The Phish Archive

No Phish Out Of Water
July 27, 2001 - Richmond Times-Dispatch
by Leigh Buckley Fountain

RICHMOND(VA) - Trey Anastasio is the lead singer-guitarist and principal songwriter of the entity known as Phish. Last September, Phish, which had toured consistently for 17 years, announced that it would take an indefinite break.
Having played some solo dates earlier this year - including a March stop at the Landmark Theater - Anastasio is back on the road without his Phish-mates again this summer.
In a recent call from Berkeley, Calif., the day after his first tour stop with his new eight-piece band, Anastasio talked candidly about his plans for future music, the Phish hiatus and dabbling with his friends in Oysterhead.
Q. On July 4, you played a sur prise show at Higher Ground, the bar you are part-owner of in Wi nooski, Vt. It was the first public performance of your new eight- piece band, as well as the debut of several songs. How did you feel about the show?
A. I thought it was good. We were looking at that as a dress rehearsal, so we really just wanted to pull it together as much as possible. We have so much new material that we need to kind of air it out.
Q. Since you planned to record the band the same day the horn section and the rhythm section were brought together for the first time, were you still able to record with the surprise show?
A. Yeah, we recorded for three weeks. This was my plan. You know, having been through everything I have with Phish, I picked up a couple of little tidbits of knowledge along the way that I was able to use. But one of the things I learned was that there's a magic thing that seems to happen the first time a band gets together and plays a new tune. And so for the three weeks that we were rehearsing, we recorded everything.
Every time we came up with a new tune and finished the arrangement, that first version is on tape. Now we're going to go out and play live. Everything will develop, and at the end of this tour we'll go back in and rerecord everything. So then I have a choice of either the slick, developed version or the spontaneous, magic version.
Q. Given your massive fan base, did Elektra Records give you a blank slate for this solo album?
A. Nobody's even heard about it. I'm doing this completely on my own. And that's the beauty of having the barn. [Anastasio has a fully equipped barn-recording studio near his home outside Burlington, Vt.] They don't even know I'm doing it yet. And that's another thing - it's on a real organic scale. We're just rehearsing, recording, and we'll see what happens.
Q. Do you hope that with touring and work you can build your current band into something like the "four-headed monster" - to use your phrase - that Phish could be at times? Not something that sounds like Phish, but something with the same sort of autonomy that your previous band displayed?
A. I'm definitely not trying to re-create what happened with Phish. And I would never even attempt to. What happened with Phish was unique and once-in-a-lifetime on a lot of levels. The four of us are all completely aware of that, and I feel so lucky. What I feel like is, because of the luck that we had, and that that happened with Phish, I have the opportunity to explore musical avenues that I've wanted to since I was 18, and this is my chance.
Right before I did this project, I wrote a piece for the Vermont Youth Symphony - an 85-piece orchestra. That was the most incredible thing. I'm interested in that and the kind of charted-out music that I wrote with Phish with real instruments - not electric instruments.
Q. Oysterhead [a collaboration of Anastasio, Les Claypool and Stewart Copeland] is said to have an album in the can. You've said it felt great to be in a band again. Can you elaborate and discuss how those sessions went?
A. That was another amazing thing for me, playing with those two guys. That was a month in the barn. We did sort of the opposite of what I'm doing right now. The way we always talked about it was that it was kind of three alpha dogs. No decision was made without all three people being involved in it, and I really enjoyed that. The album is done, and it's called "The Grand Pecking Order."
Q. Will you tour with Oysterhead?
A. Yes. It's going to be in October and it's going to be about a month. We've talked about this, and we wanna play really high-energy, small places. That's what I'm looking for - the highest of the high-energy places. Having been around the block with Phish, I know some of the places that really kick.
Q. There's been a lot of conflicting information out there about the Phish hiatus. From what I understand, it's still very much in the air. But how do you feel right now about the future of Phish?
A. I talk to those guys every two or three days. It goes without saying that they are my best friends. If I could only explain to people how valuable this [break] is for us.
We decided we would take some serious time with no plans and no vow that Phish was going to come back. That was what was so important to us, and everybody is happy about that in the band. I hope that the fans can look at all the positive stuff that's happened in the past nine months compared to the nine months previous and they'll see why it was so important to me to be lucky enough to be in a group of four people who are mature enough to see that and act on it.
I have more love in my heart for Phish and more pride in the band that we were for us doing this than anything else we've ever done. To know that I was in a band with four people who knew when to stop . . . that just did it for me."