Phish's Anastasio Takes New Band, Groove On Tour July 15, 2001 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Kevin C. Johnson Phish rocked the music world last fall with the news that it would be taking a break from itself. Along with acts such as the Dave Matthews Band, Widespread Panic and the String Cheese Incident, the band was in the process of solidifying its position as one of the top replacements for the defunct Grateful Dead. Of all the jam bands out there, Phish's improvisational style and musical choices, ranging from rock to jazz to bluegrass and more, seemed most in line with what the legendary, late Jerry Garcia and friends gave us. Singer/guitarist Trey Anastasio, interviewed recently from his Richmond, Vt., home, offered little news for fans clamoring for information on the band's return. Though he has been speaking with Mike Gordon and Page McConnell, the three group members aren't yet ready to reunite, preferring to continue with whatever outside projects they're working on. "We have no idea. It's important that we have the genuine freedom to do whatever it is we want to do," says Anastasio, who worked for 17 years with Phish without a break. "It (the hiatus) was a great thing for us to do." But Anastasio isn't using this time away from Phish to simply stare at the ceiling. He's playing with a new band under his own name and headlining a tour coming to Riverport Amphitheatre on Friday. Anastasio built this new band from scratch beginning in 1999 as a trio with bassist Tony Markellis and drummer Russ Lawton. "I wanted to do this a few years before Phish took a break," Anastasio says. "I wanted to build the band from the ground up. I started with the drummer and bass player, wrote a lot of music based on rhythms, got together with them, talked about their history, found a basic groove and worked from there. Then I added other musicians along the way." Earlier this year, Anastasio added saxophonist Dave Grippo, trumpeter Jennifer Hartswick and trombonist Andy Moroz. And this summer, saxophonist Russell Remington and keyboardist Ray Paczkowski joined the band. The group has already worked on a few short, experimental tours, with this summer's trek the first big blast. The first show this summer took place a couple of weeks ago in Burlington, Vt., in a concert attended by Phish members. "One of the comments I got about the show was how different it was," Anastasio says. "That's exciting for me. It's a lot more groove-oriented in a more traditional sense." The group's foundation is built upon danceable African grooves, he says, aided by drummer Lawton, who formerly played with the African group Zebra. Bassist Markellis has a similar background. Nigerian artist King Sunny Ade served as Anastasio's role model, and Anastasio used a big band concept. "I wanted to step into a different world, with lots of musicians and everyone playing small parts as opposed to everybody taking turns doing solos. I wanted to combine that with African sensibilities," he says. Though Anastasio says he loves working with Phish, this new band comes with a certain freshness. "What you'll be seeing is virtually an entire night of new music, with some stuff from the last tour. But 14 songs are brand new, just written and rehearsed," he says, some of which will turn up on this new band's CD early next year. The presence of all these new songs in the show "might not appeal to everybody," he says. Not everyone can embrace a concert full of virtually unheard songs. There are no Phish tunes in the set, though there are a few songs that Phish has performed before. Regardless, he says, this is something he really wanted to do, and audiences are taking it well. "The place was rockin' the whole time," he says of the Burlington concert. "That's really important to me. That's one thing that's exciting about new music. You don't know where it's going to go. "If there's one thing I learned from Phish, it's how to pace a show. There was a lot of emphasis with Phish on making a great night for the audience. I have a good feeling for what people want with summer concerts, so despite the fact that it's pretty heavily grooving, it's deep in ways people are looking for."