Phish Quotes

I started playing piano when I was 4 years old. I started taking lessons and I just always knew that this is what I wanted to do and then in bands in high school... Then I ended up in this school in Vermont and Phish had already been together for 2 years and they came and played at my school and... I thought that I should join the band. So, I moved in to where they were living and... squeezeled my way in there, much to their chagrin, because there wasn't enthousiasm in there, excepted that it was a good idea for me to join the band, but I was here to convince them.
Page McConnell

No, no. Noone denies the influence. The Grateful Dead is a very important band for us and for a lot of other bands. It's not that we deny their influence. But if there's a constant comparison all the time, I think that you're probably feeling... He was probably feeling frustration but you know, we've really all been to a lot of Dead shows and have all been influenced by the Dead, but lots of other bands also.
Page McConnell

Well, it depends. In New Britain we wrote out a songlist and we just didn't play it at all. Even the first song -- we were going to open with Brother, and then we went out on stage and opened with Uncle Pen. It just seemed like the wrong thing. So, we usually write out some kind of songlist, but we don't necessarily do it.
Trey Anastasio

I don't know...that's just the four of us, from living together so much. I'm sure anybody that spent the amount of time that we do together...it's crazy. I mean it is just crazy. It gets really weird sometimes, in a fun way. That's definitely one great thing, we've got a sense of humor that keeps moving forward, moving forward in weird ways so that things that most people wouldn't think are funny at all become funny to us because we know about this series of jokes that led up to it over the last eight years.
Trey Anastasio

I have a hard time with that question, actually. Because I don't really have a favorite bass player. I listen to a lot of bluegrass. We do play some of that stuff, and we probably wouldn't if I hadn't started encouraging those guys to play some more of it. But then again, I'm not a typical bluegrass bass player. There were different bass players that I listened to, but I don't think that any one of them was a direct influence. There were different bands that I liked at different times too. I was really into the Grateful Dead, and I still am- I don't listen to them too much, but for me they are a big influence.
Mike Gordon