized by Claypool, a casual acquaintance of Anastasio's. The Phish guitarist suggested Copeland as a drummer. Together, they played a handful of quickly written songs, a few covers, and filled in the gaps with jamming. By some accounts it was a mess, notable more for its marquee value than the actual substance of its music. But Copeland edited the nearly three-hour show down to 50 minutes of highlights, and Anastasio and Claypool heard the potential for a follow-up album. The timing was right, because all three musicians were at a crossroads in their careers. Copeland was itching to get back into live performing after spending the last decade concentrating on scoring films. Meanwhile, Claypool and Anastasio were about to put their highly successful bands on hiatus and were looking for new challenges. Recording at Anastasio's farmhouse in Burlington, Vt., the three worked to find a common musical language, a daunting task because there was not a lot of similarity among their previous bands: Phish's wide-open jam style, Primus' quirky character studies, the Police's tautly constructed pop songs. "At first we were doing a lot of eggshell walking out of respect for each other," Claypool says. "Stewart was the guy coming more from the pop world, with the Police, and he was actually saying things like 'Let's make this a pop record.' And Trey and I are going, 'Well, I don't know ...' So there was this interesting push and pull at the outset about what this record was going to be." But the overriding goal was to "push each other to do what we were most excited about in each other's playing," the bassist says. "I grew up on Stewart Copeland in the Police, but I hadn't heard anything he'd done since 'The Rhythmatist' (a 1985 Third World-flavored percussion album) that was really exciting. And we just pushed him back in that direction. ... We helped each other realize what originally brought people to the table." Anastasio encouraged Claypool to revert to the aggressive style with which he defined Primus. And the bassist challenged Anastasio to play guitar solos that would alarm and excite the demented guitar-virtuoso Buckethead, a friend of Claypool's. "That became the catchphrase for the entire record: 'That's great, but would Buckethead freak out when he heard it?' " Claypool says. Copeland asserted himself by reining in the more expansive tendencies of his bandmates, ensuring that the songs would stay in the three- to five-minute range. "We didn't make these little easy-to-swallow songs like Stewart wanted at the start, but because of his pop sensibilities, we did keep things a little shorter and cut out a lot of the fluff that Trey and I normally would have left in," Claypool says. The live show will be another experiment, with the band breaking from the song structures to improvise and see if they can find a common language on the fly. How well they succeed in doing that will determine the future of Oysterhead. "Will this continue? Ask me in a month," Anastasio says. "Right now it's looking pretty good, and we're excited about it. We may keep touring around the world and start to make another album. Or we could be throwing bottles at each other."