Phish’s Mike Gordon Appears With Leo Kottke On ‘The Talkhouse Podcast’

Phish bassist Mike Gordon and guitarist Leo Kottke appeared on The Taklhouse Podcast. The collaborators, who recently released their album Noon, touched on a number of subjects including what Mike learned from Bob Weir, Leo’s tips to play unpredictably, a literary recommendation from Trey Anastasio and more.

The podcast — which basically saw the musicians interviewing each other — kicks off with Kottke asking Mike about the moment he knew he wanted to play bass, which took place while a teenage Mike was in a swimming pool and a band was playing nearby. “I was queuing in on the vibration part,” Gordon said, “but not really registering that I enjoyed that until I was in the pool…I was in the pool and I pointed to the bass and said to my dad, ‘If I’m ever in a band I would like to play that instrument.”

Mike later asked Leo, “How in the hell do you deal with a bass player like me that is so varying and nontraditional?” “There are two Mikes, in my experience,” Kottke replied. “One of them is the one when we were in The Barn or at your house or wherever we are and we’d sit out and play where there’s no sound system, no recording, I refer to that when I get a little lost…because that happens in the instant we are doing it and we are managing to balance all of this. Not managing, it just happens and that’s what makes it fun. In the studio, it can be harder to find that.”

Hear Kottke talk about the “two Mikes” and much more in the entire Talkhouse Podcast below: