Trey Anastasio Uncut April 2002 - Associated Press by Dominic Perella [Phish Archive note: Trey a new AP feature published this month. In order to gather the necessary info to write the article, the author, Dominic (who always has always put together incredible AP Trey pieces) conducted an interview with Trey. Below is the UNCUT transcript of the interview that took place at Elektra in New York City.] A Phish Archive Exclusive - I've been asked this not be distributed outside of the site. Trey, Dom, Pierce, Maureen Coakley from Elektra and another Elektra employee in the room. Trey: Can I tell you a funny story about that before we start.... So you know, we're supposed to do the show -- Oysterhead -- and we didn't have any material, so we were backstage writing material, literally, right before we went on. And all these tickets sold on eBay, it was crazy, I didn't know what was going on. So I go back in the band room after having dinner, and I sit down, it's Les, Stewart, Stewart's wife, Matt Stone and Francis Ford Coppola. It was like five people ...one, two, three, four... six people. So I was sitting there, and there's this awkward silence because nobody really knows -- I mean, Stewart knew Francis Ford Coppola. At first I was kind of taken aback -- I didn't know -- I mean, what do you say to Francis Ford Coppola? Dom: Or Matt Stone, for that matter. T: Or Matt Stone, I guess, right. So I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking to myself ... I wish I could tell you I actually did this. I didn't, but this is what I wish I had done. Break the awkward silence by raising my glass and just saying, 'I just need to make a toast, you know, it's not often that you're in the room with the man who is possible the greatest American director, the greatest film director that America has ever produced. And I know that we're all sitting here right now and we all want to start quoting lines from the movies, but I'm sure that happens every time, and I don't want to embarrass you, but let me just say, South Park was incredible!' Maureen: What did Francis' face look like? T: I didn't say it. (laughter) I've gotta change that story! That's how overwhelming Francis Ford Coppola was. I couldn't get up the nerve to actually do it. T: So now if you write that story, just write that I said it. I give you full permission. D: I'll get Francis Ford Coppola mad at me. ... So, Trey, what's going on, man? What are you doing in town this week? T: This week? D: Yeah, are you doing final, like, post-production on the album? T: Nope. I'm just here to talk to you. D: That's it? T: And to go see the Last Waltz. D: Really? T: Yeah. They have a 25th anniversary theatrical release. D: Oh, that's right. I wanna go see that. T: It was last night. D: Oh, it was one night? T: I think so. They were ripping down the signs today. D: Cuz I've never seen that, actually. T: Really! You know what, you must see it. D: Well, I was reading one of the papers the other, day, and they were saying it's the greatest concert documentary of all time, and it was gonna be released, and I thought it was more than a one-night run, so I was gonna... T: Oh, I think it's coming out on DVD. So they redid all the sound and everything, which sounded incredible. Oh, you gotta see it. It really is. D: Well, just the fact that -- what, Scorsese, right? T: Scorsese did it. D: The fact that Scorsese did a concert documentary -- T: You know the whole story behind it, right? D: Uh, well, I know The Band had all kinds of guest musicians and everything --- T: Well, it was their last concert, they had decided to break up. And it was 1976, at Winterland, and they were gonna film it, and they got Elton John, and Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young, Clapton, ummm, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, blah blah blah. So they served Thanksgiving dinner, to all the concertgoers, and then uhhh, they had an orchestra, and everybody kind of danced, and then the band came out and played, and throughout the movie you know he interviews them about their history. So it's pretty incredible. Oh, Emmylou Harris...(garble) D: Let's see, now, I guess, let me start by asking you -- I last talked to you in October, and you were all psyched up about this album, and you were gonna go into production, orchestration, dah dah dah, and I was wondering, what, other than that, have you been doing? Anything else? T: That took up most of my last six months, because you know I started the album pre-Oysterhead, and then I had to finish it and then I had to come out and mix it, and then I did take a month to disappear, which I really needed to do. I just finished that. A month of hibernating, and now I'm ready to start playing again. D: And the tour starts, what, in a month? A month and a half? T: I believe on May 20th or something like that. D: And it starts on the West Coast. T: I think it starts in Portland. D: You don't know what your added date is yet, do you? T: My added date? D: Yeah, everyone keeps talking about, there's gonna be an extra date added at the end of the tour or something like that. T: Who said that? D: It says it on your promotional materials. T: Oh, really? D: Or at least one added date, yeah. It says it on here somewhere. I just wanted to get a full list in case I need it. I guess you don't know yet, eh? T: I don't know. There was a -- I think it all depends of how things unfold, but I don't know. I kind of, uh... try not to think too much about that, I just kind of will play wherever they'll have me (laughs). D: Yeah, right. There's not too many problems in that regard if you're playing at Radio City. T: Yeah, yeah (laughs). Pierce: You don't mind if I shoot [film camera] during the interview, do you? T: No, no. Cool. D: Ummm... OK, oh, I know. One of the first things I wanted to ask you -- I was reading the press materials they sent with this, and one of the things you said is that you felt like with this album you're kind of trying to push the kind of music you do into a new area. T: Yep. D: And I was wondering what exactly you meant by that, in terms of, in terms of, do you mean the type of songwriting you're doing, or did you mean the instrumentation, or -- T: All of it. All of it. Ummm... I think that I have all these different areas that interest me, but really it's more of a -- somebody was saying to me the other day when I was trying to explain it to them that it was sort of like the Mashed Potato Mountain in Close Encounters. You know what I mean? So if anything it's trying to express some kind of emotion that, you know, that I carry around inside of me. And think that all of it, all of the kind of work that's done, the kind of craft end of music, in terms of learning orchestration, and working with horn sections and trying to familiarize myself with the history of music and play with as many musicians as possible is to get to the point where I have the tools to express what I'm hearing in my head. D: Do you think you got it? T: Well, sometimes I think -- I think that that's the interesting thing about music -- is that -- well, I'll give you a quote from my -- I have a mentor... D: Ernie? T: Yeah. And he said to me at one point, he said, 'now your head is out of the muck enough to see that there's a mountain to start climbing'. Well, you know that's music. I don't think you ever necessarily do it. But I could articulate it a little more through this album. You take Last Tube as an example -- I think it's all in there. Where it's a very -- it's a cross-rhythmic piece of music that grooves very hard. There's probably 30 musicians playing. There's bit of improvisation and bits of charted-out part depending on who the musician was. Like the bass clarinet lines are written out and the trombone lines and trumpet lines are improvised because the musicians I was working with, the trumpet player, was a great improviser -- Nicholas Dayton. The bass clarinet player is a classical musician. So you use whatever tools possible to get to this point, the music you're hearing in your head. And what I was trying to hear was a deeply grooving piece of music that had the spirit of improvisation but where it never becomes mundane or repetitive. So it's almost like -- I've been listening to a lot of big band music. The Sauter-Finnegan Orchestra, I listened to the most because they're two of the greatest arrangers, and it's a constant invention, an elegance, and creativity in these arrangements. Very deep. So I want to see if you could get to that point in the world of music that I live in which is kind of improvisational rock. You know? Instead of coming from a swing world, which is their world. You see what I mean? If you listen to that as an example -- that piece of music (First Tube) -- the horns are jabbing in and out, very tightly woven with what the guitar's doing, in a way that to my ear is a little bit unique. It's a very percussive and uh... you know, colorful way of using the horns. A little bit different. I almost wanted to use them like drums. Like, like, tuned drums. D: That's interesting. I've noticed that in the live -- in your live shows with this band, that the horns often have that quick burst, where it's often like a percussive instrument. T: Yeah! D: Or that there's sort of a flowing horn section. T: Right. So I was trying to, you know -- I've mentioned in some of the -- maybe in that press release, that I was looking at King Sunny Ade and some of those guys -- so, so, I wasn't trying to imitate them in any way, or do some kind of watered-down version of that, which is like classical music. What I was trying to do was get a band where, you know, there's 22 people in that band, and they all play little parts that interact, so I wanted to use that concept but instead of having 18 of them be drummers I thought that with the horns and with the organ you could add harmony to the picture. Which is like a third dimension of music. D: How do you feel about how the final product was? T: I feel pretty good about it, actually. And -- with all that being said, in the end -- (laughs) this is gonna sound crazy after what I just said, but I don't actually try to think about -- I don't actually think about it that much, because as much as I'm thinking about it, another thing that I'm thinking is to not think about it (laughs). Do you know what I mean? So the album kind of must reveals itself and I just go with it. D: Did you record it very quickly? Are there parts that are live and parts that are, you know, more sort of studio-fied, I guess? T: Yeah. But it was recorded quickly. You know how the famous Charlie Parker quote is 'practice, practice, practice, and then forget everything you learned'? That can hold true for composing or band leading as well as soloing. D: Well, I feel like you've sort of been doing that since 1984. T: Yeah. D: The way you guys practiced 'calling your own hey', et cetera et cetera, and then, on stage kind of do whatever -- I feel like that's kind of a long-term thing for you. T: It is. And it has to do with going out and playing with Les and Stewart, and doing the orchestra thing -- I'm just trying to have as many experiences as possible in all the different realms of music, where I have to be sitting down and charting, where I have to be sitting down and talking with older musicians and younger musicians, and so that, when it comes time to make an album, like this, then I don't even think about it. I just go into The Barn and hopefully it just comes naturally. If you listen to the first track -- 'Alive Again', you know? -- that was a very easy song to write. It just kind of came pouring out. But I guess maybe when you listen back to it maybe there's a little bit of -- hopefully some of the horn charts and stuff, sort of the harmonic content, starts to creep in so it just kind of comes out of you. You know what I mean? And I plan on doing that for years. (laughs) I just want to keep doing it. And that's the Mashed Potato Mountain. D: OK. I'm getting into the Mashed Potato Mountain metaphor here. T: You see what I mean? Eventually your goal would be honesty, or truth or something. Right? Eventually maybe you get to some point where you can reveal something or let go of something that is honest. D: You don't think you've done that yet, or maybe not as much as you could -- T: No -- maybe I think I have -- D: But you could do it more. T: Well, I think that when I'm reading sometimes too that I see a similarity between literature and music, you know what I mean, where you catch a glimpse for a minute? You read a book, you're like --'Ah, that's it!' Then you close the book and you're kind of like, 'Well that's not quite it.' (laughs) D: Well, I think a lot of times when a really good writer is writing the best they can write, they write things they don't even know realize that they're writing, because they're sort of in a zone. And you can see that they just had a kind of moment of abandon where they had something come out that they weren't even planning on, like, saying. You know what I mean? And I think that's what you're getting at similarly. T: Yeah. And if you didn't develop your skill -- that why it's like a craft, too. I'm sure that a chairmaker, or furniture, cabinetmaker, feels the same way. That you just, you know --- you don't want to be blocked by a lack of tools. You know what I mean? If you don't have a handle on the English language -- which, by the way, I don't think I do (laughs) -- you know that why I write music. Because I can't get there -- D: Believe me, I'm sure you can write English better than I can write music. I don't have any doubt about that. T: (laughs) You know, so, you try to find something that you have a grasp of. (Looks at Pierce). Photography. You know what I mean? You probably don't end the day and say 'I got the perfect picture.' It's just a constant -- 'oh, you know, I want to study more about light and natural light and artificial light' -- but I think it's all the same kind of quest, right? To get to some --- D: Absolutely. Until you get as close as possible. Well, maybe it's not possible to get that close. T: (laughs) D: We're getting really existential now. Let me bring it back in for a second. How was it on the Simpsons? T: Well, they got it! See, Matt Groening got it. He gets it every week. D: Yeah. T: It was great. It was great. D: It was pretty funny. T: Oh, I thought it was a great episode. Even not being on it, I would have loved it. Just that crowbar joke. D: I thought it was one of the best ones of the year. T: I did too. When Lisa says, you know, 'I killed the enemy. The Alpha Crow.' D: And the part where he first smokes and then he's sort of flying around. T: Oh my God, with the Donovan song? That was a Donovan song, right? That was unbelievable. D: Yeah, that was good. That was funny. T: Ummm. Hey, let me just say this before the existential thing ends. Like I'm talking about this stuff now, but I really do -- like, the whole point of like The Barn, and all these musicians -- I don't really think that way, sort of in the moment -- I think it's maybe a thing where I've just been keeping myself so busy -- ummm -- you can't get hung up on any of these little things. There's no time. Even to the sense of overdubbing a guitar solo. I don't think I would ever do that anymore. All this stuff is live. D: Did you guys do that before on some of the Phish albums? T: Yeah. But we were just -- we were in a bit of a --- we didn't really understand -- the album process was difficult for us because we were so -- so much of it was just moving forward all the time, long rehearsals where we would just abandon whatever we did and move on to the next thing. So much new material and new songs and new improvs that the concept of spending three months making one 50-minute piece of music that was gonna represent us for a year was very difficult. D: I remember you said on Farmhouse -- I think it was when Farmhouse came out -- that you felt like you had finally sort of figured out the album process more than you felt you had done before. T: I think I did. D: Do you feel like you've taken that even further with this new one? T: Yes. Definitely. I do. D: How is it different? T: I feel like -- umm, maybe part of the Farmhouse thing was getting into my own space, which is The Barn. I'm not saying all of it is great, or anything, but I'm saying I just became more relaxed a little bit. And now, ummm, how can I explain this? Well, I guess you pick up little skills along the way, and one of the things that happened with this album is I figured out that what I should do is just record everything. And -- because of digital technology and everything, you don't have to buy endless reels of tape. And also recklessly erase too. So what happened was, I had to get this band ready for a tour, and I had two weeks of rehearsal. D: You're talking about this last tour? T: The last tour. The previous tour. It was a tall order. I had to go out and learn a whole tour's worth of repertoire. We didn't have a repertoire. Nobody knew any -- you know, it was just crazy. And so, I was so concerned with rehearsing the band that you know, I had Bryce up there recording and a couple other people, and they wanted to out up dividers to get a good sound, and I said 'no, you can't, I don't have time.' So I had to take everything down and just stand there in the room and say, 'look, you deal with ... If you want to record it, fine' -- it was actually his idea to record rehearsals. And Cayman Review, which is the second track, is the first time we ever got through Cayman Review. I didn't even know we were recording. That was before... D: Before the tour? T: Yeah. Before Oysterhead and everything, yeah. And, you know, what would happen is at the end of the day, if there was anything that seemed real magical, Bryce would pretty much save it, and we'd just erase everything else. So we wouldn't have this -- we didn't have time to go back and listen to it all. And uh, so it turned out to be a valuable thing, just that as an example, because there's freshness to it, right? D: Yeah, I thought Cayman Review was a really strong track. T: It's real, like, bouncy, and airy, and that's because -- we didn't even know we were being recorded, we weren't really thinking about it. And then Push On 'Til the Day, which is the next tune, was the first song we played after the tour. The first song. We set up. D: It was literally the first thing you recorded after the tour. T: The first thing. All live. You know. Boom. D: Was it the same lineup as the tour? T: Same lineup. D: Did you have anyone extra on that one? I forget. T: Nicholas played on it. So that was the only kind of extra thing that went on. It's like the high trumpet? Uh, but other than that as far as I --- oh no no, and Cyro. But other than that it's pretty much live. Maybe there's some kind of overdubs or something but we were just so excited because we had such a good time on tour, we just came in and played. So maybe that part of the process, is just -- see, it's going back to the conception of a recording as a recording of a real event. And not a pieced-together thing. Which is what all recordings used to be. You know? D: So, do you think -- of the 13 tracks on this or whatever, how many of them are largely straight-through takes? T: I'd say just about all of them. I mean, there's overdubs where I worked with the orchestra and stuff like that, ... a couple of them are actually live, I think. I'm trying to think if there's any... I don't think I overdubbed a solo. They take too long (laughs). It's just a weird thing to do (laughs). D: Well, I could just say from writing, I feel like usually you sit down and punch it out, and if you sit and think about it too long, you start to lose whatever thought process you had that got you to where you were ready to write in the first place. You know what I mean? T: Yeah. I do think that. So maybe you learn that -- D: Some people don't. I don't know about music, but some writers function much better if they have plotted everything out to the Nth degree. But, I don't know. I don't think that's the kind of music you're making. T: No. D: So let me see about these questions here. I've gotten through one so far. Uhhh... OK. Here's a good one because you've been talking about individual tracks. Two part question: What's your favorite cut off the album, and then would you say that's the same song as your favorite of this material to play live, or is it a different one? T: Ummm.. D: That's tough, I know. T: It's tough because ... I'm really pretty happy with the way the album came out. I don't know if I can answer that question. Because I see it more sort of as like a diary, or a journal entry, of what I did. D: Like it's all one piece. T: Yeah. It would be hard to pull that out, and it does change from day to day. I mean, I'm always pretty happy with --- I don't think I can answer that! D: That's all right, you don't have to answer. T: You know, Last Tube is pretty cool, I would say. I really like Alive Again, I like the way it came out, I like the sentiment, the lyric, and the combination -- but Last Tube is ... there something about that. I like At the Gazebo too. D: I like that song. That's really cool. T: Yeah. But... D: I like Driftin' a lot. I thought it came out really smooth on the album. Even more so than when I've seen it live. It was almost -- it almost puts you in a trance when you listen to it. T: Yeah. Oh, I'm so glad. (laughs) Cuz that took a lot of, that took a lot of work in a weird way. That's one that actually did. Because I felt like it was very simple and kind of, uh, honest little song that kind of just popped out one day, and I wanted to make an arrangement that got a little of these little subtleties that we were talking about -- the cello, and the -- but I don't think that they're used in a real traditional way, but I didn't want that to get in the way of the simplicity of the song. So for instance the string quartet on the outtro, is a cycle, no one ever played at the same time. Chee-doo-boo-keeeeeee! You know what I mean? It's all rolling, and that comes from that same concept that I'm talking about about the horn section in Last Tube. I wanted to use all these instruments in a percussive, a group, collaborative kind of way. Not like, 'Here come the strings.' Yet I wanted that tone of a cello. But if you listen to it, like, the cello note comes up on two: Chit-Boom! So it took a while to piece it all together. And it's got that drifting guitar, and it all is a big cycle. If you really listen to it, it's something that goes all the way back to ... I always think of Bouncing Around the Room as the beginning of this thing where there's cycles. Patterns patterns patterns. And then I went through Twist - (sings) "Wouldn't twist around (high) Wouldn't twist around!" Tried it with vocals, and if you listen to the horn section of Split Open and Melt on Lawnboy, the horns descend, as a (sings) "dee-boo-doo-buh-dee-gah". And they all play off each other. So it's something I've been playing with for a long time. D: It's funny that you mention all those because I have a soft spot for all those songs. T: Well there ya go! D: I guess maybe I like it when you do that. (laughs) Those work really well when they're done kind of slowly and mellowly. You know what I mean? T: Yeah. D: I was listening to, um... sort of in comparing your new album to some of your other stuff, just to get my ear used to hearing it all, and one of the things I was listening to was the last Phish show, from California. T: Oh really? D: And you guys did a Twist that show and it was very sloooow and kind of quiet. And I just thought that was the best way to play that. Having it be circular like that is almost, once again, it's almost entrancing. I think I missed my subway stop (laughs). T: Maybe if you get -- I'm glad you let me know that. I'm learning something from this. Maybe if you get too carried away with it it just becomes overwhelming. Whereas soft and gentle you can still, you know, grab onto it, and not, you know -- maybe I've overdone it at certain times. But it is something that makes me, it puts me at peace, when I hear things like that. D; Yeah. T: For some strange reason. And so if you listen to it it runs all the way back...Piper. (sings) "Piper piper piper piper piper!" D: Probably the ultimate example right there. T: Yeah, and it's a six-beat pattern instead of a four, so it's kind of "Oooooooh!" And then even with that looping thing I do with my guitar. It's still the same concept. A bunch of layers that go -- and then if you listen to Alive Again, the horn bits -- (sings) "badahwoo-badahdiiii, duhbuduh, badidi" -- even in, you know, Cayman Review even some of the horn things do that a little bit. But Night Speaks to a Woman, that's like the rocking version of that -- (sings) "Night speaks -- like water -- Night speaks!" But you know -- (laughs) -- it doesn't sound like too much to my brain. Sometimes I wonder if it's just -- maybe that's why we were so into Tetris, cuz it's kind of musical Tetris. D: Yeah, I do. ... Hey, did you originally plan to have backup singers? T: (laughs) No, it just kind of happened, actually. D: You were just like 'Let's get some backup singers', or what? T: We got 'em for one thing. Originally I wanted them for Ether Sunday -- which, really, I love the way it came out. Auugh. It kills me. (sings) "Ooooh." And then, I mean, they were there, and -- that's what I mean about there's really no plan, it just kind of unfolds. And then they were there in the room, and they were really cool, I, like, really like them, you know? This guy Curtis, and Lisa, who's played with the Stones, she was just great, and we were just having such a good time, and then.. (Tape side 1 ends) D: All right. Pierce (to Trey, pointing at name tag he got to enter building): Is that your name tag? T: Yeah. Pierce: Could you put that on for a second? D: Always looking for a prop there, Pierce. ... So anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt. What were you saying? So then you just decided to have them sing on other tracks. T: Well then we listened to Cayman Review, and everybody's laughing, just kind of making it up. So we did that, and then the final clincher was doing Money Love and Change with Lisa. And that I actually asked her to come back, because I liked her so much and she's so good. And originally Jen was singing that. D: Jen the horn player. T: Yeah. She's also such a great person. An incredible talent. But, uh, Money Love and Change more than any song on there is kind of the opposite -- that's a very molded, overdubbed kind of -- and I just wanted to make it, like -- it seemed at the time to be more appropriate to the lyric, and I thought the lyric -- which I love, something that Tom wrote -- we actually wrote it together, that was one of the rare times that we just pulled out of the hat, he wrote the lyrics down while I was playing a guitar and we were just singing them together -- but I thought, to my ear, I really liked this point that he was making, and I thought the point was made more strongly in, like, a darker way. And also the whole 'change is the one thing you can count on'? You hear it live and then it comes out on the album completely different. And it's all changing and like morphing from one sound to the other. I was trying to do that. There was a lot of thought about that. I wanted the lyric to really be carried by the music. D: Why, um, --- did you get to pick -- forgive me for not knowing this. I'm not sure it works the same with everybody anyway, but do you pick the single? Do they pick the single? T: Uhhh, I did not really pick the single. I probably could've, but no, it was probably a committee of people picked the single. But I gotta tell ya, I was really glad, very glad, and surprised. I didn't think that was what they would pick. D: What'd you think they'd pick? T: I thought they would have picked, uh, Night Speaks to a Woman or Driftin. That would've been my guess. Or Cayman Review. D: Cayman Review would be a... T: But I was very very glad they picked Alive Again, for a lot of personal reasons. Not because I thought -- I didn't think, like 'wow, that's a hit single!' I didn't think anyone would play it at all. But I love the lyric and the sentiment and I really liked the performance and I really liked the arrangement and I've always had this dream -- I have this lifelong dream that popular music, whatever they're playing on the radio, will at least tilt back in the direction of when swing bands were the rock bands of their time. Because of their sophistication and elegance, musical sophistication and elegance, was combined with popular music. And it's gotten to be so --- you know, I like a lot of kinds of music, but it's really gotten to the point where it's almost, you know, learned stupidity. To the degree that it's just so, so, over the top now at this point that it's just ridiculous. On to Part Two > Transcript © 2002 The Associated Press