The Phish Archive

Trey Anastasio - The Billboard Q&A
October 3, 2001 - Billboard.com
by Jonathan Cohen

Life Without Phish Spawns Oysterhead, Live, Solo Projects
When Phish went on indefinite hiatus last fall, there were few doubts that guitarist Trey Anastasio would waste any time mounting new projects of his own. Indeed, in the months since, the artist has written everything from orchestral scores for the Vermont Symphony to an album's worth of new tunes for his touring band. But the Sept. 18 kick-off of the long awaited "Live Phish" series is giving Phish fans a lot more to smile about: five complete concerts spanning 1994-2000, with a sixth due Oct. 30. The first five entries all hit The Billboard 200 album chart on Sept. 27.
Perhaps of even greater interest is the Oct. 2 release of the debut album from Oysterhead, a power trio featuring Anastasio on guitar, Primus' Les Claypool on bass, and the Police's Stewart Copeland on drums. What began as a one-off show in New Orleans last April has evolved into a full-fledged band that will embark on a 20-date tour Oct. 21 in Seattle.
Billboard recently chatted with Anastasio about life without Phish, the thrill of new collaborations, and what lies ahead for his many new endeavors.
Billboard: Tell me about the first inklings of Oysterhead. How did you, Stewart, and Les get hooked up?
Trey Anastasio: I think the earliest origins were that Les called me. He had a show booked in New Orleans where the promoter asked him to put together a band. The way I remember it, he asked if there was anyone else I'd like to play with. And Stewart was the first person I mentioned, not actually believing that it would ever happen, being that he was a big hero of mine growing up. He's one of my all-time favorite drummers. So I kind of tossed it off, because when Les called me, I think he was on tour. He called Stewart, Stewart was up for it, and three days after we talked about it, they were both at my house! We went up into [Anastasio's Vermont studio] the Barn and jammed, recorded some of those jams, and decided to do the show.
BB: How long before the show was this?
TA: We'd had those two days, then we talked about stuff and threw some ideas around, then got together in California for two or three days and whipped together a show. Stewart took those original jams from the Barn and edited them. I started writing some lyrics and so did Les. We did the show kind of on very minimal preparation. So, it was fun, but I think we all felt it was a little.. I told some people it was the first time I ever felt like the Internet situation wasn't the greatest thing ever to happen to me [laughs].
BB: Why? Because so many bootlegs circulated of what was intended to just be a fun jam?
TA: I was thinking, "oh boy, it wasn't all that great" [laughs]. But Stewart thought it was good enough to take it home and edit it on his computer. He edited the 2 1/2 hour show down to about 50 minutes and sent it to Les and I. Both of us were excited enough by his condensed tapes that we decided we should make an album together. There were enough good moments to realize there was something cool there. Not to mention, and I must add this, we had such a good time hanging out, you know? There was definitely a chemistry. We all thought hanging out in the Barn would be a good time.
BB: Stewart echoed your sentiments about the show being a bit rocky, and the lyrics not even being put together.
TA: No. It was kind of a joke, but in a cool way. There were a lot of songs about Oysterhead [laughs].
BB: I understand that the phrase that eventually became the song "Rubberneck Lions" was a misheard lyric. Is that true?
TA: Well, I had written a bunch of the lines from that song. Les called me up and he was like, "let's get some lyrics together." He would kill me if I was telling you this because he loves to keep the mystery [laughs]. But that was something I said to him, and he said, "what did you say?" And that's what he thought I'd said, and that became a song. I won't tell you what I actually said. It was a lot more dangerous and disgusting. Strangely, as soon as he misheard it, I thought the way he heard it made a lot more sense to me.
BB: O.K., so the show ends, Stewart edits down the highlights and sends them to you, and everybody gets excited. When did you decide to reconvene and record?
TA: There were a lot of phone calls back and forth. The biggest issue I think for everybody was that we're all busy, you know? But it's really strange how these things happen. It happened for me at the absolute optimum time. I had two or three goals I wanted to accomplish if Phish went on break. They all just fell into place. I've always wanted to write orchestral music. I feel like I'd been putting that off with Phish. We decided to take some time off from Phish, and they day it stopped, I had four months to write an orchestral piece that was performed by the Vermont Symphony. That was really cool. At the same time, I was talking to Les and Stewart about this project. We started talking, and kind of put it off until Phish was on hiatus on my end. But we had to find time. I have to give Les a lot of credit in that, because we booked some time in the Barn, which is such a cool place. As it was getting closer, there were a couple of phone calls where we were like, "aww, maybe should just do it some other time." Except Les was really adamant. By the time we stepped into the Barn, I was so glad that everybody pushed forward and it happened, because we had a great time.
BB: Can you describe what the sessions were like? Were you guys just throwing out ideas and fashioning into songs?
TA: Yeah. It was really interesting, because we walked in the door with virtually nothing. We weren't sure we were going to keep any of those songs from the early sessions. I think we had a total of four songs to sit down and play. And that ends pretty quickly. I don't think we did more than three takes of any song. So for the first two days, we played through "Pseudo Suicide," "Rubberneck Lions," "Mr. Oysterhead," and "Owner of the World." Most of them were either first or second takes, mainly because that's the way Stewart likes to do it. After a second take, he's like, "all right, that's it, we got it." And I'm used to playing for like hours and hours! So, that's 20 minutes a song, and we're done with that. Now we're faced with a month. We had to just start making stuff up.
BB: What was a given day like?
TA: I think we were working a pretty good amount. Part of getting the picture in your mind is envisioning the Barn. It's not a traditional recording studio by any stretch of the imagination. It's where Phish did their last album [2000's "Farmhouse"] and I just finished and album there with my touring band. It's like a big kind of art project or something, that took four years to do. It has vaulted walkways, creepy little elevators, and I have these 400-year-old doors that were hand carved by monks from India. The whole thing is made out of salvage. It's up on a cliff that overlooks a 50-mile view. A lot of going up to the Barn is firing up the grill, and playing baseball, and skateboarding [laughs]. It's good, because it doesn't feel like a traditional work day.
I can give you an example of one day that I thought was the coolest day we spent up there. The day we did "Shadow of a Man" -- that was a really cool day. Les had this little melody, but it didn't really have any structure to it yet. He kind of sang it to us, and Stewart got on this big, "Apocalypse Now"-sounding drum. He called it the Dragon Drum. He set it up in the corner and started beating on this thing furiously. We built the whole song around that. Everyone would be very interactive on any part. When I sat down to play the guitar, both of them were pacing around. When I'd try out an amp, they'd say, "that sounds really cool. Do that!" This was reminiscent of how the whole thing went. All three people were really involved in everything. That remained true with all the other songs when we'd write lyrics.
BB:"Shadow of a Man" sounds like a Les song.
TA: "Shadow of a Man" is a Les song. For the most part, you can pretty much take whatever somebody is singing... if I'm singing it, it has a lot to do with me. One thing I thought lyrically was a theme was that a lot of the songs are pure biography. Pure, 100% real. That guy is a guy that is very close to Les, and every word of it is real. Another example would be "Birthday Boys." 100% real. Les and I were the birthday boys. His birthday is Sept. 29, mine is Sept. 30. We spent our dual birthdays together in Las Vegas. He was playing at Mandalay Bay and that was the night Phish played with Kid Rock. We were sitting around talking about it; Stewart had come out to Vegas to check out the band, because we had already decided to do Oysterhead. We had a huge suite and had this big, huge party. We got to talking about something funny that happened, and we wrote a song about it. "Shadow of a Man" is about a real guy. He didn't make any of that up.
BB: Judging by the tremendous fan response so far in advance of the album release, you guys must be pretty excited to take this out on the road.
TA: I can't wait!! I would go as far as to say that since the beginning and especially now, making the album was a bonus for me, because I don't think I've ever had that much fun making an album before. It was great to be in a situation where everybody was very adamant about their points of view in a healthy way. There was all kind of headbutting back and forth, which I thought was great. We all did. But in the back of my mind, since the minute Les called me up and said "is there anyone you wanted to play with," I mean I just loved Stewart's drumming. You can hear it on the album. He's the most passionate drummer. I mean, everybody's heard the outtro from "Don't Stand So Close to Me" [laughs]. I'm dying to go on tour with him, and with both of them. If you've ever seen Les live, it's just incredible. I think the stuff is going to go just completely over the top live. I'm counting on it [laughs hard].
BB: What can people expect from these shows?
TA: I have a vision for it like it's going to be some kind of dogfight or something, which I'm so looking forward to. Here's what I can say about what I expect. Most of what you hear on the album, like I said, is first or second takes. We had barely played together at all. We played that one show and we had a couple of jams. That original jam session we did, that may be my favorite recorded Oysterhead. I still drive around listening to that. I play it for people all the time. It's just long jams with the three of us playing. It's so heavy.
I mean, look at the rhythm section. In both of their respective bands, you've got the guy who was clearly the leader. I've always seen the Police as a great songwriter matched with an absolutely incredible drummer. Not to take anything away from the guitar player, but even the way they mixed their songs, it's just drum-driven music. And you know with Primus, the same thing. You get the two of them together, and it's just huge. Les kept saying how he was studying the way Stewart played, and where he puts his kick drum, and changing the way he then plays so it becomes more solid. I can't wait to be standing up there listening to that. I think by the third or fourth show, it should have developed into something. We're going to try to rehearse enough beforehand so that by the first go it may even be like that. The shows are going to be insane for me because I can't wait. I'm dying to do this.
I did one kind of power-trio tour once, which was a little different, because one set was acoustic, so it was much mellower. The first bands I ever obsessed over were Led Zeppelin, Cream, and Band of Gypsys. The first cover I ever played in band, when I was in seventh grade or something, was "Sunshine of Your Love" [laughs]. So to be able to go out with a power-trio is kind of a lifelong dream! I can't wait!
BB: What are your thoughts on the future of this band? Would you like to see Stewart's 50-minute edit of the New Orleans show circulated someday?
TA: Sure! Les and I have been talking a lot about this. We've been probably not taking [advantage pf] all the opportunities that we could, that normally a new band would have. Because honestly, I'm at a place in my life where I'm really.. a couple of years ago, I made a firm decision to make future decisions based purely on whether I really, really want to do them. So, I'm trying not to plan too far ahead. I'm trying to really make decisions for the right reasons. So, we're going one step at a time, you know, "do you want to spend one month recording with Oysterhead?" Yes. "Do you want to tour for a month?" Yes.
Now, there are obviously opportunities for us to go overseas and what not, but I think what we're going to do is take it one step at a time. We might make that decision a week from now, if it just feels incredible. I don't like to make decisions for any other reason than that, like if we could sell more records. That's gravy. My feeling is, let's go out and play some shows, which we're about to do. I wouldn't plan on doing another Oysterhead album yet. But if we have a great time, and if it's just slammin', then I'm definitely going to want to keep going [laughs]. Maybe we'll just get on the bus and want to kill each other [laughs]. We all saw the Police "Behind the Music."
BB: Is your solo tour done?
TA: Done. But, I'm in the midst of doing the album. Tomorrow, I'm working on orchestration for a full orchestra that's going to go on a bunch of tracks.
BB: I think it's fair to say your writing has veered away from the complex compositions of Phish songs like "Reba" and "You Enjoy Myself." Can you talk about your evolution as a songwriter? Is that chapter of ultra-complex, orchestrated pieces closed for good?
TA: I think in that context it is closed for good. If you saw the tour that I just did, and this is another thing I kind of dreamed about doing, and luckily everybody was cool with Phish taking a breather for a minute.. I had three things I really had on my list. One was write orchestral music. And you can hear the piece [I wrote] on the Phish tribute album [released by the Mockingbird Foundation]. It's a lot more involved than anything I ever wrote with Phish. It's 11 minutes of orchestral music. That was much newer chapter of that kind of music, you know what I'm saying? So I am still writing that kind of music. But then my goal from there was to combine those interests. I took this eight-piece band out, wrote all these horn charts and stuff, and that tour was pretty much an entire night's worth of new music. I wanted to wipe the slate clean and start again [laughs]. So I was able to do that. And now, I'm sort of combining all those things by doing orchestration. I have become more interested in trying at least to write just songs. But I don't really think about it that much. I kind of just write what I'm in the mood to write. I don't know if that explains it. I think what you're going to hear on this next album will be a combination of those two things. There's definitely a few things that are pretty involved, in that "Guyute" kind of way.
BB: I saw your band in New York earlier this year and I was really taken by how [bassist] Tony [Markellis] can hold the groove for so long.
TA: Now since that show, I went back before the summer tour and spent three and-a-half weeks rehearsing. That [New York] show was kind of like there was only three days of rehearsal beforehand. I knew it was worthy of pursuing, so I got two more members for the band, and spent two or three weeks writing. I wrote 14 new pieces of music, and we rehearsed for three and-a-half weeks for like six hours a day. This last tour, then, was more symbolic of where that project is going to go [laughs]. It's hard to keep up with!
But I know what you're asking and I am still interested in.. you know, one thing that happened with Phish the last couple of years, and this had nothing to do with the four of us I don't think, but we were getting a little worn down, you know what I mean? Writing and practicing time was getting kind of shaved off in exchange for just keeping the organization going. That was part of the reason we wanted to put the brakes on it for a minute. The lack of that kind of music was the biggest issue.
But it takes a long time to write that stuff! If you go back to the period of "Foam," "Split Open and Melt," um, you know, those were all charted out completely into 15 pages of written music, including the drums. It took a long time. But we weren't touring that much back then. Not to mention that nobody was married or any of that kind of stuff. We were just holed up in this house. All that period, like "Rift" and all that.
On "Farmhouse," there are probably two cool songs in that style, like "First Tube" and "The Inlaw Josie Wales." They're from opposite ends of the spectrum, but all those other songs were written before [the prior album, 1998's] "The Story of the Ghost" [laughs]. That was one writing session, and that was the only writing in that two-year period.
BB: It sounds like a time issue as well, writing out charts for every instrument.
TA: It is. But there is time, you just have to make time for it. That kind of goes back to my thing about making a decision not to do stuff because time is limited. I really like writing probably more than anything. If you're into that kind of music, personally, you should really get that Phish tribute album and listen to "Guyute." It's performed by the Vermont Youth Symphony, which is an 85-piece orchestra. What I did was combine the intro to "My Friend, My Friend" with the middle section of "Guyute," and rewrote all the other parts for woodwinds and stuff. I took some of the sections that Phish did, kind of like that heavy metal section in "Guyute," and used it to write all new music. That was a result of the four months starting the day after the last Phish show. I'm more excited about that than pretty much anything I've done. That will answer your question right away as to whether I still like writing that kind of music, because I do. I just did it for an orchestra instead of Phish [laughs].
BB: Tell me more about the album you're working on with your touring band.
TA: I'd like to mix it in January and hopefully put it out in April. It will come out under my name. We had about 25 songs to choose from, and got it down to probably about 12 in the last week or so. The basic tracks are pretty much done. Some of them are more song like, and others are.. you know, what I'm trying to do now is take the experience of co-orchestrating this thing for the Youth Symphony and work on orchestration for the album. The idea is that, I've been looking at classics like "Songs In the Key of Life" and other classic Motown arrangements, where there was the use of a full orchestra in terms of sonic range, but still based around popular songs. I'm trying to combine those things that I haven't heard a lot of people do in a long time. It kind of disappeared in the late '60s.
One of the covers we did was "Will It Go Round In Circles" and "Ooh Child" by the Five Stairsteps. There's a full orchestra and horn section. It's over the top. I've always just loved that. To combine that with the "First Tube"/"Guyute" kind of thing... this is the cool thing about getting the chance to do something outside of Phish. Phish is only four people who could only do so much. But to be able to put together an eight-piece band with a 35-piece orchestra melded together, it just opens up a lot of cool opportunities.
BB: What songs might wind up on the finished album?
TA: There's a tune called "Last Tube" that is kind of a reaction to "First Tube" [laughs]. That's what I'm working on right now, writing an orchestral intro for it. If you heard it last tour, we weren't doing that yet. There's a song called "Alive Again," and a heavier tune called "Mr. Completely" which was on the [Phish] newsletter release called "One Man's Trash." I'm going to write more parts for that. It's been really fun. I'm just having a blast. It's cool too, to have this going on at the same time as Oysterhead. Oysterhead was all about the group mind. We tried really hard not to bring anything, because we wanted it to happen with all three of us. This other project is the exact opposite, where I have the opportunity to be completely in control and to have it come out exactly the way I'm hearing it in my head. You get the best of both. Phish is different than either of those two things. I'll write and do some arranging, but at the same time we always prided ourselves on the group mind.
BB: The "Live Phish" series of releasing complete shows kicked off in mid-September. Tell me about the original idea behind it.
TA: Well, the idea is one of those things that has been floating around for awhile, but again, we just didn't have time, you know what I mean? I'll just say that all this stuff ties in with Phish taking a break, just in the sense that we were wearing ourselves down a little bit. There were no bad feelings. Seriously. But when you ask me about the live series, the first thing that pops into my mind is, "why didn't we do it earlier?" Nobody had the energy to do anything. After [the 2000 New Year's Eve show at] Big Cypress [National Park in Florida], we were pretty well spent.
BB: I thought all three Phish shows in New York last spring were great.
TA: Maybe in a certain way, the music may have been better. It started to take on an emotional content it hadn't had, because we knew that... when we started to put this live thing together, all four of us unanimously said [it should include] only stuff from the last two tours. It was almost like we were embarrassed by everything up until the end. I thought those New York shows.. we were playing in a way we always wanted to play. We wanted to stop while it was still like that. We didn't want to have it dip down at all. We used to talk a lot about that. We knew earlier than anyone else that we were going to take a pause for awhile, but it was a matter of how we were going to do it and when. We knew it was going to go on before managers of anybody.
But interestingly, when we chose the [first] six [live Phish] albums, we wanted to pick some of our favorites, but then we read the fan votes, and some of those shows, I would never have listened to. They had requested eras like 1995, and I never thought those were any good. In listening to it, I realized I thought they were right. I got it. And this was after we had stopped, so it was a really cool learning experience. It made me feel very good about the choices we made, because there's an energy going on back then that is pretty undeniable, if you listen to the Sugarbush, Binghamton, and Worcester shows. The Worcester show is completely nuts. The band favorite is this one from Japan. That to us was symbolic of the way were playing at the end. We couldn't play that way four years earlier, and we had always dreamed about playing that way. It's just full-on teamwork. There's a jam after "Twist" that goes on for 15 minutes. Have you heard that show?
BB: Not yet!
TA: Man, you've gotta hear it. That's the best of the six as far as I'm concerned. The Sugarbush show has so much energy too. We were thinking, "boy, is there a way to take a break and chill out for awhile and recharge the enthusiasm of those early shows, but with the maturity and emotional content of the later ones?" That would be the goal. As it got deeper, there was a danger of it getting, "tired-er" [laughs]. I already feel like that is kind of gone. It's from doing all these other projects that you feel that spark again.
BB: Is the plan to make "Live Phish" a regular thing?
TA: Twice a year. The first was the hardest, because there was all kind of batting things back and forth. Nobody could decide. Now that one is out there, the second one seems very easy. There are a couple of shows right off the bat that we remember, that we always thought were really special. We decided it would be cool for the next one to put one out from the '80s. There's enough distance from Phish for the four of us now, where we can listen to '95 shows and not get freaked out. When we were still going, I couldn't have listened to that. All I would have listened for is mistakes, you know, "oh, this is horrible, the singing is horrible," blah blah blah.
Once we actually separated ourselves from Phish, it's like, "all right, that chapter is over." I can go back with clarity and listen to it. Now I really enjoy it. I think, "boy, I can't believe some of that actually happened!" It's nuts! Because when you're in it, you're so focused on making it better, every waking hour is spent thinking how can Phish be better. Whenever the four of us talked, we'd be like, "we should groove this song more," and if we heard an old tape, it would be like, "this is a nightmare!" But when we weren't doing anything with Phish at all, we could listen to it with clarity and enjoy it. We're thinking the next batch will be one from the '80s, and a couple of shows we've always liked. We'll probably ask the fans again for another three, because the sound is going to be a lot better. Some people have these tapes but have been pointing stuff out to us. That's been a lot of fun for us to hear. I think the next batch will be next spring, like May or April.
BB: So what is the status of Phish's hiatus? In your estimation, is the band any closer, or farther, from getting back together?
TA: Nothing has changed I don't think, except a feeling like I said, from the four of us, that we're really, really proud of the fact that we did the right thing. To me, it kind of feels better than ever, because I anticipate how I'm going to feel at the end of the Oysterhead tour. With all this stuff, you're challenged! You know?
Not that Phish wasn't a challenge, but I think [keyboardist] Page [McConnell] is in the middle of a project, and [bassist] Mike [Gordon] is in the middle of something. Everybody has kind of moved on. Mike is doing a new movie too. It's totally cool, you know? Not all the fans are all that thrilled, but there's nothing I can do about that [laughs hard]. The four of us are pretty happy, but we don't know what's going to happen yet. We're going to keep plugging forward and we'll see!