60 Memorable Trey Anastasio Quotes For The Phish Guitarist’s 60th Birthday

Ernest Joseph “Trey” Anastasio III celebrates his 60th birthday today. The guitarist was born in Fort Worth, Texas on September 30, 1964 and co-founded Phish in 1983.

The incredibly prolific Anastasio composed most of the songs featured on the band’s 16 studio albums, released 11 solo LPs and has taken part in a bevy of side projects including Oysterhead, the Trey Anastasio Band, Ghosts Of The Forest, Trey Anastasio and Classic TAB and Dave Matthews and Friends, among others.

Trey Anastasio has been the de facto frontman of Phish throughout their 41-year career. While Anastasio expresses himself primarily through his guitar, he’s the band member who does most of the talking on stage. Trey has also given hundreds of interviews since the quartet’s early days in Vermont and subsequent rise to become one of the highest-grossing touring bands in the world.

The guitarist is rarely at a loss for a clever soundbite. In honor of the Princeton, New Jersey-bred musician’s 60th birthday, JamBase has compiled 60 memorable Trey Anastasio quotes. Each of the quotes laid out below are organized in chronological order running from a chat with a Burlington newspaper in 1992 through recent interviews and press materials promoting the release of Phish’s latest album Evolve.

Celebrate Trey Anastasio’s 60th birthday by reading 60 of his most memorable quotes below:

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Starting In Burlington

“Had we not come from Burlington we wouldn’t have made it as a band. There would have been pressure to play other kinds of music, to do certain kinds of gigs. Also, in Burlington, there are all these musical influences. There are so many good players.” [Burlington Times – 1992]

Explaining Phish’s “Big Ball Jam”

“We have these colored beach balls which we throw out into the crowd in the middle of any given song. Each ball corresponds to a member of the band and we play according to the bouncing of the balls. If someone grabs ahold of the ball, I’ll play a sustained note. Essentially, we’re giving control of the music to the crowd. We’ve also got this secret musical language where we have signals within phrases. A certain combination of notes might mean we’re all going to do something like suddenly fall flat as if we’ve been hit by a giant hammer. So right in the middle of a big jam it’ll be doo-doo-dum-dum-doo, then boom. Everybody drops to the ground except the people who didn’t catch the signal. The whole idea came from thinking ‘Wouldn’t it be weird if you walked into see a show and for no apparent reason, everyone in the place suddenly fell dead?’” [Philadelphia Inquirer – 1992]

Departure Of Original Phish Member Jeff Holdsworth

“There’s a song on Junta called ‘You Enjoy Myself.’ All that stuff at the beginning was sort of written out, ‘composed’ stuff where it goes to do do do do do (sings) before the words come in. It was the first time, myself and Jon (or Fish the drummer) had gone to Europe, and we were playing street music. While we were there I wrote this thing, ‘You Enjoy Myself.’ I brought it back to the band when we got back and I said, ‘Let’s learn this.’ That was it. Right then. The tension started with Jeff. It was like beating his head against the wall. He thought it was stupid.” [Edge City Magazine – 1993]

Writing “Fast Enough For You”

“The one song where we felt like we really did it was ‘Fast Enough For You.’ It’s completely almost so embarrassingly personal. I don’t see how his wife could even listen to it. What happened was, they were having these problems a little more than a year ago, they were going to get married, they were engaged and he decided, ‘I don’t want to get married.’ The wedding date was set, everyone was ready, he was freaking out about the whole thing. He always is sending me letters in the mail with poems in them. These poems started to get more and more heavy. That was one of them. It’s basically saying, ‘Nothin’s fast enough for you, why can’t we just wait?’ At the same time this was happening, well, we’re on the road eight months of the year, we all have girlfriends and we all have plenty of problems trying to keep these relationships going …

“All this stuff was happening, and there definitely was this conscious thing where [we said], ‘Let’s see if we can do it? Let’s see if we can write about something that’s real in our lives.’ Talking back and forth to Tom [Marshall], a lot of songs we do over the phone, trading lines. Since then we’ve written more songs. We just finished one that is absolutely the heaviest, most depressing thing I’ve heard (laughs). It’s so heavy it makes that stuff look light. I can see it now, for years people have complained about us as being too light hearted, ‘Why don’t they write about something real?’” [Edge City Magazine – 1993]

Connection To Phish Fans

“There’s a real feeling between us. I don’t feel like I’m performing at the audience. It’s like a party. Or it’s like some night in high school, where you blew off some plans and, instead, you and your friends stayed out all night. You went to the lake and watched the sun rise. It was a spontaneous bonding experience that you remember all your life. That’s how I feel at a show when everything goes right. It’s much more powerful than a planned-out show. When people have that experience, they’re hooked.” [San Francisco Chronicle – 1994]

First Jam With Béla Fleck & The Flecktones

“When we take a risk and fail, I don’t feel like it was a failure. I feel like it was a failure when we don’t take a risk. When we played with Béla Fleck’s band (August 21, 1993), we decided to get everybody up onstage and just go for it. Everybody played at the same time. We did that for an hour. We never even met these people before. It was wild. Some of it was bad. Some of it was great.” [Guitar World – 1994]

Phish’s Influences

“For a long time, people were saying, ‘These guys have so many influences – what are they?’ That always pissed me off, because I don’t know what we are, except we’re a bunch of kids that grew up in this country, and this country is a huge melting pot. So what could be more American – not in a big patriotic flag-waving way – what could be more real, as an American band, than to be a big melting pot for all these styles?” [JamBase Steve Silberman Interview – 1994]

Chicago “Divided Sky”

“I had a really incredible experience once when we were playing in Chicago. It was a really special night, and I was envisioning the music flying around the room. You know the concept of being the tube, and the music is flowing through you? I was really open, we were doing ‘Divided Sky,’ and I felt like the music was these sheets that were zinging across the air in front of my face. All I had to do to play was jump on one, and let it do the playing. I got to that section of ‘Divided Sky’ where we usually do a pause, and I realized that just because I wasn’t playing notes with my hands didn’t mean I couldn’t still be a vehicle for this music that was there. I decided I was going to have the same feeling as when I feel the music going through me and coming out through the guitar, but without making any noticeable sound. I started imagining the music zipping out through the middle of my chest into the audience, and right when I started doing that, the place erupted. No joke. It was the wildest thing. We were standing up there for 45 seconds, motionless, with no sound, and I realized I could continue jamming in silence. I did it, and the place went, ‘RAHHH.’ It was the coolest. I was writing in my journal about it for a week.” [JamBase Steve Silberman Interview – 1994]

Writing (Or Not Writing) Hit Songs

“If you had an audience screaming for the hit song, it’s never going to happen. You have to have people who are there for that spontaneous moment where you rise above normal limits. I’ve had gigs when I haven’t slept for a really long time, that have been incredible, because you’re too tired to fight it, so you let go. The one thing I’ve learned in the last two years is: the best shows, you really are not in control. I’ve been reading a lot of interviews with great musicians – Marvin Gaye, Art Farmer, Sun Ra – and they all agree on this philosophy. The music is a vibe in the universe that goes through you. Even the pop songwriters – the greatest songs that they wrote, it wasn’t hard. It was just this moment when they woke up, the sun was shining, and the song just poured out of them.” [JamBase Steve Silberman Interview – 1994]

A Conduit Of Music

“The way I look at it is like being a filter. The music exists in the universe, and if you’re lucky enough, or strong enough, to get your ego out of the way, the music comes through you. The audience that we have is open to that. They understand that conversational transfer of energy. Their being open to it makes it easier for the energy to pass through.” [JamBase Steve Silberman Interview – 1994]

Accepting The Unknown

“We want to have a spontaneous adventure where anything is possible. You can’t plan an adventure, or it ceases to be one.” [U.S. News & World Report – 1995]

All “Four” One

“If anyone quits, it’s over. It’s history.” [Boston Globe – 1995]

Introducing Fish With “Hold Your Head Up”

“The story of ‘Hold Your Head Up’ is Fish hated that song so much it drove him crazy. Fish has this funny aspect to his personality where you can really get him. So, in band practice, we’d start playing that song. He didn’t think it was funny at all. He’d get so mad, he’d storm out of practice. Every time we were about to learn something serious we’d get three notes in and we’d start, ‘Doo-doo-doo-dooohhhhh.’ The three of us would be laughing, and he’d just hated us. He’d say, ‘You guys, it’s NOT FUNNY ANYMORE!’ Then he came up to do one of his songs one night, and we started playing it. He got really pissed, so we just kept doing it. It’s just something that we do to Fish.” [Dupree’s Diamond News – 1995]

Figuring Out How To “Split Open & Melt”

“Songs have a will of their own. two or three years ago, we were never playing ‘Split Open And Melt.’ It just was off the song list. It just wasn’t in us. Then all of a sudden, it started to get good. At the end of two tours ago, we started played the ultimate ‘Split Open And Melt’ jam, and we put one of them on Hoist>.

“We just discovered how to play it, because it’s got this really weird time change that was throwing us off. But that one at the end of Hoist was the first time it clicked. ‘Split Open And Melt’ went from being a big pain in our butt to – this is how you play ‘Split Open And Melt.’ For the next year, it was incredible.” [Dupree’s Diamond News – 1995]

Critical Response To Phish

“I mean there was an article in Rolling Stone and the writer didn’t even go to the show and he trashed it, I mean that kind of shit. It’s like, we play a three and half hour improvisational concert that ebbs and flows and has all these stops along the way, and we throw out a bunch of beach balls into the crowd or something because it’s fun, and it takes about two minutes. You know the lazy journalist is going to talk about that. And I think partially we don’t get press because it’s harder to write about an intangible thing which is undoubtedly powerful despite the fact that it’s intangible. People hear it and I know they hear it because they’re showing up for the concerts. And I guess that’s part of what bothers me about being compared to these other bands.” [Addicted To Noise – 1995]

Band Intent

“All we’ve ever tried to do is make good, honest music that speaks to people. The rest tends to take care of itself.” [Guitar World – 1996]

Phish’s 1990s Popularity

“We don’t need to get any bigger. We’re not trying to. All we’re ever doing is thinking of putting on a good show.” [Calgary Herald – 1996]

Reassessing Rift

“It could have been great, but we tried to cram every idea we had into it. As a result, it’s largely unlistenable. I still think that there are segments of great, groundbreaking music on that album, but it’s just too much to digest.” [Guitar World – 1996]

Jamming With Medeski, Martin & Wood In New Orleans

“I don’t generally like saying this because I don’t like to stomp on someone’s experience – and people did come up and say New Orleans (October 17, 1995) was an incredible experience – but I personally didn’t like it. [Laughs.] I liked that we were on a limb. I’d much rather jump off the cliff than walk on the path, and we jumped. But I thought we were sucking.” [Guitar Player – 1996]

Reactions To Hoist

“Sometimes I think that people’s being upset about things we do is a little nuts. But during the time of Hoist we got a lot of nasty letters that in my heart I had to agree with. The combination of all the things that happened around that album signal to me that we had caved in to the pressures of commercialism. I can’t look myself in the mirror and deny that.” [Guitar World – 1996]

Talking Heads’ Album Remain In Light

“It’s one of my all time favorites, a really influential record for me. I may have listened more to this album than any other album, ever. I practically learned how to play guitar by listening to Remain In Light. When I wanted to practice something new, I would put the album on and jam along. This was literally my guitar-practicing album; it was so much more fun than playing over a metronome.” [Phishbill – 1996]

Recording The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday

“We learned The Man Who Stepped Into Yesterday and recorded it in our living room as quickly as possible. We recorded it onto one cassette, bounced it to another, and added the lyrics on top so the words come out of one speaker and the music out of the other. I’ve always felt as though it were an unfinished project in a way, because we decided to record what became [Phish’s debut album] Junta rather than develop Gamehendge fully. What you don’t get when it’s performed live is all the scored music performed underneath the narration, although some of it, like those little descending bass lines, got recycled in tunes like ‘Esther.’” [The Phish Book – 1998]

Phish Gets Funky

“What we’re doing now is really more about groove than funk. Good funk, real funk, is not played by four white guys from Vermont. If anything, you could call what we’re doing cow funk or something. I only know that when I’m playing it, I feel like a big ass floating in the water.” [The Phish Book – 1998]

1998 Island Tour Banter

“So it’s getting near the end of this little four day run here … It’s been really fun and it’s kinda weird having to stop after four days but for those of you who came to a lot of the shows or for those of you who just came tonight, thank you very much. We really appreciate everything. And um, I started this little funk groove because we can’t um we can’t end this whole thing without a little bit more funk since that’s kinda been the theme. So just — for those of you who want to take off, take off, but for those of you who just want to dance to the funk, you know uh we’re gonna stay around and keep grooving. So, thanks a lot. It’s really been fun and we’ll see you guys this summer.” [Phish April 5, 1998 Concert]

Big Cypress Live Television Address

“Hi everybody out in TV land. We are live from the Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation. Thank you for joining our party tonight. Before we play our song, I want to send a message of peace and love in the 21st century, a simple message that will keep everyone happy. Please remember: the right lane is for traveling and the left lane is for passing. Stay out of the left lane unless you’re passing and let’s have some peace and harmony in the 21st century. Thank you.” [Phish December 31, 1999 Concert]

Grateful Dead Influence

“You know, there’s aspects of the Grateful Dead that I love, there’s aspects of, you know, Boston that I loved, but that’s who I am. You know, I’m a child of the ‘70s and that’s kind of the point with people trying to be, oh, ‘I’m gonna be the next Jimi Hendrix. I’m gonna be the next Jerry Garcia,’ whatever. You’re not, you’re 20 years younger. You didn’t grow up listening to Del McCoury. You didn’t grow up listening to blues. You grew up, I’m saying this about me, you know, going to a high school in New Jersey. Or in eighth grade, I was in New Jersey, going to the mall, and listening to what was on at the mall and then I had to search out for some kind of depth.

“The suburban white kid is part of history, whether you like it or not, part of American music history. We are, take it or leave it, you know, it’s happening. So, to those critics, I just have to say if you don’t like it, that’s tough shit, you know, because we’re, it’s too late. Here we come. [Bittersweet Motel – 2000]

Risk Taking

“If you’re gonna take a risk, sometimes you’re gonna play shit, you know. And somebody comes and they pay their $20, and you get up there and you play shit that one time, and then they’re like, ‘You know, well, this is terrible. These guys are urinating in the ears of the listeners, and they’re happily lapping it up.’ But I don’t think our fans do happily lap it up. I think what happens is they get on the internet and talk about how it was a bad show, you know … People aren’t there to see us get through all the sections perfectly. I thought people were rocking. That’s all I care about.” [Bittersweet Motel – 2000]

Responding To A Bad Review

“What an amazing job I have. I get paid to urinate in people’s ears.” [Bittersweet Motel – 2000]

Finding The Groove With The Trey Anastasio Band

“I was really in the mindset of writing a kind of music that combined classical composition with rock ‘n’ roll energy that wasn’t progressive rock, you know what I mean? When I wrote ‘First Tube,’ ‘Sand’ and ‘Gotta Jibboo,’ that was after a couple of years of the four of us talking about how important it was to us to groove. It had never been our strong point. If you listen to early tapes, you know, the groove was the last thing that we thought about.

“For a couple of years, starting at the end of ’96, we started talking a lot about how we were going to improve the groove. Finally what I did was I set up a power trio tour with two musicians that I know who do nothing but groove: Tony Markellis and Russ Lawton. You know, Tony’s never taken a bass fill in his life. He refuses to. All he thinks about is groove. So I got them up into the barn and I had them start grooving.

“I said, ‘start to groove in the key of C sharp.’ So they would groove. And I told Russ, ‘I want you to play the simplest beat that you know on the drums, the beat that you’ve been playing since you were 12-years-old, the easiest thing you know,’ and he did.

“And then I said, ‘Now Tony, join in in the key of…’ whatever and we did one in each of the 12 keys. And then they left. Then I wrote songs around these grooves and I took what I thought were the best nine or 10 songs written in that style and brought them over to Phish.

“So, the songs were written completely from the concept of groove first. We had to learn new grooves in Phish and it’s probably the first time that you’ve ever heard Mike [Gordon] play the same three notes for six straight minutes.” [Jambands.com – 2000]

Building The Barn

“As a band, we’ve learned that we’re most comfortable in our own space. Recording studios have a cold atmosphere. You’re paying by the hour, and you have to deal with this strange staff and their command hierarchy. In your space, you make the decisions.

“This barn is where we practice, so we were really relaxed when it came time to record. It’s a vibey place that was originally built out of salvage. Some of the doors are from India, hand-carved by monks 400 years ago. I had in the back of my mind that someday the band would bring our recording in-house, so a lot of thought went into turning the barn into a space where we could successfully make music. For example, it’s fully insulated–a necessity, given that we recorded Farmhouse during the winter in Vermont.” [Guitar Player – 2000]

On 9/11

“The magnitude of this tragedy – I can’t even begin to comprehend what has happened. I can only hope that we will have the sense to move forward in a way that doesn’t inflict any more suffering on innocent, impoverished people in the name of revenge.” [Rolling Stone – 2001]

Writing For The Stage

“Everything I wrote, for years, until maybe right at the end, was written around a show. So I’d write a second-set closer, or ‘Alright, we need a slammin’ tune, or a real fast thing, or a slow thing. We need songs in every different key, or people’s ears are going to get bored.’” [Rolling Stone – 2001]

2001 TAB Shows With John Medeski

“I hope this doesn’t sound manic, but I’ve only slept one out of the last three nights. John Medeski was just here — he’s going to play with us on a couple of dates so our keyboard player can go to a wedding — and we had a big bonfire and stayed up all night listening to Ravel, drinking wine and reading scores. We went to bed after the sun came up. Well, actually he went to bed. I stayed up. I had to wake him after an hour, and he was just a wreck. We drove to the airport with him in a heap in my backseat.” [San Francisco Chronicle – 2001]

First “Last Show” In 2000

“I don’t think anyone knew . . . we were just doing it to entertain ourselves. Honestly, and I mean this, if you had said, when this was all going on, that we would actually be a successful or famous band someday . . . that was all just a complete shock. We always knew we’d be a cult band. People who liked us really liked us, right from the beginning, from the first show. But we would just do this stuff, and have these rituals where we would play all night long, and it was amazing. It just was amazing, it really was. Right to the last minute, we ended this last show in San Francisco, and we were doing ‘You Enjoy Myself,” which was always, we felt, the song. It ends with a vocal improvisation, and it was just so emotional. I felt such a huge wave just to think that for seventeen years we were focused on this thing. It was overwhelming. And we just went backstage and sat there for hours.” [Rolling Stone – 2001]

No Analysis Rule

“Let’s say I’m on stage and I just played some horrible, crappy thing, but you know nobody can say anything about it, so you’re free. Then you don’t even think about it. You just start really living in the moment. It worked for a couple of years. And then, at the end, we started talking about this hiatus. It was almost like an extension of the next level of the no-talking rule. It was sort of like the no-playing rule. In San Francisco, after our last show, we went back into the band room and we barricaded ourselves in there for four hours, just talking.

“The idea was: The best chance we have to take music to the next level is to go out of this and assume we’re not in a band anymore. If we find ourselves on stage standing next to each other again, it’ll be because we can’t stand not doing it. As soon as you put a limit to that length of time, then everything you’re doing in the middle is just killing time until Phish starts again. You won’t fully immerse yourself in projects with reckless abandon in the way that you would if you had no plan to get back together as Phish.” [High Times – 2002]

Response to “Fluffhead” Crowd Chant At It

“Mike says ‘no.’” [Phish August 3, 2003 Concert]

The Impact Of Big Cypress

“We went through this millennium concert, Big Cypress in Florida. We played all night. We played from — we played actually two days, but the last set was from 1:15 or something on the, you know, New Year’s Eve until 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning. It was incredible. And it was for me, the greatest — it was the pinnacle. And when we came off stage, I looked at our drummer, Fish, and my best friend, and just a man I love dearly, and we looked at each other, and we both had tears in our eyes. We were like, we should stop. It just felt like the wave had crashed into the shore. And we didn’t. But we went on for about another year, and then we took this hiatus as an attempt to revitalize. And when we came back, it was just different.” [Charlie Rose – 2004]

Trey As Concertgoer

“I probably only saw two rock concerts that completely transported me. One was Bruce Springsteen in 1978, he was doing ‘Rosalita,’ and every single person in the entire arena was locked to that guy. That made me want to be a live musician. The other would be the first and second times I saw the Dead. And what I saw was a guy — oh, no, no, no, one other, Zappa. I saw Zappa a number of times, and he was just — he was this intense. But Jerry Garcia was an absolute wonder to behold. When he walked on stage, he had every single person in that room riding on his every eyebrow move, and I have never — I go to so many concerts, I’ve never seen it again. And now I know that some time has gone by, how lucky I was. He was such a great singer and such a great songwriter, and that’s the thing that I don’t see people talking about as much. But when I went and saw the Dead, what I saw was people singing along and hanging on this guy’s every inflection. And it was done with tremendous soul. He was the most soulful singer, I mean, I’ve ever seen. Really, I think that. I really do believe that. So when people started saying that, when he died, next this, it really bothered me. There’s never going to be a next Jerry Garcia or a next Grateful Dead.

“I don’t know if you ever saw Little Feet when they were — when Lowell George was in the band. You know, that’s not going to be replaced. Lowell George was another one of those guys like that. You know, there are certain people that just are — Zappa, you know, that kind of thing, that kind of level. But I thought that Jerry was almost like the modern day Bill Monroe in a certain degree, where he invented — you know, Bill Monroe invented bluegrass. You wouldn’t have Alison Krauss without Bill Monroe. But Alison Krauss wouldn’t be bold enough to say I’m the next Bill Monroe, you know what I mean? And I think that when you talk about having a jam band scene, it’s directly — they invented it.” [Charlie Rose – 2004]

What’s In a Name?

“The band is called Phish because Fish is the drummer. If I went and saw Phish, I’d be watching Fish.” [Specimens Of Beauty – 2004]

Love Of Phish

“I feel, and this is the honest truth, and I would like to say this to whoever is listening that loves Phish, and I love Phish, Ok? Nobody loves Phish more than me.” [Charlie Rose – 2004]

Making Choices

“I just did whatever Page told me to do.” [92Y Interview – 2007]

Ernie Stires’ Impact

“So much of that unique sound you heard with Phish was taught to me by [Stires]. I want to express something that’s been on my mind for the last five years. I’ve always wanted to somehow have a moment when I could convey to some degree what all of this meant to me and I know to the other guys, too. It always felt like we were part of something that was so much bigger than the four of us. I think in retrospect it feels like it was even bigger than our group of friends and our scene. It felt almost like a cultural kind of timing thing. As a musician, I feel like we’re servants, and that musicians from the beginning of time have been there to express the mood and the musical feelings in the air for whatever’s going on in that particular culture, whether it’s like rock and roll or swing band music. You play at weddings, you play at funerals, and it’s the greatest joy as a musician to be able to translate that, be part of something, and watch the scenery around you. That’s what it felt like being in Phish all those years.” [Jammy Awards – 2008]

Nectar’s Legacy

“There would be no Phish without Nectar’s. Usually there wouldn’t be that many people at the beginning of the night. People would come and go, and would just kind of swell. Eventually, it started getting really packed, which is why we had to stop playing there. But for a long time, it wasn’t. We really took things out at Nectar’s.” [Phish: The Biography – 2009]

Halloween Costumes Effect On Phish

“I hope it [Exile On Main Street] rubs off. Historically, the albums we’ve covered at Halloween have, in one way or another. Maybe that’s why this one is appearing here, at this moment. When we did The Who’s Quadrophenia [in Chicago in 1995], I didn’t fully get it – that band’s power – until we got into the arena and played it. When we did Talking Heads’ Remain in Light [in Atlanta in 1996], it was the African polyrhythms and the singers crossing over each other. We took that away with us. It’s funny that it took a British band to make this connection with American history and great songwriting, with that emotional content. But we’re learning from the best.” [Phishbill – 2009]

Turning To Sobriety After Arrest

“What I thought at the moment was the worst thing that could happen was absolutely the biggest gift I’ve received.” [NY Times – 2009]

Phish’s 2nd Hiatus

“Over the four years we were apart, everybody took time to get their personal lives back on track. The fact is, we’d started at the age of eighteen and had been going at a ferocious pace without a real break. I mean, we took that hiatus, but I just went right back on the road during the hiatus without a real break. It’s a much more healthy atmosphere, and it’s made me so happy. I really can’t describe how filled with gratitude and happy I was at those three shows. And actually I’ve felt that way the entire the tour, every night.” [Phish: The Biography – 2009]

Lessons From Little Feat

“We may have learned more from Little Feat than any other band. When we started Phish, we wanted an experience – dancing, fun, togetherness, while sticking in the crazy influences and time changes, the funk and African things. But those guys were doing it all along. Little Feat were the gold standard.” [Phishbill 2010]

Hanging At The Barn

“The Barn was set up as a model of the way I wanted to record in the future. It’s not really a recording studio; it’s kind of a hangout place. The Barn was put together with salvage: There were no plans when we put it together. It was improvised. There are stained-glass windows and ramps and garage door openers that were turned into elevators. There’s no control room; everybody’s out in the middle of the room. You don’t even know you’re recording an album. You drop your guard and start to have a good time.” [Trey.com – 2011]

Phish Albums

“People often react a little strongly and crazily when they hear us play something new. Every time we’ve put out a new Phish album — literally every time — a certain contingent of fans has felt that the band they know and love is coming to an end. It’s never true.” [Phishbill 2013]

Connecting With Tony Markellis

“I saw Tony playing at a club called Hunts in 1982. I had flown up to Burlington on People’s Express to look at UVM to see if I wanted to go to school there, and The Unknown Blues Band was playing that night. I spent the entire set watching him, mesmerized. I went up to the stage afterward and talked to him. I remember it like it was yesterday. Once again, it just felt destined. Tony played bass at my wedding. Fish was the best man. Tom Marshall, Steve Pollak, Page and Mike were the groomsmen, so people come into your lives and they become part of the fabric. Who knows why?” [JamBase Interview – 2017]

From Nectar’s To Baker’s Dozen At MSG

“I guess I’ll give away a little secret I’m carrying around in my heart here. A big part of the reason that I’m so excited to do something like a 13-night residency in one venue is that staying in one place contributes to a looseness in the atmosphere that we may not have felt since Nectar’s, which was for all intents and purposes, a big giant residency. Staying in one place can lead all kinds of cool things. You get comfortable with the sound of the room, which can lead to a certain freedom in the jamming, and also there are definitely more songs that I would love to try with Phish that TAB plays. A couple in particular that I’ve always thought would really work.” [JamBase Interview – 2017]

Dream Bandmates

“[T]here might be one tiny itch that I could identify somewhere deep down in my soul. When I was in high school I always liked playing in bands with two guitars. Like, two guitars, bass and drums. Four-piece. I have fond memories of playing songs off Machine Head by Deep Purple, Sticky Fingers songs and whatnot. Songs like ‘Sway,’ which are the sound of two guitars, together, slogging. So, sometimes I kind of imagine doing that one more time in this lifetime. You know, making some noise. Derek [Trucks]? You interested? James Hetfield? Want to check out my barn? Flea? You busy? Joe Dart? You free for a weekend?” [JamBase Interview – 2017]

A New Kind Of Mojo

“There was a time, three or four years in [to sobriety], where I thought I had lost my mojo. I had lived my life with reckless abandon to great effect — just pushing every boundary that was in front of me. If there was a fence, I’m gonna step over it. And then to be in this thing where if you jump over the fence, you wake up in a blue suit. In a cell. It kind of turned me into a cautious person. I was really nervous and scared about everything for a while. I would drive the car at 49 miles an hour, with nothing in the car, and still think I was going to get pulled over and yanked out of my life by some authority figure. Sober people around me kept reminding me ‘More will be revealed’ and ‘Just keep going,’ ‘Don’t quit till the miracle happens,’ and all those sayings they have. And lo and behold, they were right. I thought my mojo was gone, but you find a new kind of mojo.” [GQ – 2019]

Evolution Of Excess

“When I first got sober, someone said, ‘Is this going to be hard for you to go back, without the rock ’n’ roll excess?’ And I said, ‘No, because for the first 15 years, there was none of that.’ We played chess a lot, and Tetris.” [GQ – 2019]

A Helpful Mindset

“‘Trey, you’re a sick person trying to get well, not a bad person trying to get good.’ In 15 years of sobriety and being very actively involved in sobriety work, I have found that those words are incredibly true.” [Jenna’s Promise – 2021]]

Complex Compositions

“I still play that way [theme and variation] in every single Phish jam. I’m searching for a theme, and that’s the essence of a lot of the compositions. ‘My Friend, My Friend’ takes a theme and runs with it. The middle of ‘Stash’ sounds heavily composed, but it’s really a simple phrase that goes through different key changes. The middle part of ‘The Squirming Coil’ is another example of a Phish song that takes a little piece of the melody, stretches it out and then divides it.

“That’s so valuable later on as a guitarist when you become an improviser. During a lot of Phish jams, I’ll land on a simple phrase, almost childlike, and then run with it. Some of my favorite improvisers work that way. The best example would probably be [saxophonist] Sonny Rollins. He would do these long improvisations building on a theme that was very childlike, but not childish.” [Guitar Player – 2022]

Albums vs. Live Shows

“The complaint over the years has been ‘Why don’t Phish albums sound like Phish? There’s one Phish I see live and one Phish I hear on albums.’” [Evolve Promo – 2024]

The Beloved Beacon Jams

“‘The Beacon Jams’ is the best thing I’ve ever been a part of. I can’t believe it worked. The fact that it was free, that we raised money for a good cause, that we were connecting with people during COVID when no one was allowed to do anything, plus we had the large band, and the strings and everything. We were the only lit marquee in the five boroughs, and we kept the staff employed. The doormen were crying every day, there was so much emotion everywhere. Plus my daughter was involved and everyone was on their computers at home. When we played ‘What’s the Use?’ with the strings, that’s real emotion you are hearing. It’s one of the most artistically satisfying things I’ve ever been a part of.” [Vulture – 2024]

Phish’s Last Song

“I would say probably ‘You Enjoy Myself,’ with the vocal jam. That’s got to be the last song. To this day, I don’t know exactly why it works, but it works. It was on our first record, and it put us outside the mainstream. Nobody knew what to make of us. I remember when I brought in all these charts to band practice, and it’s, like, all atonal composition in there. I remember handing it to Page, and he was like, ‘I can’t wait to play this.’ He loved it. And then we added all the other weird stuff, and it still puts a smile on my face whenever we play it, because it brings me back to those years. It would be a perfect song to end with.” [Rolling Stone – 2024]

If Somebody Quits Phish, Is It Over?

“That’s it. Listen, line me up and shoot me when I’m wrong. But there is no way that this band could exist without any of the four members.” [Rolling Stone – 2024]