Phishin' For A Solo Career April 27, 2003 - Launch Music By David John Farinella Trey Anastasio is packing his bags again. Seems as if he's spent more time away from his Vermont home over the past decade than in it. Something wrong with Vermont, Trey? "Oh, I love Vermont," he offers. "I'm home more than you might think. I record at home. I do all my rehearsals literally at home, so if you add up all that time. I still love to tour, but I'm trying to set up my life so that I can spend most of my time with my family, but still follow me dream of traveling around the country and play music until I'm 102." That's right, you heard it here first: Trey Anastasio is retiring from music at 102. So, that's the official retirement age? "Yeah," he confidently states before changing his mind. "101, I'll say." OK, then. Turns out the thing that has kept him going for the past 20 years with Phish, and apparently will keep him going for a couple more generations, is the charge he gets from music. "Probably writing is the biggest charge of all," he says, "but playing live and recording and meeting all these people--I love it all. I feel very lucky." Anastasio has been writing music since he was in the 4th grade, and it continues to be his lifeblood. "I've written music somewhat habitually since I was very young," he says. "It's always been with me. I get really frustrated if I don't write something--if a period of time goes by and I'm not working on something, I get really crabby." You heard it here first: Trey Anastasio is retiring from music at age 102. So, that's the official retirement age? "Yeah," he confidently states before changing his mind. "101, I'll say." And that explains not only his ferocious work ethic, but also the variety of music that appeared on his 2002 eponymous solo debut. The blend of everything from jam to jazz to rock to African to soul that Anastasio lays down is something he's been feeling for a long time. "It's something I've been thinking about even pre-Phish," he explains. "Some of the earlier Phish music is probably similar to this in a certain way, if you listen to 'You Enjoy Myself' or 'The Divided Sky,' but I ended up in this band with three incredible people, and as time went on it took on a life of its own. I always dreamed of having a bigger band to write for with brass and strings. So this is pretty much a realization of a dream that I've been carrying around--to have a big band on the road, combining it with my style of music." Of the dozen songs on his solo debut, Anastasio--who is now releasing a live double-disc, Plasma--is closest to the last two tracks, "Last Tube" and "Ether Sunday." "I picked two for two different reasons. A lot of the songs on the album are kind of autobiographical and about my life in the last couple of years, which is sort of a new thing. 'Ether Sunday' was written in my backyard after this big party that we had, and my friends' names are in the song," he explains. "'Last Tube' gets the nod for purely musical reasons. That is the most obvious actualization of what I was hoping to do with this group, which is sort of a African/swing band/rock 'n' roll band thing. Basically the whole thing is a groove dance track, but it's got these layers of depth--the more you listen to it, the more you can dig deeper." Article Copyright © 2003 Launch.com