Trey Anastasio Picks Seahawks To Win Super Bowl

When the Seattle Seahawks won the NFC Championship we had a feeling there would be lots of Phish talk thanks to the Vermonters new-found relationship with the Seahawks. We haven’t been disappointed as lots of media outlets have picked up on the Phish/Seahawks connection. The latest is USA Today which has just posted an interview with Trey Anastasio, who has picked the Seahawks to win Sunday’s Super Bowl.

When asked about his prediction for the big game, Trey responded “I’m a Seattle fan. We love playing in Seattle and love visiting. You know, I lived in Vermont for 25 years and I think that there’s been sort of a kinship between people who live in the northern corners of the country. You know what I mean? I love Seattle and we love playing at the Gorge. The other thing is that Russell Wilson played at Wisconsin, which is another big town for Phish. We sort of felt the kinship with them. We used to play the Barrymore Theater and it was at the Barrymore Theater that we met one of our managers who still works with Phish. There’s a history there too. But, yeah, Seattle’s going to win.”

Anastasio, a Jets fan, noted it’s tough to write a song about his favorite team, “This is the funny thing — in reality I’m a Jets fan (laughs). I love football. I love watching Russell Wilson play, for many reasons, he’s a little guy who makes it work. It had crossed my mind that if we had a song called Mangold, named after [New York Jets player] Nick Mangold, I probably would have suggested they use that. He’s probably my favorite football player right now.”

Trey at Super Bowl with my neighbors good friend from college pic.twitter.com/y2R8NStMQ1

— Tim P (@tphunk) February 3, 2014

When asked about the “Wilson” chant and how it all came together Anastasio exclaimed, “The funny thing is that the Phish audience came up with that chant on their own and it’s always been loud when they’ve done it. I guess it sort of crossed my mind last year when I was in Seattle. Russell Wilson was having such a great season and was so inspiring and I kind of said something at a concert and apparently people picked up on it.” For more on the origins of the “Wilson” chant and how our editor Scott Bernstein was involved, read Scotty’s remembrance of the night the chant started. Big Red also got a huge kick out of the Spokane Elementary School students that chanted “Wilson” in their cafeteria.

For more of Trey’s chat head over to USA Today’s website.