Back in the swim August 12, 2005 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch By Daniel Durchholz Solo Anastasio doesn't feel like a Phish out of water Trey Anastasio's summer took a left turn when the Zooma tour -- a multiband traveling show modeled on and sponsored by the jam-band-centric Bonnaroo Festival -- was canceled. The former Phish guitarist soldiered on, continuing to tour with his latest backup band, 70 Volt Parade. A new album featuring that group is on the way. Anastasio's rich musical life has found him working in a number of settings over the past few years, including numerous one-off projects and side bands such as Oysterhead and Surrender to the Air. When Phish finally said farewell, it wasn't a sad end for Anastasio, but rather an opportunity to try even more new things. In a teleconference for the about-to-be-abandoned Zooma tour, Anastasio talked about leaving Phish, staying motivated and what he thinks the future of music holds. Read on: On life after Phish: I'm hungry now. It feels a little bit like being reborn and having just had this amazing experience for 20 years, but one that was very, very intense and inward. We were very, very tight with our audience, and we were very, very far away. You know, we were always up in Maine. We were down in Florida. We didn't play with warm-up bands, and it was like a deep, deep diving into a relationship. That relationship is now over, and I just feel like I can't wait to get out and play with other bands and move around and play as many cities as possible. It's exactly what I would want to do right now and very different than what we were doing the last couple of years. On starting a new chapter in his career: The scary part and the simultaneously exciting part of leaving (Phish) behind is that I really don't know what's going to happen. It's kind of tossing the security blanket away. It just feels incredible and scary, and that's kind of what I'm looking for. On the kinds of places he likes to play: I think it doesn't matter for me now. I mean it's great to be in summer because everybody's in T-shirts and dancing, and I just love watching people dance when I'm playing. It's my favorite thing in life, at this point. But I like dark, dank, stinky places, too. I like it all. On what keeps him motivated: I'll tell you the answer to that question because it really just hit me like a ton of bricks, and I've been talking to my family and stuff about it. I'm in it for life. I tried to take eight months off after the last Phish concert, and now I'm back on the road, and I think it's just -- it's too late for me now. I can't stop. I'm so happy to be back on the road. I just took this big vacation, which was great. We were on the beach, but when I'm on the beach, I go nuts. I'm sitting there thinking, "OK, there's water and there's the sand, you know. Get me on a bus." I'll play wherever they'll have me, and that's the end. On iPod culture and the future of music: I really want to believe and I do believe that the computer and the iPod are going to have an effect on music because I feel like I see it happening. Some people could look at that like it's a bad thing. I don't see it that way. I think that you're going to have an informed audience. And just from experience, playing to an informed audience, you've got to go really deep. You can't put one over on them. People can discover styles, and I think that the lines may start to break down a little bit. With the computers and iPods and everything, people have, basically, instant access to the entire history of recorded music without having to search it out or anything. This guy who works for me in my office -- he's 20 or 21. And I'm thinking, "God, you're the first generation that has this powerful tool." There're definitely a lot of bad things about instant gratification, instant access, but there's got to be some upside to the whole thing. Article Copyright © 2005 St. Louis Post-Dispatch