John Mulaney Talks Phish Fandom & Rock Hall Snub: ‘This Is A Crime’

Rolling Stone recruited comedian and late-night talk show host John Mulaney to break down the Roll & Roll Hall of Fame's Class of 2025 and the nominated artists that didn’t make the cut. The comedian, Everybody’s Live With John Mulaney and longtime Phish fan showed disdain for the institution’s voters snubbing the Vermont-based quartet.

“This is a crime,” Mulaney said about the first-time nominees and overwhelming winners of the 2025 Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Fan Vote. He also discussed the depth of his fandom. “I come on board around 1997 at age 14, 15. When I started listening to them, people at the shows told me, ‘You really missed it. It’s over now.’ I think it was after A Live One came out, people were like, ‘Well, you didn’t see the early years,'” Mulaney explained.

John Mulaney responded “yeah” when asked if “Phish is a non-brainer for you to get it” and reeled off other jam bands worthy of inclusion. “Phish, String Cheese Incident, moe., Disco Biscuits, Leftover Salmon. On every level, this was hugely important music to us. It really kept bands alive. The idea of a band in 1999 playing fucking guitars, piano, and drums was not always easy to find,” Mulaney continued. “In that documentary [Between Me and My Mind about Trey Anastasio], Trey said that Tommy Lee saw them on the cover of Rolling Stone and went, ‘Finally, a fucking band,’ and the excitement of that.”

The comedian also lauded Phish’s business acumen. “These people printed money. They are enormously successful. Most of my life being on the road, I have a real aversion to snubbing people that sell out football stadiums night after night but aren’t necessarily propped up by the industry,” he added.

“It’s not that the money’s important, but whenever the music business has gone up and down and up and down, they have just consistently brought their music to fans at a huge profit. People pay and travel to see Phish at a time when it’s hard to get people to click on Spotify. I wonder what it is [that didn’t get them inducted]. So many people like Phish; I’m sure so many people on the committee like Phish. I bet it’s oversight more than snobbery,” Mulaney noted.

John Mulaney then pointed out another reason Phish are important. “The music they introduced my generation to as well was hugely important. I learned to be eclectic from them. They were always getting compared to the Grateful Dead, but they had this whole world of influences that was really fun to pick up on and cross-check … Getting back into the Talking Heads. Getting into Zappa. That was all them. They also made you want to go to concerts. They’re just good for music and they have been for decades,” he said.

The Phish community has often been portrayed in a negative light. John Mulaney feels some music fans have the wrong idea about the band. “People that keep it at arm’s length and didn’t want to get into it because they thought it was their friend with the hemp choker in high school or whatever, we’re not dumb. They fucking rock. It’s not all Gamehendge [the fictional setting for numerous Phish songs], if that bothers you. I love it, but if that bothers you, it’s not all Gamehendge. It’s not all mythology and everyone in the crowd knows when to yell. The songs are great, we’re not stupid people,” Mulaney quipped.

John Mulaney recently recruited Phish to parody Seinfeld on the eighth episode of his Everybody’s Live Netflix variety show. Mulaney was asked if it was hard to enlist the band for the bit.

“No, they were great. We talked about doing a variety of things on the show, but they were on tour and they had their time in Los Angeles and it was the greatest,” Mulaney revealed. “I thought of it originally as, ‘What if they did a play of Seinfeld?’ I didn’t know what this would be for and then I thought, ‘Oh, it would be through the telescope we’d see them living as Seinfeld.’ It was going to be an ad for a Broadway show of Seinfeld starring Phish. We made it more palatable, a little.”

Head to Rolling Stone to read John Mulaney’s thoughts on the other 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominees and inductees.

Phish kicks off their summer tour on June 20 with their first of three nights at SNHU Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. Scroll below for all dates.