It’s that time of year again… In ten short days, Phish will return to New York’s Madison Square Garden for their annual four-night New Year’s run. Each year, we like to celebrate the season in the days leading up to Phish at MSG with the 12 Days of Phishmas, a daily series that gives you your Phish fix and helps stoke your excitement in the days leading up to the run. In 2016, we took you back to 12 historic Phish performances at The Garden. In 2017, with the Baker’s Dozen barely out of sight in the rearview, we relived the magic and mystery of the band’s historic residency.
For years, we’ve been earmarking some of our favorite Phish interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and other cool content that we haven’t found the right occasion to share with you…until now. For 2018, we’ve made you a very special Phishmas Advent calendar to help spice up your countdown to showtime. As we approach the start of the run on the 28th, we’ll open up one panel a day and reveal a fun surprise inside—a little something sweet and Phishy once a day until the Garden party begins. No peeking! By the time we’re finished with the calendar, it will finally be time for the gift we’ve all been waiting for: Four nights of Phish on their home court at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
10 Days Til’ Phish: Trey Anastasio Interview At New Yorker Festival (2015)
On the third day of Phishmas… Trey Anastasio sat down for an interview at the New Yorker Festival in 2015. The interview took place in October of 2015, months after Trey’s monumental summer of music playing the Grateful Dead‘s Fare Thee Well 50th anniversary shows and cranking out the strongest summer Phish tour in recent memory. In the two-part interview segment, Trey first discusses the tough task of having to learn and master 100 or more Grateful Dead tunes for Fare Thee Well, his pre-show pep talks with NBA Hall of Famer and devoted “Deadhead” Bill Walton, as well as what he brought to Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart from Phish’s overall aesthetic.
Trey then dives into his complex and longstanding friendship with Tom Marshall, along with emphasizing his huge involvement and significance to Phish and their fanbase. It’s heartwarming to see Trey light up when discussing his best friend and musical partner, as he quickly gets sidetracked—typical Trey—and moves on to discuss his songwriting process with Tom. Trey explains that the duo generally rents a house—in 2015, it was in North Carolina’s Outer Banks—and that they treat the process like a fake recording session, even coming up with a phony album title.
Trey goes on to discuss the origins of “The Line” off 2014’s Fuego, and how he closely relates to Darius Washington Jr.’s public crash-and-burn. Trey’s emphasizes how his own public crash-and-burn in 2007 ended up being the greatest gift that he has ever been handed in his life. As Trey learned from Jerry Garcia, “Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”
Watch the two-part interview to learn more about Trey Anastasio’s experience getting invited to join the Grateful Dead for GD50, the particular songwriting process that Trey partakes in with Tom Marshall, the feeling of crashing and burning in the public spotlight, and more.
Trey Anastasio Interview At New Yorker Festival (Part 1)
[Video: LazyLightning55a]
Trey Anastasio Interview At New Yorker Festival (Part 2)
[Video: LazyLightning55a]
We’ll be back tomorrow to open the fourth panel on our Phishmas 2018 Advent calendar. What other Phishmas surprises are in store? You’ll just have to wait and see…
In the meantime, you can go back through the previous Phishmas surprises:
On the first day of Phishmas… The Big Daddy Show
On the second day of Phishmas… David Byrne Interviews Phish
On the third day of Phishmas… Trey Anastasio Talks Fare The Well At The New Yorker Festival
The post 12 Days Of Phishmas 2018: Trey Anastasio Speaks At New Yorker Festival In The Aftermath Of Fare Thee Well [Watch] appeared first on L4LM.
