This morning, long before dawn, Trey Anastasio sent me an urgent text message about his hypothetical ballot for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “I love Soundgarden. Take off Phish. Put back Soundgarden,” he wrote, ending the message, as he so often does, with an emoji: 😂.
I had called Anastasio on Wednesday afternoon, a few minutes after he finished a block of rehearsals for an upcoming solo acoustic tour and a few hours after it was announced, somewhat surprisingly, that Phish had finally been nominated for the Rock Hall. During the last four decades, Phish has set a new standard for jam bands in the United States, not only in its dogged pursuit of newness but also in its cultivation of a community that has grown and matured alongside it. But industry accolades have mostly eluded Phish. They’ve been nominated for a Grammy only once, their albums rarely chart, and they’ve been out of the major-label system for the better part of two decades. This was a rare show of external validation.
At the end of our call, I asked Anastasio—one of the most avid and attentive listeners I’ve ever known—who would be on his own ballot. He worked his way through the nominees, laughing as he picked. And immediately after he hung up, he sent his first text of regrets: “I want to vote for Cyndi Lauper. Take someone off!!! Is Soundgarden on my list?” And then, of course, there was another emoji: 🤔.
That was the move that ultimately led to Anastasio—at least as of this morning—deciding not to vote for his own band. Still, as he took a taxi between appointments in Manhattan, Anastasio talked about why he thinks Phish and the scene they have built do matter, and how honored he is to know that others might feel the same way.
GQ: How did you find out Phish had been nominated?
Trey Anastasio: Patrick Jordan, our manager, called Page [McConnell, Phish keyboardist] and I yesterday, and the four of us have been talking this morning. It’s an honor and a thrill, a recognition of our whole scene, of our community. That was the first thing we all talked about—that it’s a celebration of this community. You know I’m not making that up, because you’re in it, in the community. I sent the guys 14 seconds of the Munchkins: “You will be a bust. You will be a bust. In the hall of fame.” It’s the greatest line ever written about a Hall of Fame, I think?
That’s why I’m saying I think it’s such a celebration of a community, because we’ve always stood left of center, always, from the beginning. But what we’ve always had going for us is this incredibly strong connection with our fans, our community. We’ve grown at an organic pace, which has probably been the best gift we ever could have received as a band. The roots are strong now. It’s been 40 years.
Not counting nominations for packaging, Phish has only been nominated for one Grammy award in 41 years, and has never won. This is the band’s first time on a Rock Hall ballot. Why has it taken some people so long, especially in the music industry, to take Phish seriously?
We didn’t make it easy. It’s not a very surface band. It’s been hard for the Grammys, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fames, and even magazines in the beginning to understand why people were so excited about this thing. There’s a lot in there, but we don’t lead with it. I don’t blame anybody. I fully understand and always have, so there’s no hard feelings. I am not making the Oasis statement that it’s bollocks or whatever. It’s really meaningful.
This is going to be weird. I am going to make this comparison without even a drop of quality comparison. But when I saw Kendrick the other night, I was losing my mind. I thought, “This is the deepest thing I’ve ever seen at a Super Bowl.” I watched it three times, and I still couldn’t pick up on all the messages he was conveying. I just assumed everyone thought that, until I talked to Patrick the next day. I don’t really look at the Internet, but he said, “A lot of people didn’t really like it.” How could you not like that? It was a piece of art. But it wasn’t all on the surface. It wasn’t McHalfTime Show. You had to dig in a little bit, and anyone who did dig in was rewarded. I love things like that. If it were me voting, Joy Division is in. But it’s not me that’s voting. That’s another band that’s like that. It’s not a surface-level artistic statement.
It’s a lifetime of … I was going to say work, but I’m going to change that to a lifetime of care and love that went into this thing. Every single day of my life for 41 years, I have been wanting to create an experience that touched people. The thing that I have tattooed on the inside of my forehead is “This is so good it should be even better.” I try to say that about everything: This lyric is so good it should be even better. This setlist is so good it should be even better. How can we improve this so that people can continue to have their minds blown?
We’re 41 years in, and we played two brand new songs, which are now deeply folded into this thing. “What’s Going Through Your Mind” is arguably the biggest song in the Phish repertoire right now. It was written in March. It came out after our last album, in our 41st year. That just doesn’t happen. But the amount of work that goes into something like that, the hidden work? Like, I definitely also believe “Never let ’em see you sweat,” and there’s a lot of sweat. You gotta debut 20 new songs to get a song like that. You have to work on all of them and write all of them and wait for the muse to tell you this is the one.
