WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1556 - Trey Anastasio

Episode Date: July 15, 2024

Despite Phish’s enormous following, frontman Trey Anastasio still sees himself as an outsider. Trey talks with Marc about his earliest influences, which were not jam bands, but groups like the Jackson 5 and musicals from Broadway. They also talk about the pressure Phish encountered after Jerry Garcia died, how the party scene surrounding the band spiraled out of control, and how Trey’s deep connection with his bandmates served him well when he was at his lowest point.  Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Picture this, you're at a picnic with pals and bam, you suddenly feel unwell. But going to the clinic, not the ideal weekend plan. Well, those days are over. Maple's Virtual Care has got your back with 24 seven access to licensed doctors and nurse practitioners within minutes. Need a diagnosis or prescription?

Sorted right from your phone, right in time for your next picnic. Download the Maple app today and have more summer this summer. Hey, it's Jessie Crickshang from Phone a Friend, here to tell you about a very special episode presented by Airbnb and Acast Creative. I had the pleasure of hosting Kat and Nat

from Unfiltered in my Airbnb. Can I ask you this? I don't even think I know how you met initially. High school. You remember, grade nine in high school. Yeah, grade nine. No, I did not know that. That's great. Do you want the PG version? No, I don't want the PG version. We're holding champagne. When your guests are staying in your Airbnb, I think technically you can ask them anything. And I did. Listen to Phone a Friend wherever you find your podcasts.

Hey, folks, this episode is sponsored by Squarespace. And if you want to know why, go check out WTF pod.com to see a website powered by Squarespace. And as much as we love our website, you can practically do anything you can imagine with Squarespace to create a website of your own. Make and share videos, start email campaigns, create special members only areas, and use AI to write text and descriptions. Head to squarespace.com slash WTF for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code WTF to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com slash WTF.

All right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucking adians what's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is our, this is our, it is ours. It's our podcast. This is our podcast. Welcome to it. If you're new, just have a seat and hang out and listen, it's been a Challenging and scary and fucked up a couple of days and I'm in Canada so It's different here. I You know arguably I'm ignorant in in many ways I think but I definitely am ignorant as to how politics works

in Canada. I know it's not ours and because of that I'm in sort of a politically free zone in a way. There's a reprieve up here because after the events of the last few days, if I were down there with you all, if you're in America, I could feel the crackling panic in the air and the little vibration of terror that is ongoing in the hearts of many. And up here, I don't, you don't feel it much.

I'm not feeling it much. It's an interesting, it was an interesting place to take in the events of the last few days, which I'll talk about in a second, but I do need to tell you today, Trey Anastasio is here. The guy from Fish, many of you never thought it would happen. I'll be honest with you, I didn't think it would happen, but I do talk to Trey in a few and I'll get more into that. Listen, I'm, I'm, I'm literally setting up this show like it's a TV show more, more about that in a few minutes.

But look, you know, I'm up here and someone tried to shoot Trump and, uh, I took that information in from word of mouth. And then I did some, some, I looked at the news on my phone. I'm not tapped into American TV or news. So I was kind of just processing it from, from print. And look, I went on stage last night or the night before last, the day it happened after I had a little bit of information and it was one of those things.

And I've talked about this on stage before, about the type of comic I was, the type of comic I am, but there is an element of me, and I don't think it's unusual now, and I'm just talking about my own experience, where some part of me, because I had no one really to talk to up here about it, who is American, I didn't even talk to, I up here about it, who was American.

I didn't even talk to, I don't think I talked to anybody that day on the phone even. But so I'm a little isolated, but I had feelings and I needed to work it out. And the way that I work it out is through standup. I mean, I work things out here, but I become fairly calculating about what jokes I do

that I'm working on in my act or whether I should even bother doing some jokes here. This is a different format obviously the podcast. I go down to the Comedy Underground here in Vancouver. I'm just gonna do a guest spot and it's on my mind and I feel I have a lot of feelings going into it. This is an awful thing is one of the feelings. Political violence is awful. And that we're coming to that.

And also that Trump is probably issuing. It might seal the deal. So all of that is kind of churning in me. And also like, how do I approach it? How do I approach it comedically? What are the risks? And now do I want to do it? Now that question is an interesting question heading into what is most likely an authoritarian America. Like do I want to do it? Like there's other questions you know about it and I don't think people really kind of take into account the

full you know what's at stake here, how dire it is, certainly up here in Canada, they don't. And I think a lot of people in America don't really, what's at stake, what an authoritarian America looks like. We don't know, but you know, all this talk about project 2025 and what that implies, I mean, to really sort of wrap your brain around it, it becomes much bigger than me going like like do I want to bother telling this joke if I'm going to get some weird

tension and angry reaction from people that think differently that is Self-censorship at its best and it's protective and it's like what what's the point fuck it and look the jokes were easy, but they were funny and they were of the moment. And you start to realize things like, well, is there even such thing as too soon anymore? I mean, I don't know that there is any too soon. You just do it as quickly as possible because, you know, by the next day it could be too late. It's just the pace of media now. But like I'm heading into this, I'm trying to figure out how to approach it,

because I do want to release some steam. And that started to make me think about, well, what does it really mean? Because on some level, as a thinking person, as a rational person, you have to start to accommodate the idea and realize that, you know, authoritarianism could be real, and that it's somehow we're gonna have to adapt to it. And there was an interesting thing that my buddy Peter sent me about that day. It came from, I don't know if it was the New York Times, but it was an account post shooting.

And it just said, as people passed the press risers elevating the cameras, some took out their anger on the media. Others sought out the cameras to offer eyewitness accounts, but they were jumbled and sometimes contradictory amid the panic. And then this line, the crowd trudged glumly to the parking lot, a few stopping for a last minute hot dog or snow cone. That's most people. We're talking minutes, less than a half hour after you want to grab a, you

want to grab something to eat. That's most of America. That's the America on both sides. It doesn't seem to know what's at stake. This show is sponsored by better help. I'm a guy who all my life and up to this moment really compared myself to other people as a means to beat the hell out of myself. And resentment is a tricky thing because it serves no purpose other than to make you miserable

and judge yourself constantly. Through a lot of different avenues, I've done a lot of work on that and I can identify it and separate it from my better self. But it took work. And here's the thing, I've worked on negative comparisons in therapy and talked about what it really means when I'm resenting other people's success It's something we all do and it's something we can all get help with if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try It's entirely online designed to be convenient and flexible and it works with your schedule

Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash WTF today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelpHELP.com slash WTF. Okay folks, so look, many of you were right in assuming that there would never come a day where I would interview Trey Anastasio from Fish because quite frankly, it was not antagonistic. It was not hostile or necessarily judgmental because to be honest with you, my position

was I never listened to Fish. I never listened to them. I'm not a jam band guy. I don't like hearing anybody noodle for too long I mean, yeah, I like the Grateful Dead, but it wasn't because they were a jam band They were kind of a template for what became that Years later, but you know, I can only take so much of that noodling I definitely skip over space and drums and if I get went to a dead show, once space and drums started, I'd go to the bathroom. Sometimes even when Bob was singing.

But the point is, it was not, I guess I judged the phenomenon of jam bands and jam band fans, but not really based on anything other than, you know, it's not my thing. But the bottom line was when people were insisting and I got a lot of email over the years and on Twitter that you got to interview Trey and my position was like, I don't want to do it because it would be disrespectful because I don't know their music. People have sent me books, they've sent me DVDs, and I appreciate you missionaries for fish, I appreciate it.

But I just never sort of got around to it. And I made a joke about it, like I don't know how much life I have left, how much time I have. I think I did it on, not too real, the other one, more later maybe. But here it was, it kept coming, and then people started to work the angle of like,

you know, he's a recovering addict, and you guys could have a great conversation. I'm like, I get it, but I just don't want to be disrespectful. But there is also the issue of like, and it's something they say in AA rooms a lot. It's a quote from Herbert Spencer, who I think that's his name.

He turns out not to be a great guy, but nonetheless, there's this quote about aversion to the program, which is Contempt prior to investigation and I was guilty of that a bit, but here's what happened so trays out he's been out a lot he's done a lot of stuff and You know, he gets pitched again. I'm like, okay. Well, let's do it. Yeah I'm gonna have to try to you know wrap my brain around him but I think that if there is a story about struggle

with addiction, at least that's a through line. And also he's got an incredibly large discography. There's a lot of fish records, there's a lot of side projects, there's a lot of stuff out there that he's made, his art. And I talked to Brennan about it. I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna, you know, have the time to listen to all the fish records.

But the weird thing was, and look, this is, it's just the way it is. It's like there's plenty of things all of us don't know anything about or we're adverse to all of us don't know anything about or were averse to just because of whatever and I before Trey came over a week or two before I started listening to early fish records and I gotta be honest with you. They were nothing like what I expected

You know, they weren't it's not hippie music They were nothing like what I expected. It's not hippie music. It's actually very rich and musically expansive in terms of virtuosity, but also style. It's probably closer to Prague than it is to hippie music. So I was sort of like, oh my God, I had no idea. So heading into this interview, I'm a guy that just discovered Fish. Now whether or not this isn't stuff that every Fish fan knows, right? I don't know. I don't know any of that.

But this is the conversation I could have honestly with Trey. So, you know, I think it went pretty well. He's a nice guy, you know, we texted afterwards and, you know, probably go hang out with him at some point. But their new album, Fish's new album is called Evolve. The summer tour continues through September and their festival in Dover, Delaware kicks off August 15th. Go to fish.com for details. It's funny because a publicist sends these things out, like Fish's new album, their new tour, their festival,

their shows at the Sphere in Vegas, the new Recovery Center he opened in Vermont. That was all given to me by the publicist, that he has all those things to talk about. I think we talked about maybe one of those things. I'm not sure what we did talk about, but we talked and here it is. This is me talking to Trey.

Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? Here's the thing. If your business insurance coverage renews on autopilot each year without checking out zensurance.com, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to a low-cost policy from Zensurance. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting, ensuring you're only covered for what you need. Hey, it's Jessi Crickshang from Phone a Friend here to tell you about a very special episode presented by Airbnb and Acast Creative. I had the pleasure of hosting Kat and Nat

from Unfiltered in my Airbnb. Can I ask you this? I don't even think I know how you met initially. High school. You remember, grade nine in high school. No, I did not. Do you want the PG version? No, I don't want the PG version.

We're holding champagne at noon. When your guests are staying in your Airbnb, I think technically you can ask them anything. And I did. Listen to Phone a Friend wherever you find your podcasts. ["Friendly Wife"] How are you doing? I'm doing great.

Yeah, I don't know if you know the history of me and you and the band and your fans. You don't know any of that. I know nothing. You know nothing of it. And see, like, you know, this stuff never trickles up. It trickles down. No, no, no. But never up.

Well, I'll be honest with you. Yeah. So, you know, for years, you know, I've had fans of yours that are like, you gotta talk to Sheree. You guys are gonna get along. And I tell them, no, no, it's fine. But I tell them like, I don't know if I'm a fish guy. I mean, I know I'm not a fish guy.

Yeah. And I don't want to insult you. You're really not. I'm used to this. But you know a fish guy? No, I know people who are not fish guys. You can tell? No, no, I can't tell.

You just know publicly? It's deeper than that. Oh really? How so? Well, we've always been that. We've always been kind of the strange uncle at the barbecue standing over in the corner for 41 years. So I'm very used to it.

You're not insulting me. Go ahead. But it's not, but the weird thing was, is that, and I was trying to figure it out, trying to put this together, because unless I relapsed on blow, I would not be able to cram the catalog. No, no. I'm not gonna be able to catch up at this point.

Even if I set my life to it, even if I said from this point on, I'm just gonna do fish, I don't know if I can make it before I die, through all the stuff. Probably not. Probably not. But it's always been like that, it really has. Yeah.

So, over time- And I'm not insulted. Good. But it's my own fault, I'm admitting my own faults here because I, you know, somehow or another, you know, put, like, cause I was, you know, I like the dead enough. I'm literally just a year older than you, a year and a few days.

Yes. And it's crazy, right? So you're coming up on it. I'm coming up on it. Do you feel it? I feel great. I like it. It's a good stage.

I'm finding it's a beautiful stage, 60. Approaching 60. You do? I do. Do you like it? I don't know. Maybe because of your journeys musically, the great unknown is less pressing.

But there are times where I realize the age difference between me and my parents, who are both alive, because they had me when they were young, is similar to the age of women I date. And all did, like, you know, all of a sudden, they're just like, they're only a couple years older than me. You know, when did that fucking happen? My parents. So it's a little scary that time gets a little crunched.

Yes. And I don't obsess on it. I don't obsess about it, but I feel it. I feel like, all right, well, this is it. You know, I'm on stage, I talk about, like, you know, at 60, you're not like, here we go! You know, it's sort of like, let's level off a little. I find it to be relief.

Yeah, how, why? There's nothing left to think about other than aging gracefully. Yeah. You know, being the observer of all the beautiful things. Yeah. I feel like that at shows. I don't know, this... I'm happy at home. I like my couch.

Yeah, but this is new to you. Something new is happening and I like it. It's been 41 years that we've been in the band. We get along. Everything's great. It's been a real blessing. Like I said, we've been kind of on the outside from the beginning. It's, um...

And I like it there. I think I like it more than ever at this point. I would think so. I mean, you know, when I started, like, you know, I lived with deadheads in college, you know, but the fishing became this, you know, it became this line I had to draw in a way. You know, and Dave Matthews, I've publicly spoken negatively about. The fishing became this line I had to draw in a way.

And Dave Matthews I've publicly spoken negatively about and I don't even know the guy. I'm very good friends with him. What's the problem? There's no real problem. It's just like, there's something about, I was in New York when the jam band thing was starting to sort of gel.

Tell me. Like at wetlands and stuff. Cause we share a lot of, we've been a lot of places, they're the same places. We have. So you've done some research on me? I did a little bit. I watched your 92nd Street Y.

Of course I know I've listened to you. Oh my God. And you were talking about Perry Street. Sure. I've spent a lot of time in there. Yeah, that's one of the few places I go back to. When I go to New York, I'm like, well, I gotta go there. I gotta go to the, it's almost like a museum of recovery. It's rare that you find those places.

You know, and there's only a few, there used to be one up at Times Square, the Al-Anon House. Do you remember the Al-Anon House? Yeah, there's a few still, the mustard seed. Oh, right, yeah, sure. The little room. They're around.

Like at the Al-Anon House in Times Square, like there was a lady there that knew Bill. You know, it was one of those things when I got sober, it was like, you know, she was like, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if she fucked him or not, but it was like. Probably. Yeah. So, we share that.

But when I started to isolate in terms of, like, I had a misunderstanding of fish entirely because like, you know, I started to get into it because I knew I was gonna talk to you. I was sort of like, all right, well, let's talk. People insisted we have, you know, we're gonna get along great. And I was like, all right. So, and so I listened, like I'm listening to FISH,

like I'm going all the way back to the beginning and I'm like, oh my God, they're not even what I thought they were. And I've been making this judgment. You're not a hippie band. We're more of a prog rock band. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I'm like, what the fuck was I thinking?

It's like, you know, I'm listening to this stuff and I'm like, all right, I hear Zappa, I hear Crimson. Love Crimson. Yeah, I hear, there might be a little Mingus in here. There's some Santana and And then some kind of a strange Django Reinhardt-y shit going on. You love Django Reinhardt. One of the biggest, I've spent more hours

listening to Django Reinhardt than just about anybody. So I just felt- As a guitar player. Yeah, I just felt like an idiot. I'm like, you know- No, no. Because I knew you guys were a great band, but this outsider thing that you're talking about,

it, I mean, I guess it was sort of foreshadowing because, like, really everybody has to go find their own audience now. You know, that there's no groupthink around it unless you're a huge pop star. So, but somehow or another, you guys carved this place for yourself, but you still see yourself as, like, an outsider?

I think I always did. or another you guys carved this place for yourself, but you still see yourself as like more, an outsider? I think I always did. Yeah. When I was, I remember the first two records that I ever owned. What were they? My parents got me a record player in about third grade. Right, right. And they gave me the Jackson Five third album.

Uh-huh. With, you know, I'll Be There. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And West Side Story original cast album, which my mom grew up in the city. My grandmother was a single mother in New York City in the 40s, and my mother has lived in the city her whole life. Really? So... They're from Des Moines, Iowa.

Okay. How'd she end up in the city? My grandmother worked at Grey's Advertising. That was a big one. That's like the Madman advertising. She was not even Peggy. She was Don Draper in a certain way. She ended up being a vice president as a woman. Wow. My grandmother was from Des Moines, Iowa.

Yeah. And her husband left during World War II to run off and be in the war like everybody did. Yeah and When he never came back the first husband he died and she worked at a country radio station She did die over there. No, he came back but he met a woman. Oh, yeah I want to ran off but um, he She ended up moving to New York to get she worked at a country radio station I think was and then she tried to get a job at WOR,

next country station, and ended up getting a job at Grey's Advertising. You know, taking people to 21 for three martini lunches and all that stuff. Oh, she was like the groomer. Mm-hmm, and then ultimately ended up doing copy and doing ads and stuff like that. So my mother was in New York her whole life,

and they were big into the early Golden Age of Broadway. So the first albums that I ever got, my mother gave me the collection of her original cast recordings of Golden Age of Broadway and a Jackson 5 record. Well, that's interesting because that would inform, that would wire you to do, because you are a theatrical band and you do, there's full arcs to some of the shows. Yes.

And there's themes that go in and out and then you have giant hot dogs, which I just saw at the Rock and Roll Museum. Yes, we're in the lobby. We are in the lobby of the Rock and Roll Hall. Yeah, they're in the lobby now. But here's the sad thing, I was just there, you know, a month or so ago, and I know a guy there, and he's gonna take me into the vault, you know, and we walk into that main hall, and they're like, that's the fish hot dog.

And I'm like, I don't even know how that was used. I mean, like, I'm so, but I felt bad. I could no longer keep my judgment. But clearly, the musicals informed something. Well, it was, it was, I became interested in the power of orchestration and the power of composition, and that was really what I wanted to learn as a young musician. And also, this is going to sound really funny, but I remember getting that Jackson 5 record, and it was, you know, a kid singing beautiful record. If anybody wants to go back and read, I mean, I wore it out.

And that would be, that would give you that sort of. I'll be there and all those songs. That R&B kind of wiring. Yes, and then, you know, Leonard Bernstein and this kind of mystery of how harmony and orchestration and arrangement and form can wring this emotion out of music. And it's sort of a lost art.

So when I was 18 and went to college, I wanted to study that, and I found a mentor. His name was Ernie Stiers, and he was a composer. And so most of what I studied when the band was starting, and I was writing, you know, atonal fugues and big band arrangements, and listening to Django Reinhardt, Art Tatum, a lot of, you know, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, that's where he was playing me. And he would teach me how to, you know, I'd read all the books, Foukes and, you know, all the counterpoint books and stuff like that.

It's a lot of that is in... You can hear it kind of awkwardly and creeping into the early records. So when you're growing up though, like, why is your mom leaving New York? She's still there. No shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lifetime.

Well, she got married and went to New Jersey. I grew up in Jersey. What part of Jersey? Princeton, my dad lived in Pennington for a while. Yeah, we've actually had a similar arc. Jersey, yeah, I was grew up in Jersey. Married a Jersey girl, married a girl. Really?

Freehold. I was born in Jersey City. And both my parents, my dad's Jersey City guy, and my mom's like, Pompton Lakes, Northern Jersey, wherever the hell that is. You know where that is? What exit are you? Yeah, I don't know, off 23,

or the Hamburg Turnpike or something. Yeah, I always say I'm genetically Jersey. Yeah. But, well, that's crazy. But so, your dad, what is the name? Anastasio. Yeah, Anastasio, Anastasio. Well, that's crazy. But so, your dad, what is the name? Anastasio. Yeah, Anastasio.

My grandfather was born in Veticamonori, Italy. So my grandparents are Italian. My father's 100% Italian. How do you look like you look? Your mom was what, Swedish? Well, it depends on who you ask. My grandmother, my Italian grandmother, who is my greatest love in life still to this day, claims that

it's in Northern Italy. They have red hair. And then my mother is Irish. And they got married very young too, very young. Yeah. And they're both still around? They're both still around. They're great.

And just, yeah, they're divorced. They divorced when I was in high school. And you've got brothers and sisters? My sister passed away. I had one sister. That was a long time ago. And, you know, grew up in Jersey and... It's so weird, because we were like the same age,

but my first records, you know, I had that little record player that opened up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember I had, you know, the first records I bought were like, Mountain's greatest hits. Good one. I remember it.

Only because of the cover. Did you have cream? Because I had cream too. You must have had cream. I had The Beatles' second album. Oh, that's a good one. I had Jethro Tull's Aqualung for some reason. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't have cream, but there was this box of tapes

my parents had that had Johnny Cash, Wife of San Quentin, Bobby Gentry's greatest hits, and like Jerry Vale. Oh, and the one that seared my brain was that Cosmos Factory. Oh God, yeah. Holy shit. Yeah, my dad had that in the box.

Right, that guitar lick on up around the bend. What is that? And the cover. Yeah. That made you want to be in a band, I mean, because I did. Yeah, those guys look like they're on crazy. He also had the Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and English Yeah. That made you want to be in a band. Yeah. I mean, cause I did. Yeah, those guys look like they're all crazy.

He also had the Joe Cocker, Mad Dogs and Englishmen. That's a good one. Also a cover that made you want to be in a band. It was everywhere then. I just learned as an adult that that solo on Bye Bye Blackbird is Jimmy Page. There you go. And when you listen to it,

you're like, how could you not know that immediately? But those records that we had first, and I had the Partridge Family records, I don't want to admit that too much. In the bin, my parents' bin, there was Band of Gypsies. I remember very clearly. My parents' bin had Janis Joplin's Pearl. Bang.

But I used to look at that cover, and all I knew was that she died of heroin. So in my mind, it's like, that's heroin. Like how does heroin do it? But then you turn the record over and there's that, you know, the band. What was the name of that band? Big Brother and the Whole. And I'm like, oh, that's heroin.

Cause she looks so beautiful on the cover. She did. And they had Let It Be. And they had Melanie. And then Simon and Garfunkel. Of course. That was on a lot in the house. Yeah. I mean, it was a great time to grow up with music. And they had Melanie. And then Simon and Garfunkel. Of course. That was on a lot in the house.

Yeah. I mean, it was a great time to grow up with music. No Grateful Dead. No. Huh. Grateful Dead thing for me was, I liked Zeppelin. I liked Cream. Cream was the first band that, you know, when I had high school bands or middle school bands.

Yeah. that when I had high school bands or middle school bands. The thing about that Jackson five record I gotta say, people forget how it was everywhere. I remember feeling like, oh, I can do this. This is a kid. I can start writing songs and being in bands and stuff like that because it was a kid. I didn't know that at that point in time that it was, you know, not him writing the songs.

Right, sure. But whatever. It was the Motown Machine. That album came out in 1970. I think he was like 11 years old. Yeah. And it was like, it was, it made you feel good. It made you feel good. And then Cream was probably the first band

that I started to really get obsessed with. Was it Sunshine of Your Love? It was all that, yeah. And then Sunshine was probably the first band that I started to really get obsessed with. Was it Sunshine of Your Love? It was all that, yeah. And then Sunshine of Your Love. And then White Room. That was it, first bands. And then of course Zeppelin, all the Zeppelin records. Oh my God.

All the Zeppelin records. Yeah. And that's the thing about Guys Our Age, is that we're coming into that late. We're coming into everything late. Like I can't, and that was one of the reasons why I might've missed the fish event, is because I was trying to do my thing.

Like during the 80s, like I was only focusing on comedy. Yeah. And like, and I was in New York, but I wasn't going out. I didn't get, you know, there was a few things that were unavoidable during that time because of airplay. Yeah, yeah. But I wasn't going out and searching for new music. Yeah, I was trying to be a comic.

Then my whole life was spent, you know, looking at, you know, people talking in front of brick walls. Yeah, yeah. And that's all I did. So I missed a large swath all the way up through the early aughts of music, new music, because I was doing what I do. And I've always liked music, but I just missed it. And, and I went to Burlington.

Now, did you? Yeah. I, when I hit the wall on drugs out here, the first time I got sober in 88, I was a doorman at the comedy store. And I'd coked myself into psychosis with Sam Kenison. And I was seriously compromised mentally. And it took a year and a half to get my brain back. And it really did, to get into to lose those kind of hallucinatory.

What was your drug? I was an opiate guy by the end. Oh, yeah? But I, you know, I'm a... Yeah. Oh, man. It was rough. But I, you know, went through all of them.

Yeah. You know, on the way. It just, that's where the journey ended. Yeah, that's where it can all end. That's, yeah, by that point. I mean, the whole Oxycontin thing and then that, you know. Yeah. It was pretty ugly.

Wow. Yeah, see like, you know, when I heard that, when I knew that we shared that, because my assumption was like, because know, when I heard that, when, you know, I knew that we shared that. Because my assumption was like, because of the nature of the band, I'm like, these guys are always having a good time. Yeah. Because, you know, because I was thinking about what defined a jam band, or if the Grateful Dead is the template, and whatever happened after Jerry died, there's this idea that there

was just like, just these wandering people in sandals that had nowhere to go. Yeah. But it doesn't seem like fish. Like, the 60s, The Dead carried a lot of fucking darkness. Mm-hmm. And it was inescapable, and it was in their music. Mm-hmm. And, you know, whatever exploring they were doing

within the context of that particular history of music they were dealing with, that even the jams, even the nature of the hate Ashbury and what happened there, it was dark dude. Yeah, very. But you know by the time you guys get going, you know, it's kind of like party time. Yeah. I mean there wasn't this for, there wasn't this darkness. Right. So maybe you know you saved a lot of people. Well we had this trajectory too that, you know, the first time I saw the dead was in 1981. I saw him in 84.

That was the first time. Yeah, in New Haven Coliseum. Worcester Centrum. I do remember going to, I mean, I went to lots of shows and lots of Jerry's shows back then. Yeah. And I remember standing one time at Roseland. It was like 1983, I think.

Yeah. You know, right up in front row, in front of Jerry. Yeah. And I loved him and I still love him today, but he looked. Bad. Like it scared me. Yeah, I saw him. It scared me.

I saw Garcia do a solo, and I do a story about it on stage. What's the name of that place? The Orpheum in Boston. And I went, you know, I took mushrooms with my roommates and they were sitting somewhere else and I kind of almost freaked out. But Rick Danko came out.

Yeah. Right? He wasn't even on the bill though, in my recollection. And he just had an acoustic guitar and he did stage fright and mystery train. And that's all I remember him doing. And then Jerry came out and he didn't look good. Like he just, he looked, you know,

obese and, you know, compromised. And it was sort of a sad thing. The Worcester Centrum show in 84 was great because they played Warfarin and I couldn't believe it. Like, cause it was like this one dead song for me that has some sort of mystical, you know, like to me, that's like one of the greatest songs ever. It is. It's a gorgeous song.

Isn't it? It's a gorgeous song. Oh, but getting back to a Burlington thing. So like, we got to Burlington in 1983. From Jersey? From, yeah, well, growing up in Jersey. Oh, you didn't just go there to school, your whole family moved there? I went to college to go to UB. So everyone growing up in Jersey. Oh, you didn't just go there to school, your whole family moved out there? I went there to school, no, I went to college to go to UGA.

So everyone's still in Jersey? Your mom's in New York, or like you go to- Mom's in New York, dad's in Jersey. And you started playing guitar when? I always was in bands in middle school, you know, that kind of age, and I did a lot of singing, and then I switched over to guitar when I was about 14,

I think. What was the original instrument? Just singing? Drums, drums, drums, drums, drums. Really? Yeah. Still love playing the drums. And so when you're in middle school bands, you're playing Zeppelin, what are you playing?

Cream. And you know, Machine Head, Deep Purple. Really? Yeah, that was the album that you played in the. Hush? You know, Highway Star. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah at that time that were super informative. Talking heads, I got to see a number of times and they're still my favorite.

The discipline tour, King Crimson, was hugely influential. Well, I definitely hear that in the first few records for sure. Yeah, all those patterns and all that beauty. I just watched a doc on them. Fripp is just an unabashed asshole. I saw him do a lecture once.

Oh my God. But you know, all that. And then when we were that age, me and my friends all kind of worshiped at the idol of Peter Gabriel. Really? Yeah, Peter Gabriel and Brian Eno, anything Eno and Gabriel.

Eno's the best. Gabriel, I don't know why I can't lock in. I can do Fripp and Eno. I can do all the Eno, anything Eno and Gabriel. Eno's the best. Gabriel, I don't know why I can't lock in. I can do Frippin' Eno, I can do all the Eno, I can do Eno and Bowie. Yeah, all the 70s Eno albums. All of them. That was big. Yeah, it's the best.

But once you get Gabriel in the mix, I'm like, I don't know. Too much? Well, no, I don't know what it is, dude. I have a few thousand records in the house, and I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do Genesis. I'm going all the way back. I'm gonna put it on and I put it on and I'm like, nope, it's not gonna happen for me. And I did that with, with Yes. Yeah.

You know, all the Prague stuff, you know, I can do Crimson because those guys are menacing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're menacing. It's like you're being, you know, you're being, you know, totally fucked with. Yeah. You know, it's relentless. But like, the only thing that I appreciated about listening to Prog Rock Records as a record guy

was that like, I can hear they're a band. You know, when you grow up listening to Yes, it's like, how do they even make this music? But if you listen to vinyl with a good system, you're like, they're actually just a band. And that was kind of cool. But it didn't stick. Gabriel, huh? What was it about him? I think just, you know, you kind of, we were young, 15, 16 years old. I think it was the lyrics and the tone of his voice and also the connections. I mean, there was just a

sense of discovery at that point in time. Right, sure. You know, oh, Peter Gabriel works with Eno, oh, Eno works with, you know, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts and all those albums. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a fast, fast discovery. Then, like I said, you know,

King Crimson was huge for a while and... Were you going home and trying to figure out how to play that shit? Yeah, oh yeah. Really? Oh, God. So you were one of those guys who like hours... Everything, eating it. ...B-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D- more than I can hear Dwayne. But I don't know, I'm not deep into the fish enough to know, do you do the slide business? I don't do the slide, but Santana took us on the road in, Santana was, you know, I have incredible gratitude

toward, for Carlos. Yeah. He took us on the road in 1992 and 93, I think, for, I mean, it felt like almost a year. We went to Italy and we were a young band. You must've learned something about space. He brought me up on stage every single night. Nobody had any idea who I was.

Like in Europe, every night, and stood face to face making eye contact with me. My mother has a framed photo of it on the wall. Yeah. And he taught me how to play the guitar. I mean, he really had a huge influence. He would, you know, dig into these notes and I would kind of copy him.

Yeah. It was years later when I started thinking just how kind that was. He didn't have to stop his show and invite this It was years later when I started thinking just how kind that was. He didn't have to stop his show and invite this random guy that nobody knows. But he did. And I'm always grateful for that. What was it, technique-wise, what was it that...

It's the way he would attack the note, like a voice. It's like standing, looking right at him. Yeah. Wham! And then I would do it. And it was kind of like, okay. It's like you're standing, looking right at him. Yeah. Whee-hoo, and like boom, and then I would do it. And it was kind of like, okay. And he'd stay in it. You know, he learned that directly from all the great blues players.

And Peter Green. Yeah, he used to talk about going to Chicago and play with, you know. Really? Yeah, he said he'd stop the tour and go to Chicago and get up there with, you know, Sun Seals and- Buddy Guy? All those guys, Albert Collins.

Albert Collins, yeah. You know, and he felt like it Pete O'Loughlin Buddy Guy. Pete O'Loughlin All those guys. Albert Collins. Pete O'Loughlin Albert Collins, yeah. I can hear Albert Collins. Pete O'Loughlin He felt like it was a stream and he wanted to pass it on. Pete O'Loughlin Well, you know, Black Magic Woman's Peter Green song and Peter Green on that original Fleetwood Mac, no one plays a sadder guitar than that guy. What a broken dude.

It's fucking great. I mean, that, you know, Black Magic Woman, that, that, like, kind of, like, weird kind of moving in between the minor and major pentatonic and then just like, it's, it's like dark stuff. Yeah. But, but Carlos, he's not a dark guy. Yeah. He's like a fun guy, isn't he? He's, he's a very positive, very in the light, you know, kind of.

So he taught you something right there. He was giving you guitar lessons in front of the audience. Giving me guitar lessons. That is not an exaggeration. Now, when you were before you toured with him, did you find that, what, were you too technical? I mean, like, did he free you up somehow? I mean, were you lost in the noodling?

I don't, I was probably at that point composing more. Yeah. A lot of that stuff was pretty, you know. The early stuff. Yeah. Were you picking it up from Zappa? I saw Zappa. Zappa is the only tour that I ever followed. I did the last tour, I went on Zappa tour.

I stood in the front row. I loved Zappa's guitar playing. He was probably one of the biggest influences on me. Because there's a freedom there, right? Yeah, he just was the best. I still love's guitar playing. He was probably one of the biggest influences on me. Because there's a freedom there, right? Yeah, he just was the best. I still love his guitar playing. But structurally, like, it's similar because there's a freedom to his guitar playing, but the band is tight. Yeah.

Like, you know, no one's fucking around in that band. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And also, like, it seems like early on and probably throughout all the fish stuff, there's that sense of absurdism, lyrically. Probably. But it's sort of interesting that you have the lyrics

and they're kind of weird and fun, but they just become part of the fabric of the music. I never understood why Frank did that. I never loved his sense of humor, but it was somehow, I think it was to make it easier to process the complexity of the music for people that were too stupid to really know what he was doing.

And then it's gotta be put in the context of a place and time, which kind of goes back to your Burlington thing. In 1983, when we moved to Burlington, there was a couple of things going on. One, it was the last place to change the drinking age. This is when you started college. Yeah, 1983.

Yeah. Vermont was- To 21. Yeah, it was 18 still, and it was the final state to be 18. Oh, was that why you went to college there? It wasn't, but it was, the reason that was significant was because there were more bars per capita and more bands in Burlington. At that time, there were so many bands.

Every bar wanted a band. Same with Boston. Boston, I was going to say. Yeah, that's where I was. As well. Yeah. And Providence a little bit, the living room and all that. Yeah.

Yeah. And we used to go down there and play at the Paradise and places like that. Johnny D's. Sure. Yeah. But it was a Petri dish for, we started playing live right away and we would get a gig that was three nights, three sets.

College students could come. Oh, because it was 18. When we were 18. Yeah. And so we had to fill three nights with material. Also, we were playing to sort of our friends, like it was a scene from day one. It's always been a pretty popular band.

How'd you meet your songwriting partner? Oh, I went to middle school with him. We were writing songs in fifth grade. But isn't that interesting though, because like, you know, after all of a sudden done, like whether you love Jerry or not, or the dead or the template, that your relationship with him seems similar to that

that Jerry had with Hunter, right? It's somewhat similar in the sense that I think Hunter was kind of a lyricist and Jerry, you know. When I write with Tom, it is a bit like that, but it's, Hunter was kind of a lyricist and Jerry would, you know, when I write with Tom, it is a bit like that, but it's, we just kind of write together, you know, it's all, everything's fair. So Hunter would deliver the poetry and Jerry would figure it out.

Yes. But that also, my relationship with him, you know, started with the invention of the cassette four-track machine. With Tom. With Tom and all of our friends. We had a friend group that. Oh yeah, yeah. Well, you could do it on cassette.

We would do it on cassette, but they were battery powered cassette and we would, it was, we would go hang out. And this became very much, I mean, this is really significant to what Phish is. Yeah. You know, it was a social scene. Yeah.

We always, I'd have my guitar and I would write songs, but it was in the context of this party almost. And once we got, when I got to Burlington, that continued. So we would do these shows at Nectar's that were three nights long. And when the show ended at one in the morning, like the band and everyone in the audience would get in a car and go to the quarry and go swimming until the sun came up. And it hasn't changed at all.

More people at the quarry probably. There's more people at the quarry, but I know a lot of them. It's very, very, you know, we don't exist in the sort of normal framework of popular music. Yeah. And when we started doing festivals in 95 is when it really blew up. Have you ever heard of Bread and Puppet?

Yeah. That was the other thing that I would say about Burlington is, you know, Peter Schumann who started Bread and Puppet, he started in the Lower East Side, right? In like, 1963. This would explain the hot dog. It might explain the hot dog, yeah. So, uh, he moved out. Bread and Puppet was a Lower East Side New York thing.

And they would protest the Vietnam War with these beautiful, political puppets, right? Like, paper mache giant puppets, yeah. And then they moved up to Glover in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont in 1974. giants. Political puppets, right? Like paper mache giant puppets. Yeah. And then they moved up to Glover in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont in 1974. So when we got to Vermont in 1983, this was in its, you know, bread and puppet was... Dug in. ... this yearly festival and you would go and it's the most beautiful thing.

Like they had the puppets, but it was quiet and it was political and relevant to whatever was going on socially in that year. So I remember the year of the oil spill. They had- Off Alaska? Yeah, they had the, hundreds of people under plastic bags came over the hill and then this giant mother earth puppet

with huge arms that was held by many, many puppeteers came over and wrapped her arms around this oil spill. And so it was political. It was gorgeous and poignant. And we- And mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. And they had music. And we started these festivals in 1995. I think it was 95, it was the first one, the Clifford Ball. There weren't festivals at that time, if you remember. Pete Slauson Right. But it was just, did you have support bands? Paul Cudone No.

Pete Slauson So, you were just doing parties. But they were – the scale of them was huge. Paul Cudone Yeah. We started on the first one, designed with a map, with a central square and we built a venue and there really were not- This was at the Air Force base? The Clifford Ball was at the Plattsburgh Air Force base. And Lollapalooza was starting,

but Lollapalooza played existing venues. It was essentially a Jane's Addiction concert with warm-up acts, right? Great ones, radiohead and stuff. We went out and we had, you know, we put up all this art and we had a central square and we tried to make the camping comfortable for people. The first one that we did, the big one,

first big one drew something like 50,000 people as one band. And you were equipped for that? It didn't turn into Altamont? It did not turn into Altamont. And then- You had enough bathrooms and stuff? We decided we would put the next one even further away.

So it was in Limestone, Maine, which if you look at the map is the furthest north you can go in Maine. It's like, I don't know, nine hours north of Portland. Why'd you do that? Because we wanted to be as far away as possible from the main, from... And did you want to see who would come?

Well, 70,000 people came. So, okay, so get... Go ahead. Nobody knows about it, but it's symbolic. Your people know about it. They know everything about it. See, that's the thing, the research I was doing on you, like, I understand the type of community you're dealing with because I lived with deadheads. Yeah.

And just this bartering of cassettes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this is like, this is Trey going to the bathroom before the show. You know. God. So I understood it, but by 95, but at some point, because I could, in the albums I listened to,

you know, it seemed like those first three, you know, you were going for whatever the fuck you wanted to, musically. And bands like you, and I think Dave Matthew's to a degree, you know, you're not beholden to any style of music. You can play whatever the fuck you want, because you are fish, and that is what you guys do. So they don't really know whether they're gonna get

barbershop quartet or a country song or some sort of strange free jazz exploration, but that's part of the thing. And the Dead was never like that. You know, the Dead, you know, when they were going out, it was strictly sort of acid departure from bluegrass and blues, right? But you guys are sort of like, I don't know if they're gonna do the crimson, you know, or whatever.

Was there a point where you realized like, we have to adjust what we're doing because at 95 is when Jerry died. Was there a point where you became more aware of the audience and it shifted your music a little bit to play for that scale of show? Did you become more hippie? This is a good question.

Very good question. I think there was definitely some pressure. You know, a lot of people think that 92, 93, 94 are the years where we really had established ourselves in our own little world. And I'll talk to people who were on tour for those years. I loved 92, 93, 94. Those are the first records, right?

Those are just like the, we always were a live band. I can't say that enough times. We started off playing- So you don't look at it in terms of records. You look at it in terms of- I don't. Records were an excuse to develop material. That would, the live experience was so fun for us.

It was, it always was. We were always a live band. And we would do these three night shows at Nectar's, like I said, in the eighties, and go to Howard Johnson's with the whole audience every night. It was a little bit more, you know, this was a celebration and we were part of a community.

I used to play the front in the eighties. I played the front too. There you go. You played the front? Of course. And there used to be, like, in my mind, there was... Was there a place that just was known for open-faced turkey sandwiches with gravy on them? Yeah, that was Nectar's. That's where we played. Yeah, I used to go there. I probably went there

the night you were playing. It was probably like, what the fuck is going on here? Because I would do Burlington. There was a run up there. You'd do Killington. You'd do Mother Shapiro's in Killington. And then some other place at some other ski area called B-Made Denny's or something. And then you do the front in Burlington. And then like, I found this business card.

I'm like talking to Trey. Do you remember this place existing? Oh God, I ate there every day. The Oasis Diner. That's where I had breakfast. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I kept this business card because I was like, this is a great business card. I remember eating there. there every day. The Oasis Diner. That's where I had breakfast. Yeah. Yeah. Every day.

I kept this business card because I was like, this is a great business card I've never eaten there. But it doesn't exist anymore. At some point it went away, right? Well, there you go. So, let's address the question in terms of expectations. So again, I'm sorry to keep going back, but one of the things about playing at Nectars is that it was not a music venue.

It was a restaurant and a bar. So the first set was for people drinking at the bar. So Nectar, who ran the place back then. He's on the cover of the album. Would walk over and he'd say, play some old blues songs. These are the guys who are drinking at the bar now. Five o'clock. It's five o'clock.

Play some old blues songs? So we had to learn all these tunes, you know, like it was great, it's incredible. And then the second set, so we would play for the bar, the people drinking at the bar. What were your booze covers? You know, all the standards, you know, and then even we do kind of jazz songs too, Four by Miles Davis, whatever they were, you know, Mustang Sally, you know, that stuff. And he would come over and say, play a slow one. Based on the people who were drinking.

And then the second set, there was three sets, it would be more of a kind of standard rock show. And then the last set was our friends. And this is when we started going nuts. So we're talking to the audience, doing, making up plays and musicals on stage, doing weird King Crimson, you know, all this. And then, like I said, out to the quarry, out to... That was the start of this whole thing. So that rapport started where you play games.

Yes. We just were, we knew who was in the audience and we knew that they understood what we were doing and that they wanted us to go further. But I do think, you know, in 92, 93, 94, it was really a good band. I was really deeply proud every time we walked off stage of what was going on. I mean, we were really tight. And I think that in 95, after Jerry died,

there was this kind of weird, I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say there was this slightly weird, these people kind of coming over and saying, you know, give us a space to do this thing that we want to do. Yeah. And it's like, well, I can't do that. You know, nobody can do that. You know. So you had like sad people in tie-dyes coming up to you like, dude.

I don't know. I've got nowhere to drive the VW van now. I don't know. Maybe a little bit. But you know, we just, you know, we had been a band for 11, well, 12 years by that point. We were already established. By 92, we were playing all original music, two sets of very, you know, the whole song

list was in place by 92. And Maze and Split Open and Melt and all these songs that make up the basis of the fish. If you look at a 92 show, I looked at one recently, the St. Mike's College, and it was two sets of original music. Yeah. Most of the stuff from Rift by 93, which is pretty... We already knew who we were when this happened. But you did feel this pressure. I think probably yes.

And your reaction to it was that nobody could feel that? Well, I still don't think anybody can. I your reaction to it was that nobody could fill that. Well, I still don't think anybody can. I know nobody can fill it. No, but maybe not musically. But if we're gonna look at it as a demographic, they had no anchor and they were there. And that's what I'm talking about, is that like, was, you know, I mean,

I guess there's not something you can do consciously, but you did acknowledge the pressure. Yes. I think there was pressure. And it changed your show? There's also a darkness that came with that. Yeah, like what? You know, like a lot of drugs and a lot of people backstage.

The backstage scene started to get... Oh, from when you became... Totally out of control. But was it like 60s style where you knew all these dudes and there's the mushroom dude, there's the coke dude? It wasn't the mushroom dude. No, no mushroom dudes. They were fine.

Yeah. It was much more the coke and dope dudes probably that, you know, and there were, you know, I think all of these things sort of collided. You also have to acknowledge, and I know that you know this personally, that in the late 90s, it was sort of de rigueur to take hard drugs. I mean, they were everywhere. I mean, I don't know, maybe that exists somewhere now, but... I mean, I got sober in 99. Yeah, you remember New York. Coke was everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Coke and then the white heroin, the snortable heroin.

Yeah, and smokeable. Yeah, smokeable and snortable heroin changed the game. It was nothing, because you're smoking it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? But it was, you know what, it was everywhere. It was. Tango and Cash had names. Those little bindles stamped with the name on it. Like, I lived on Second Street between A and B in 89.

So you went to Rivington and... Well, I was sober, you know, when I got there. And I was lucky because it didn't take, you know, like, it's a weird thing about addiction that I lived in that place. And I live right next to that drug doorway on second between A and B, right, you know, just shy. There was like a garage where you didn't know

what was going on in there, a lot of cans, and then there was a doorway, and you know, and I just see these guys line up, and I got there sober, but I wasn't working the shit. And I would see these guys, I'm like, God damn it, this is pathetic. You know, just like the daily dudes, you know, like maintaining their thing,

you know, scabs and just, it was a fucking nightmare, people shooting up everywhere. And somehow like after a year it turns to like, no, I wonder what's going on. Exactly. But when I went and got it. Can I say if you go to a barber shop, you're gonna get your hair cut eventually,

hang out in a barber shop? Yeah. But when I did it, I went and scored some dope and I went into my apartment next door. And I snorted it and I went for a few days, but I just got sick and then it just made me, I didn't get the euphoria.

I definitely like up better. So I was never, and I'm like fucking addicted now, I can't get off these goddamn zins right, and nicotine is a fucking nightmare for me. But it didn't take, dude. Yeah. Obvious did not take. Yeah. And that was the gift. But yeah, it was everywhere. And that's when you guys started doing it, or you did?

But yeah, it was everywhere. And that's when you guys started doing it, or you did? Yeah, I mean, it was, I think everybody, you know, it was just, it was everywhere. And our backstage scenes started to grow, you know? Yeah. There were people around and we did a, when we did our last show before we stopped. It was 2004?

2004. Yeah. Richard still has the guest list, our road manager. Yeah. There's 3000 people backstage, more people than you can fit in the beacon. He held onto it because it was so crazy by that point. That's ridiculous.

That's how big the party was backstage. Where'd you put them? But it was this kind of, we were, see why I keep going back to how we started? Yeah. There was a very thin line between the band and our friends. The friends got it.

The reason we went to Limestone, Maine. Yeah, the reason we went to Limestone, Maine for our festival, a couple, I remember some people in management and stuff saying, why don't you guys go to Randall's Island? It was like, let's go, hell no, the opposite way. Go as far away as possible. On 99, the New Year's 99 to 2000,

we went to the Seminole Reservation in Big Cyprus. Great, great night. But there was 80,000 people there. And we were the biggest ticketed concert on earth for the millennium. And nobody knew we were even there. It was like a private party almost with 80,000 people, three days.

Biggest ticketed concert on Earth for the Millennium. And still this band that nobody, but it was incredible. It was an incredible feeling, but again, all right, let me start with this. So at Big Cypress, right? There was no venue. Yeah. They started nine months in advance setting up a venue.

They had to mow and seed the fields and put in roads and stuff. No, it's a sovereign nation, no police presence. And backstage, we put in an indoor pool for everybody to hang out. We were like, oh god, kidding. It was unbelievable. We had an indoor pool and this huge party going on for three days.

So, like, there's the backstage and then the front of the stage. It was all kind of the same. Who's doing all this for you? You got infrastructure? Yeah, we had a big office in Burlington. Eventually, our management grew to be about, I think about 35 or 40 people. And it's an idea mill? It's like we gotta, it was put in a pool. Well these things kept growing. It started, it started at, you know, it was so successful

at Clifford Ball. So then we went up to Maine and we did a couple in Maine and it was just incredible. I mean, it was, the thing about it, it felt like you weren't part of... The world? The world. Like it was completely in another dimension. Everyone walking around, like we would play and then run out into the crowd and just hang out with people. It was, oh God, it was great. Well, that's why you think the way you think.

The best thing, you know what I mean? But then like I said, when you combine that with what we were just talking about, it worked through Big Cypress. Big Cypress was both. It was kind of right on the razor's edge of dangerous. I mean, it was a little dark. But it was still, I'd go backstage,

everybody's diving in the pool and jumping around and staying up all night. We played from 11.30 on New Year's Eve. We played from 11.30 until the sun came up, eight straight hours, and everybody just danced in the field, the sun came up, it was unbelievable. Well, I think that sort of like speaks to why you see yourself as this off to the side band

because you weren't playing the same game. And I- Not at all. And I imagine, because you seem to have, you don't exude the ego of a rock star, and it seems that's because it was an evolution of a community, so your life maintained a sameness in terms of your relationship

with the people in the community. And I imagine after a certain point that fish heads or whatever they call themselves, you know, there were those on the inside and those on the outside, but the inside got pretty big. Exactly, it kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You just hit the nail on the head. It's that, and my life hasn't changed personally.

You know, I've been with my wife for 35 years now, and I live in a little apartment, and I practice my guitar, and got my kids and my family. In Vermont? I'm in Upper little apartment and I practice my guitar and got my kids and my family and- In Vermont? I'm in Upper West Side now. No shit, because your mom's there? Just, I moved there, we moved there 19 years ago and we've been there.

My kids went to school in the- You don't got a house in Vermont? I still have a place in Vermont, but I spend most of the time in the city. But we have our rehearsal space up there, my barn. In Vermont. Yeah, where we... Where you're a New York guy.

I'm pretty much a New York guy. So weird. I don't know what to make of you. I was probably at least some of the same parties you were at in the 90s. I'm sure. Back in the old days? Yeah.

But you were never a comedy guy. No. You never went to those things, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. So, okay, so it starts getting dark 95 because of the influx of you know lost people Like I used to go there was it that or was it that and? What I said before that it was a derriger in the late

That it was everything that late 90s where it wasn't Justin., what about Seattle? Well, that, but that's different. I think it's different because the nature of, you know, going on tour with a band, you know, in a real way, like the dead guys that I knew, who would spend three to four months, you know, doing that. Like what got collected over time was, you know, you had basically, you know, troubled people. You had runaways, you had people that didn't have lives. Like, what got collected over time was, you had basically troubled people, you had runaways, you had people that didn't have lives,

you had middle class people, you had kids, you had college kids. But I think that the drug culture and how that kind of gravitates towards a scene is really feeding on this vulnerable community of people that want have fun, they wanna party, but there's a lot of lost people. People that go on the road with bands. If it's not to spend the summer in between semesters,

they're bordering on house with some of them. Some of them are hustling, they're grifting, they're selling fake assets, they're making T-shirts, they're making candles or whatever the fuck it is, but it's not all light and shiny, you know, it's desperation, you know, with, you know, rainbow shirts on. So, and I think that that becomes sort of like a prime market for the purveyors of darkness. Pete Huston Right.

Peteus So, I don't know if it was de rigore as much as it was a continuum of that 60s darkness that enveloped the dead. You know, those guys are going to go somewhere. Yes. It might have been. And what's really weird is, you know, it didn't fit. It didn't fit in our world because it isn't, it really isn't a dark world. Yeah. And as soon as that stuff started to get, you know, it's bullshit.

It's awful and it sucks and it's bullshit. And people go down. from, from, from, from Big Cypress to, you know, sobriety was not that long a period of time. We, you know, we pretty quickly started taking breaks and like, okay, we got to get away from this. And there was no getting away from it. We tried two or three times. We stopped for, you know, The darkness. We just tried to stop the whole scene. Like we got to, this is something is really bad that's going on here.

When did that start, like 2003? Right, yeah, I feel like Fishman, our drummer, he's my best, my pal and I adore. I remember after Big Cypress, he said, you know, I feel like we're on a train. He said this, I think we were flying home. And he said it, and we are about to crash into a brick wall. He said that and he was like,

we're going 150 miles an hour and there's a brick wall about five feet in front of us. Right now, you know, it really, that was the wave crashed into the shore when the sun came up at Big Cypress. It was an incredible ride. And from that point on, we were all trying to figure out a way out.

And it's not as easy as you think it is. It's hard to get out. So we'd stop for sick, you know. But what essentially is, why is it essentially hard? Because the fans' expectations or you, your used to the life or... No, because I was, you know, by that point, a drug addict. Yeah. So I would stop and, you know, do yoga and like, you know, go home and try to be...

Sweat it out. You know, okay, I'm gonna run, you know, laps or whatever and, and then go back on tour. I remember we went back on tour in 2003, we went to play at the Garden. And I remember very clearly telling everybody around, if the hard drugs show up again, just somebody grab me and throw me in rehab because I was feeling good at the time.

We played one show, I think we were gonna play a show at MSG and then like three at Hampton or something. And we went on stage for the first set, came backstage and it took about 10 minutes for all this shit to fire up again. Like bam, there was people all over the place. There's a guy, the guy's here. Yeah, the guy walked by and he handed me something and the next thing you know, it's on.

And you know, it's, there was a shame. Oh yeah. Because I didn't think I was playing well and I want to play well. And it was like cumulative at this point in time, you know, like we couldn't. Couldn't get out from under it. So we would take another hiatus.

But that's interesting to me is that the addiction, if you went home and ran and did yoga, you were safe. Exactly. So when your brain, whether you knew it or not, wanted to go back, you had to do it with 20,000 people or 30,000 people. So it was connected. So, because the idea was that, you know,

you guys were taking a break because like, what was the excuse? Like, we've gone as far as we can go as a band or whatever? I mean I always figured that everybody could see it new I mean it was so obvious. That you were strung out. Yeah like at all of it everybody was. I mean it was. But it's just so funny in order for you to relapse we're gonna have to put a festival on. Well our lighting designer who's very talented yeah Chris I remember him saying this thing to me once when we were out there.

Where I was at some party and suddenly there's like all this blow on the table and I'm doing this blow and there's about a million people around, we're backstage, it's just this scene with all the, and I kind of turned to Chris and I was like, how did this, everybody just, there was none of this. And he said, you started doing it. And I said, what?

And he's like, people were doing this, but as long as you weren't doing it, which was for quite some time, we all thought that we had to hide it. It's in everyone's interest. This is, Chris Corota told me this. He said, it's in everyone's interest for you to do it. Oh, I see.

Because when you do it, being the center of the thing, we can all do it openly. It's okay now. So if you stop, and don't shoot the messenger, I'm just telling you what he told me, we have to go back into hiding or stop. Yeah. So that to go back into hiding or stop. Yeah. So that's a responsibility. This was way back in that era, because I was kind of like, what happened?

You know, like it happened, it was like an ocean. 2002? This was, yeah, right around there. Yeah. Well, you know, it's very complicated and confusing when you get all these, you know, when the drugs kind of start getting mixed in. And it does go back to what you said about, there are a lot of people that were looking for a home for that darkness, you know?

So there was... It was just everywhere. And also as an entertainer, you know this, because you're an entertainer. Like, I want everybody to be happy. Like, I'm a people pleaser. So it's kind of like, oh, okay. Is this cool?

Yeah, yeah. But there like, oh, okay. Is this cool? You know what I mean? But there is that moment though. You know, I remember one of the last times I used, it was at a comedy festival in Chicago. And I just like, there were two times before I cleaned up for good. One I was co-headlining with Hedberg in Seattle. And you know, I was in a fucking, yeah, I was in a hotellining with Hedberg in Seattle. Oh yeah. And you know, I was in a fucking, yeah, I was in a hotel room with him and his wife, Lynn.

And you know, I didn't bring enough drugs and they had one of those guys. He was one of those guys who couldn't get away from those guys. There was a guy that would show up and do it. And there was all this tar around and that was not my bag, but I'm sitting in a hotel room. You know, we got, you know, those two are on the bed,

head banging to my bloody Valentine, and I'm smoking tar off a piece of foil, which is not something I do, and we've been up for two or three days on blow. And, you know, and I left that, I remember after that festival, I was like waiting to check out of the hotel. I vomited in a planter.

And then I got into a car, and I hadn't eaten in three days. I made them, you know, pull over to get me a cheeseburger and they're taking me to the airport. And I see Hedberg, you know, walking back from a convenience store. And it was just one of those moments where there was, you know, I knew I was on borrowed time. Because the other thing about that conversation

you have, we're about to hit a brick wall, the other version of that is like, one of us is gonna die. Yeah, no question. And I don't know who it's gonna be. It wouldn't have necessarily been who you thought it would. That's right.

Because everybody was in it. That's right. At that point in time. Yeah, someone's gonna go down. And there was no question about that. And then next time, the shame though, is like me and this guy Dave, we're in this hotel room at this festival for three days, we've got a couple eight balls or whatever, and we're just doing

blow publicly, but there's a new generation of people coming up to observe the old road guys. Yeah. You know, like, look at what they're, look at this. And they're not thinking like party, they're thinking like, this is what it used to be, I guess. This is kind of sad. And when you see yourself through their eyes and you have that moment, I'm like, what the fuck am I doing? So many of those moments, and then till the final day,

till the final day, you know, so many of those moments. So you take the break in 2004, and then what happens? I went back on tour with, and it was a good clean, it was 100% clean, and then I wasn't sober, and I was like, well, I'll still drink a little wine or something like that, you know, that kind of thing. So you didn't have no program in your head. I didn't have a program yet, and then I,

sometime in 2005, something like that, it was like I had a glass of wine, I had a couple shots of tequila, and the next thing you know, bam, it was on again. And cut to December 16th, 2006, I got arrested. I was arrested in Whitehall and charged with a series of felonies. And I went into-

For possession? It was a bunch of, it was, yeah, possession. And I had a doctor that was writing me- Oh, you had a Dr. Nick? Yeah, writing prescriptions for Oxycontin at the time, which again, we didn't even really know what that was, but then there was all the other stuff that went with it. And I went into a felony drug court program. And I was in that program for 14 months.

I lived in upstate New York, no shows, no... I was off the road for two or three years. Oh, so that was the break. You were basically in jail. I was in jail for a little bit, but long enough to know that I don't want to be in jail just a couple of nights. But I was under house arrest. I had to live within half an hour of the jail in Washington County in Fort Edward. Where's that, in Vermont?

Upstate New York. I had to move. When I went into the court for my trial, the judge said, you're either gonna do a county year, which is eight months with good behavior or something. I was in, terrifying. Or if we decide to let you into drug court, which they weren't sure about at that moment.

And in order to be in drug court, I had to move. I had to have an address close enough because you don't have a license and they call you at seven in the morning to do a urine test and you have to make it to jail in 20 minutes, you know. So you're going cold turkey? Oh, I, by that point I was starting to get off.

The first meeting I went before my court date, I started going to meetings in New York. NA? The Little Room. Oh, yeah, Perry Street. Old fashioned. I went to the Little Room, which is on 96th Street. I went to Perry Street. I went to Buster's Se Yeah, Perry Street. Old-fashioned. I went to the little room, which was is on 96th Street. Yeah, I went to Perry Street I went to Buster's Seat all those Perry Street. So I was when he first gets over it's like there's got to be one on now At Perry always there's always one. Yes, and it was incredible, you know, and I went into drug court for 14 months and I

It was it was hard and it was the greatest, I can't even, the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Thank God. And the woman who was my case manager, this woman named Melanie, you know, she and I are now, she is now the clinical director at a sober retreat that we, during COVID, I started raising money to open a treatment center

in Vermont. And it's open. It's a 46 bed sober retreat. Is it fish themed? It's not fish themed. No, it's a very, it's a classic, it's a 12 step AA based non-medical It's a 12 step AA based non-medical sober retreat. And I have lots of sponsors and I have the sponsor. I'm very active in the program. It's been 17 and a half years. It's great. I absolutely love it.

I love being sober. Great. It's the best thing. I mean, I just love it. So all the things we were talking about, you know, that was, it feels like a long time ago, but. No, it stays fresh. You got to keep it fresh. And when you're of service, it stays fresh. You know, like, I, you know, even like, I don't do as many meetings as I should on,

you know, I've got 25 whatever years, but you know, you know, you get brittle. And what's interesting about sobriety is that, you know, if you, what anyone, you know, and obviously you and I don't represent the program and I make that clear all the time and there's plenty of ways to get sober. Good luck with it. But, but the thing about the program, if you need it and you get to that point where you can get, wrap your brain around powerlessness and service, that just going, even, like I don't feel like drinking or using drugs. But like if I go into a meeting

and then someone's telling their story, I'm like, I know where this is going. And right at that turn, where the hand of AA is there, like I'm fucking weeping, like almost every fucking time. Me too. Because it's, I mean, you know, we just, we just, I think we just had one in a weird way. Cause that's all it is, it's just a bunch of, you know,

talking to each other, talking to each other. But it's like, it's, it's crazy even looking back at photos and stuff from that time. Cause I feel like I look 100 years older than I do now. And it just gets better and better. Because it's like a, it's a possession. You're not, you're possessed.

Yeah. And you can see it. You're fucking haunted with shame. You're probably skinny. Your skin is not the right color. And you know, you're untether, and you're circling the drain. Mm-hmm. It's kind of like being an alien.

Totally. Like when it all runs out, you're standing there, and he's like, where was I for the last? It's so fucked up, dude. Like in some other, like altered dimension or something. And what your brain is doing? Yeah. But you guys are still like, so like, at that time,

do you have kids already when you get sober? Yeah. They were about, well, still like, so like, at that time, do you have kids already when he gets sober? Yeah. They're about, well, they were, I think, nine. They're 29 and 27 now. And I talk to them frequently about, you know, do you have memories? They, at least from what they've told me, they don't have a lot. Do you tell them to stay away from powders and pills?

I don't tell them anything because they're really smart and grown women. Oh, that's good. And they're- They didn't get the bug. No, they're incredible. They're both amazing. They're both professional working in their lives.

You know what I mean? Do they remember? They don't seem to remember anything. I always tried to go home and be- Oh yeah, sweaty daddy. Living two lives as much as humanly possible. I used to get home and I was married at the time. I don't have kids, but I was like,

yeah, I think I got a bug on the plane. I just got to sweep for two days. Yeah, well, they were, I'm very grateful that I was, you know, middle school graduation, high school graduation, college graduation, and graduate school for one of them, you know, sober before all those events. So, you know, I remember, it's very interesting. I could tell you at each of the dinners,

middle school, high school, college, and who got drunk and acted like an idiot, and it was never me. Yeah. And I'm so grateful for that, that I don't have to feel that way anymore. And that it's cumulative. You know what I mean? Yeah. That.

Well, yeah, the obsession is lifted. Yeah. And you sleep, you sleep and then you wake up and meet people and make eye contact. And like, that's enough for me. It kind of goes back to our original conversation about being 60, it's like I like it. Yeah, no, I don't mind it. I just, I over exercise and I'm not trying to stay young or anything, but I can feel my body aging.

So that's, if there's a downside to that and also just the awareness of mortality is a little more pressing. But I mean, once you get sober for real, so 2004, you guys go, did you find that you needed the music again? Yeah, well, those guys were, I mean, you know, no one started crying on you,

but they were, it was the most amazing thing. I went up there and I was isolated for almost two years. The only people I saw were my kids and my wife. And we all remember it as a really beautiful time. I wasn't going on the road. I wasn't leaving. I was locked down. I had to sit still and a lot of watching movies and just family time. I talked to my mom and dad and my... This is the benefit of house arrest. It was incredible. Yeah. And I worked, I cleaned the toilets at the Washington County Fairgrounds for 250 hours.

As part of the parole program? Yeah, community service. Oh, so you got the humility. It was great. Yeah, you're wearing the jumpsuit. Rubber gloves and a mask and human fecal matter. You really did it, man. Fried dough coming out the other end.

Sure, yeah. And then the guys in the band were just, you know, we really are incredibly close. It's impossible to even describe. It's kind of ridiculous that we still love each other and get along so well. But they were just so cool. And I talked to Paige particularly a lot during that time on the phone. And then they came to visit me and we started working on music and it was just, came back in Hampton in 2009 and since then it's just been like a dream, you know? I arrived backstage. There's no, I'm the only sober guy in the band.

Yeah. Nobody does anything. But there's just, I'm sober and they're in the band. Nobody does anything. But they're just, I'm sober and they're not sober. They probably have wine or whatever, dinner, I don't know. But- They don't have a problem. No, they don't have a problem. And when I arrived at Hampton,

there was no more scene backstage and no alcohol. I never heard anyone say a word about it. There was no, we're gonna lock it. Wasn't that at all. It just, I mean, it just shows the amount of love. I got there and all of a sudden I was- From fans too? Did they know?

The fans really what was going- Oh, the fans definitely knew. They definitely knew. I'm sorry. I mean, but it was pretty obvious. But they knew that you had queened up and everything else? Yeah, it was just a lot of love and, you know, walk out to the sober table and say hi to the person

at the table or whatever. But since then, that's what it's been. You know, we used to have like an open bar backstage. I mean, it was like hundreds of people backstage. But I'm assuming the guest list compared to 92 was limited. Yes, it's not as big as the Beacon Theater like it used to be.

What is it though? Who's back there? You know, my daughters, Fishman's kids, he's got five kids. But you keep that, the inner sanctum, what it is, and it doesn't include half the community. Exactly, especially around us. Yeah.

I mean, like when we play at the garden, I think there's a big wine and cheese party down the hall. I've never been in it, but I know that's going on. That's cool, like food and it's still fun and everybody can do whatever they want. But the love from the band is just... But your section is your section. Yeah, we're over there in our little section

and we have instruments back there, and we play before we go on stage. And we walk in the room, and it feels like we're 18 years old. Everybody's laughing. We usually can't get anything done, because there's too much cracking up and jokes being told. But still the themes and I guess the spirits of the band shifted, but the sense of humor

and, you know, choosing to do these, the stuff for the fans and doing covers and doing Devo and doing, you know, the games that you play. It's got to feel, like, do you feel like the darkness is gone? Yes. And I feel like it's back, everybody feels, from 2009 on, it went right back to how we used to feel kinda in the 80s and early 90s, maybe even more so. And this whole thing of being, you know,

you know, a planet, you know, Pluto in the world of, in the world of popular music, way off on the edge, is probably the greatest gift that ever could have happened to us, because we're free. You're free, you're not in the world of competition. No, not at all, especially not at this age. I was surprised it took you as long as it did to start your own label.

Yeah. I mean, that was kind of interesting to me. Like, you could have done that in 95. Yeah. So now you, and being that records are not your bread and butter, so to speak, but it's just, yeah, it must be amazing. It's...

You never had to think about charts. Never. We don't get any pressure from anybody, and when we make a record, which we just did, you know, we go into the barn, where we've made, I don't know, so many records. It's like our clubhouse, you know? It's a 200-year-old barn that's all our junk is set up there, and we're laughing, and we go in there,

and we play really fast, like two or three days. Yeah. Very much, you know, basement tapes style is the way I like to think of it. Sure. You know, the band. Small band hanging out. Yeah, like hanging out and figuring it out.

Like this. Like what I'm seeing here. There's guitars, there's amps. You play, and then on we go, and I don't get a call from a, I don't hear a single. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? You really start to realize how lucky that is.

That's amazing. It's amazing and the record, I mean I heard the few songs that they gave me. Sounds good. Thank you. Yeah, I mean do you find that, is there a spirituality to the music? I mean, it feels like it's structured that way.

And I think the nature of searching through improvisation, that quest is, you know, as it's characterized to me or what I've read about is sort of a spiritual quest. Yeah. Do you feel that? Very much so, because we used to do these listening exercises, and we still do them sometimes before shows, and you can't listen to yourself. You have to... We have a name for them, they're called including your own hay. And what you do is someone starts a pattern, bass player starts a pattern. The other three people intermingle with the pattern

without, ideally without copying. Yeah. And then as soon as a four-part pattern is established, everybody says, hey, and if you're really listening to the other three, the theory is you'd say it at the same time. Yeah. And as soon as you say, hey, it switches to the next person.

Now the drummer changes the pattern. Everyone jumps in with them, and it goes around and around in a circle. So more than any other point in life when I'm on stage, you know, I can't think about myself. Right. I have to be listening to the other three. And it's a small enough band where it's possible.

Yeah. That's one of the things that it really dawns on me, because I have other bands I play with that have, you know, seven or eight people. But with FISH, you know, it's only four people. But also there's a- You can hear three people. Yeah, right.

Beyond that, it starts to get hard to really consciously- And also the one-mindedness of you guys in terms of, you know, understanding each other, you know, musically and emotionally is so deep at this point. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's like, you can't, that's the magic of it, right?

And we're very lucky that nobody, that everybody's healthy and. Yeah. You know, we have original members after 41 years, which is knocking on wood. Yeah. You know, just statistically without all the stuff we were talking about is pretty.

Well, what a journey and like, you know to use Sobriety lingo like I apologize for my contempt prior to investigation Really don't but But like let's just talk, and congratulations on the sobriety. Thank you. And your wife kinda, did that ever get fragile? This is gonna sound funny, but I know that sounds crazy,

but actually, I'm gonna say no to that. I talk to her about it constantly. Incredibly. Even now? Blessed. No, she was there the whole time, she saw it. I talked to her about it constantly. I'm incredibly blessed. No, she was there the whole time. She saw it. So we met, she was 19 and I was 20 when we met. We did not start dating yet, but we dated for five

years around Burlington before we got married. And when I met her, I was working at the pet food warehouse. This wasn't a job or anything. You know, I was hauling dog food bags and stuff, and she was a waitress. So she saw what happened, clearly. Over the arc of it.

Yeah. So she saw the whole thing, and it was all, no, she was incredibly supportive and still is. That's good. Throughout the whole thing. Yeah. You know, obviously, she hated, you know, and still is throughout the whole thing. Obviously she hated the active. Addiction and she must have developed some contempt for the backstage party.

Oh God, she hated it. Yeah. She was. Cause they're predators, they're hangers on and they're predators. Yeah, she and some of her friends who were old-timer friends from the early days, I remember talking, sort of during that period, it's like,

how could everybody think this is cool? Like, the guys are dying up there, particularly Trey, and everybody's, yeah, isn't that cool? You know what I mean? Let's kill them. Yeah. But she's, I can't even. That's amazing, man.

No, she really, and I've asked her many times, you know, outright, she saw what was going on and it's been a long time. It's been, you know, coming up on 18 years. So. Well, yeah, well, there's nothing anyone can do. She's also, also does drink either. She's sober too. So. Well, there's nothing anyone can do. She's also, also does drink either. She's sober too.

So, well, that's a miracle, man. You know, because yeah. And, and just, let's just talk gear for a minute. So you got this guy that makes your guitars? Yes. That's crazy. It's so weird. The parallels, even though, you know,

you're not doing a template, but you know, the parallels between you and Jerry are interesting. Well, this guy was my roommate. So our first crew member from the very beginning, Paul Languedoc, and he was working at a place called Time Guitars in Vermont. He made me a little custom mini guitar, which I wrote a lot of early Phish songs on. He became our sound man. So when we first started going to Johnny D's

and in Boston, Paradise, it was the four of us and Paul. And Paul built me a custom guitar. We lived together. It was me and Fishman and Paul, right? In Winooski, Vermont. He built this beautiful guitar that, he kind of built it around, I think, my needs and the way I played. I loved jazz guitar at the time.

I loved Wes Montgomery. I loved Django Reinhardt. I loved Jimi Hendrix. So he made a long scale length electric guitar that's hollow and braced like a mandolin, no block of wood. And then he built me another one, which is kind of the one I play now.

And he's kept building them. And he stopped being our sound man after 2004. He kind of moved on. Yeah. But these guitars are now going for insane amounts of money. Your old guitars? Or his guitars in general? The model that he built that was originally a custom for me. Yeah.

Does he still build them? Very recently, he handed the construction over to a different Vermont company. Yeah. I'm talking about weeks ago. Yeah. And there's suddenly, he would only build about, I don't know, eight a year or something.

He was just like, he's a great guy. And they'd sell for like tens of thousands of dollars. I think originally it was three and then it was like five. And then it was, as far as I know, people are now starting to offer like a hundred thousand dollars for them. And- See, some of your fans did all right in life.

I don't know. I mean, it's crazy, but he, I love that the one he built me in 96... I'm so... I call it Koa 1. It was the first Koa guitar he ever built. That's the one I always play. It's the one that was on stage. How many pickups? Two pickups, humbuckers, and, you know, coil taps, which I'm not using right now.

But, you know, beautiful Koa hand... He would hand sand these things, kind of in front of me. And we were roommates. We used to practice in his shop while he was working on the guitars. So it was a little bit different than, this guy was family,

and it's always like that in the fish world. There's so many people. We're so lucky to have such an extended community of people. But I've never played any other guitar. That's wild. Occasionally in the studio or something. Did you ever get to play Jerry's guitars? I picked it up.

I played, I noodled it a teeny bit. At the rock hall? No, I was with Steve Parrish before Fair the Well. I played those five Fair the Well shows, which was the last show of the original four. And Steve, this is crazy, he went and it hadn't been opened. The case had not been opened since Jerry died. The one with the wolf on it?

No, the tiger. Oh, okay. And Steve took me back into the warehouse. We were out in California rehearsing for Fairly Well. His guitar tech, Steve Parrish. And he's like, let's go look at the guitar. And I'm like, okay, cool, wow. And he opened this thing up and started crying.

Oh my God. It was really intense moment. He hadn't opened it. And I picked it up and played it for a couple seconds. And it was a very, very emotional moment. He's a great guy, Steve. But he was Jerry's guitar tech for all those years. Yeah.

And it was the first time he had opened it. Yeah. Wow. It was weird seeing it looked a little, you know. They look worn. Like, they look, little, you know. They look worn. Like they look like, you know, like the ones I saw at the rock hall were like, it was just sort of like, no one can play those but him. No.

You know, they look like they look like they're heavy. You know, and like, just like, and so part of him. And some of them have so many buttons and knobs, I'm like, what the fuck was going on? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was a, I still get very moved by it all. You know, he was such an amazing... Beyond. Yeah, and I don't even understand it.

Like, a lot of people don't get it, but if you get it, you get it. You know, I don't even know what it is. I mean, having seen him so many times, you know, I feel like we were so lucky to be that age. You know, like, I got to see Zappa so many times, you know, I feel like we were so lucky to be that age, you know, like I got to see Zappa so many times, Zappa and I got to see Jerry many, many times, particularly Jerry Band too,

where you could walk right up front. I mean, I saw Jerry Band at the Flynn Theater in Burlington, Vermont. And it wasn't sold out. He just walked in. You know, you buy a $10 ticket. Yeah, at the Flynn. It's only like a small theater. It's not even that big.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was, you know, there or at the Dead Shows. I mean, it was evident in that moment that you're like watching an American, you know, a piece of American history. Yeah. And that was when he was touring with his druggy guy, right? Yeah.

He was still, there was never a time when the guy wasn't, you know... I mean, no one can play like that. Forget it. You know, I always have this funny thing that... You know, all this stuff, it's great. It's great that people are still playing those songs. Hallelujah. Yeah.

But... He can't play. I kind of feel like, just because great guy, and I'm glad he's playing the songs. But I was kind of saying, it's just because you play with Noel Redding doesn't make you Jimmy Hendrix. It's true. And even some guy as proficient as you or as John,

doing those songs, even if you're gonna, you know, there was, there was some sort of, you know, kind of a, a, a, a bubbling eloquence to the way he moved up and down. Oh, God. Forget it. Yeah. It's just like, it's, it's, it's a phrasing thing. Yes.

And it has nothing to do with, you can know all those Mixolydians and go back and forth with your country scales, but who the fuck knows what that magic was? I don't know what it was. Well, when you did, when you interviewed my buddy Billy Strings, who I adore, whose wedding I was at, they both did something that people don't do. Okay, so sometimes people ask me, you know, what I love about Stevie Ray Vaughn. Yeah. The first time I heard Stevie Ray Vaughn, I was like, this guy learned all the blues masters. And Hendrix.

You can hear it. Hendrix and everybody that came before him. Albert King, you know, BB King, all of them. The guy you could say, do Albert, and he would do Albert. The guy like immersed himself in the history of the blues and then went on and wrote Tightrope. Yeah.

Right? Sober, that one. Totally, and all those songs. So the thing about Jerry was that, you know, he was a banjo player and he intended, his dream was to be the banjo player for Bill Monroe's band. And he, I learned this when I did Fairly Well

and talked to his friends and his wives and all this stuff. This guy's practiced nine hours a day, the entire history of Americana, American music, 20s, 30s, 40s. He had a, one of them, I can't remember who it was, told me that his record collection was, you know, old. The guy did his homework long before, long before there was a, the way Billy Strings did.

You know what I mean? And if Billy does what, I've talked to him about this. I'm friends with him, you know? He's doing it. I think he's doing it right now. But if he starts making his own material and finds out who he is with the informed knowledge of learning, the guy knows the entire Encyclopedia of Bluegrass at this point in time.

You can't make that shit up. That's real, you know what I'm trying to say? And Jerry did that. By the time he started The Dead, he was, and that's what you could hear in his playing. You heard a tether to American history going back to the 20s, 30s, 40s. People don't do that anymore.

It's missing. It's the way your vocals phrase. It's the way you do those turnarounds on the guitar. It's missing. It's the way your vocals phrase. It's the way you do those turnarounds on the guitar. It's like part of your body and he did it when he was young. And like I said, Stevie Ray Vaughan did that and Billy did that. But Billy, you know, he's a little bit of a savant though. He's a prodigy and there's no way around that. You know, and in all the homework and all the practicing is true. But like when he sat right there and played for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And well, it's in there. You know, and all the homework and all the practicing is true, but like when, you know, he sat right there and played for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And- Well, it's in there, you know, he learned all that stuff. I know. And he also is a savant and all that together. Yeah, exactly. I mean, you either got it or you don't. That's right. There's that too.

But it's rare, like, he was fortunate in that he didn't become like, you know, like Derek, you know, he had, Derek Trucks, you know, he had to, you know, transcend being this freakish prodigy. And then, you know, take it to the level of commitment and virtuosity to get away from the prodigy thing. Yeah. Or get away from Dwayne or get away from this, you know, look at the little monkey. And so he, you know, he became this like, you know, informed by, you know, ragas and, you know, and Indian music and like, and so he's off on this other thing. But when you watch Billy play is that there's a phrasing

that he has that is just, you know, transcends the bluegrass. You like, the bluegrass is there, but you're like, there's something vital here that didn't exist before. Yes. Yes. And he, I remember when I first met him, one of the first things he said, he's like,

you know, I didn't grow up in the holler. Yeah. I grew up in Michigan, I liked Metallica. Yeah. I'm like, cool, you know, my first album that I loved of his was Turmoil and Tinfoil. Yeah. I'm like, okay, now you're onto something.

But he's in there with John Bryan right now. I know, I know. He was there. Yeah. That's going to be interesting. I think it's incredible. Whoever thought of that, I want to call them up and buy them a steak dinner or something. Yeah, yeah, I'm really into it. Because he's a great producer,

and if they can continue to find who he is. Well, Billy will cover that metal shit, and he'll do a bluegrass song. Yeah, when he kind of finds his own voice, you know the Miles Davis quote, which is to me the greatest quote ever in music, is the hardest thing to do in music is sound like yourself. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. And he's right. Yeah. He's right. Yeah. And you know, going back to what we're saying about Jerry, you know, he wanted to be in Bill Monroe's band.

Yeah, it's crazy. Very famously, he learned all this stuff. And then he started to sound like him. Yeah. That's when he became the legend that he became. You know, and I used Stevie Ray as an example of the same thing. Pretty quickly, he started to sound like Stevie Ray. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and that's the hard part. The hard part is, is believing in yourself

and being yourself and not. With any art. With, yeah. You know, that not being. Just had this conversation on the hill today with my buddy Dan who owns a record store, you know, about Keith Richards, is that like, you know, he was always pretty fucking confident in being Keith Richards and that you know I know like his phrasing and his sense of space is

Completely unique to him. Mm-hmm and then once he sort of like figured out that open G tuning and you You listen to those stone songs. I how the fuck is he but why it doesn't sound like that And then you tune your guitar down to open G. You're like, how the fuck is he, why doesn't it sound like that? And then you turn your guitar down to open G, you're like, no. You know, like, but it's not about virtuosity, really. It's about owning yourself. Yeah. And you can trace lineage.

You know, we listen to Chuck Berry. You can see even with the way he stands on stage. You know what I mean? And that Chuck Berry groove is not just. You listen to Chuck Berry, but he sounds like Keith. Yeah. But also that Chuck Berry thing is not as easy as everybody thinks it is.

No. It's a very weird rhythm thing he does. You know, like, and anybody can do that, danka, danka, danka, danka, you can do that. But to have that bounce that Chuck had, it's very, it's a very, it's not easy. Yeah, I think that if you could like, you know, what you just, it's that,

if Keith Richards plays two notes, it's like, oh, that's Keith Richards. So there you go. It's time and timing. That's the high water mark, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, I, you know, trying to figure out who you are. And do you feel like you're there?

Maybe, I, well, it's hard to say with yourself, but it's a, where I came to say with yourself, but it's a... Where I came from is really weird, going back to the beginning of the conversation. And, you know, I wanted to, you know, I wanted to write The Firebird, you know, by Stravinsky, you know, the great, you know, Third Symphony by Beethoven. This is the stuff I was listening to when I was in. I wanted to, you know, so I don't know, I don't know if I knew who I was. I like Minutemen, you know,

Double Nickels on the dime. But I think maybe over the years, there's moments, I'll say this, There's moments, I'll say this, there's moments when we're playing where I feel like I'm out in a realm that sounds only like we can, you know, especially like in a split open a melt jam or something like that, where it gets really, and it's hard to say that about yourself. Yeah, sure. But, you know, I can say it about you. Yeah. I'm not a very good guitar player. No, no, no. I mean, about who you are.

It's utterly unique. Yeah. And maybe not who you intended to be when you started your career. But I think we share that in a way that's sort of like, I never say that to myself. Exactly. I'm always looking at somebody else going, wellWell, I'm not that guy." -"Yeah, exactly." Exactly. Well, a great way to do it is just keep out of the...

Compare and despair, buddy. Yeah, you can't... Just stay away from the compare by staying... Just move your festival to the northern point in Maine and then no one can even get there to write a review of it. Yeah, if I had that festival, it'd be about 40 people. Ten of whom I know. But yeah, so in closing,

do you still cover any dead? No, not for a long time. When you did the covers, what were they? The last time I did it was Fairly Well, which was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. That was kind of it for that, you know. Did you ever play Warfarin' with the band? did it was fairly well, which was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. That was it for that.

Did you ever play Warfarin with the band? Not with our band, no. Because I did it. I've been playing with some guys sometimes. It's a great song. I'm only as good as I can be. But I finally started playing with people in public and learning how to do that in the last few years. I was like, I'm going to try this.

I'm going to try Warfarin, you know. And the amazing thing about it was that the musicians I play with, you know, they've all been in bands. And the drummer is like really a pop drummer. Yeah. And, you know, he's a good guy. But when I said, we're going to try this, and he was like, the dead?

And that dude, you know, after we kind of nailed it as best we could, he was like, that was amazing. Like, he had never even thought about the Dead. Yeah. But the experience of playing that song, he was like completely immersed in it. It's an incredible song. It's a timeless classic song. Speaking of your guitar, I love your guitar solo on, I listened to it on the way here on, what is it called, Party at the End? Oh yeah, where'd you find that?

The solo is great. Yeah, yeah. I like the song, but I have to call the songwriters out on something. My first thought was, it's a little, I want to be sedated. Yeah, no, it was like a goofy song by that band, Yacht. And I'd met them and they were like, can you want to come do the solo?

And I just went over to their house. And I had a 335 that I rarely play. Killer solo. Killer solo. That's how I do solos. I may go home and learn it. No problem. That's really good.

I always put grooves at the end of all these shows. You know, I sit here with one of these amps straight in. And I just do a thing. But it seems like when I do solos, like I'm going to like, I'm going to like go in there and just blow it out and not even. Because that yacht song, it's almost like Billy Gibbons.

Like I literally do like a ZZ Top riff. Yeah, you got a little weird in that. Yeah, I did. I did. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. It's nice to hear from you. Great talking to you, man. Thank you so much, Mark. It was great. Thank you for having me.

Thank you for having me. There you go. I hope you enjoyed that. Phish's new album is called Evolve. The summer tour continues through September and their festival in Dover, Delaware kicks off August 15th. Go to phish.com for all the details.

Hang out for a minute. Hey folks, let your imagination soar by visiting audible.ca audible has the best selection of audio books without exception, along with popular podcasts and exclusive audible originals all in one easy app, whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, basically any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, new ways of thinking.

Listening can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall wellbeing. Enjoy Audible any time while you're doing other things, household chores, exercising, on the road, commuting, you name it. Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your everyday routine without needing to set aside extra time. You might want to check out some audiobooks by our recent guests like I Curse You With Joy by Tiffany Hanisch or Sonic Life by Thurston Moore. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day

audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca Tim Horton's Camp Day is Wednesday July 17th. When you buy a hotter iced coffee 100% of proceeds help change the lives of youth in need. See you at Tim's July 17th and don't forget to upsize your coffee for a bigger donation at participating restaurants in Canada. Hey, just wanted to hit you guys to something you know, we do have a premium subscription and cost a bit of money. And you can get every episode of WTF ad free. And we do a thing on there.

We've done 15 of them, we're going to drop them the 16th one tomorrow called ask Mark anything. And this is where we field questions from our WTF plus listeners and, and I answer them. And it's interesting because it focuses me and it makes me kind of talk about one thing relatively thoroughly, but that's gonna drop Tuesday, and you can get that. You can just go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF+, and you can hear me answer questions like these.

What advice would you give to an alienated progressive comic going to open mics in an area where the most popular comics are right-wing evangelical Christians, do you think I should share my liberal perspective on stage or maybe go to a bigger city with more like-minded comics and audiences? Hey, look, man, that's up to you. I have generally always been more a shit-starter.

I've always been in the mode of pushing buttons. But as I addressed earlier in these questions, you know, the risk of that in certain areas, especially if you live there and you're working with a group of other comics, you know, you have to accept and thrive on the alienation you'll experience and also the real fear of being taken to task one way or the other.

But I mean, that's one of the things that gets lost in the culture right now is that, you know, the real fear of being taken to task one way or the other. But I mean, that's one of the things that gets lost in the culture right now is that people are just afraid to talk and if you do speak out, who are you really speaking out to and will it change anything and does it matter and is it an unnecessary risk? Look, those are all personal questions

and they're real questions. If you want to grow as a comic and it's stifling your ability to do that, then yeah, you should probably go somewhere where you can grow as a comic and then return fully armed with a point of view that you have confidence in. If you want more of that, just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod dotcom and click on WTF plus. Those new batch of questions drops tomorrow, Tuesday, and there's 15 more. Before we go, I should mention that today's show is sponsored

by better help online therapy. How often do you compare yourself to others? It's easy to envy friends lives on social media, but comparison is the thief of joy. And in reality, nobody has it all together. Online therapy can help you focus on what you want, not what others have, because your best life is better than the idea of someone else's. Stop comparing and start living with BetterHelp.

Learn more at betterhelp.com. That's betterH-E-L-P.com. And a reminder, this podcast is hosted by Acast. Let's reach into the guitar riff vault for this little chunky. Riff. So I'm a little bit of a Boomer Lifts Monkey and La Fonda Cat Angels Everywhere