Trey Anastasio
Ernest Joseph "Trey" Anastasio III[1] (born September 30, 1964[2][3]) is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Phish, which he co-founded in 1983. He is credited by name as composer of 152 Phish original songs, 141 of them as a solo credit, in addition to 41 credits attributed to the band as a whole.[4]
Trey Anastasio
Ernest Giuseppe Anastasio III
Big Red, the Bad Lieutenant
September 30, 1964
Fort Worth, Texas, U.S.
- Musician
- songwriter
- composer
- Guitar
- vocals
1982–present
- Phish
- Trey Anastasio Band
- Oysterhead
- SerialPod
- Ghosts of the Forest
- Phil Lesh and Friends
- Surrender to the Air
- Eight Foot Fluorescent Tubes
- Bivouac Jaun
- 70 Volt Parade
- Fare Thee Well
In addition to his work with Phish, Anastasio has released 11 solo albums, and been part of several side projects including the Trey Anastasio Band, Oysterhead, Ghosts of the Forest, Phil Lesh and Friends, and Surrender to the Air.
He has performed his own compositions with the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and many others.[5][6]
With Amanda Green, he wrote the score for the Broadway musical Hands on a Hardbody. In 2013, they were nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score at the 67th Tony Awards, and were awarded the 2013 Dramatists Guild Frederick Loewe Award for best theatrical score composition.[7]
In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Anastasio at number 53 on their list of the 250 greatest guitarists of all time.[8]
Early life and career[edit]
Anastasio was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and moved to Princeton, New Jersey, when he was three. His father, Ernest Anastasio Jr., was an executive vice president at the Educational Testing Service. His mother, Dina, was a children's book author and editor of Sesame Street Magazine. He grew up with his sister Kristy.[1] In 1967, Trey was the inspiration for the lead character in the children's book What Does The Cloud Do?, which was written and illustrated by his grandparents, Jean and Cle Kinney.[9]
Anastasio attended Princeton public schools through the fourth grade, then transferred to Princeton Day School. He graduated from the Taft School along with Steven Pollak, better known as the Dude of Life, who later helped pen such Phish compositions as "Suzy Greenberg", "Fluffhead", "Run Like An Antelope", "Slave to the Traffic Light", and "Dinner and a Movie". At Taft, he formed his first two bands, Red Tide and Space Antelope.
He enrolled at the University of Vermont (UVM) as a philosophy major, where he met original Phish bandmates Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon, and Jeff Holdsworth. On December 2, 1983, the group played their first gig at a dance in the Harris-Millis Cafeteria at UVM.[10] The setlist consisted of cover songs, including "Long Cool Woman" and "Proud Mary" which was performed twice. The band was very primitive at this time and used hockey sticks as mic stands. After performing one set, Michael Jackson's Thriller album was put on by a party-goer to drown out the band. The band would not return to play but were still paid for the performance. At UVM, he hosted an early morning radio program, Ambient Alarm Clock.
While living at home for a semester he attended Mercer County Community College.[11] While there, he reconnected with his childhood friend Tom Marshall, and the pair began a songwriting collaboration and recorded material that would appear on the Bivouac Jaun demo tape.[12] Anastasio met up with childhood friends Tom Marshall, his future writing partner, and early collaborator Marc Daubert.[13] After seeing a Phish show, pianist Page McConnell joined Phish in the autumn of 1985. Anastasio, along with Jon Fishman, transferred to Goddard College.[1]
During this time he began a musical association and close friendship with composer Ernie Stires, who taught him composition, theory, and arranging.[14] While at Goddard, he composed the song cycle The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday as his senior project. These songs became mainstays of the Phish catalog. He graduated from Goddard in 1988.
Guitar playing style and stage equipment[edit]
Anastasio has employed the services of his friend, luthier and audio-technician Paul Languedoc (Phish's soundman from 1986 to 2004) throughout his career. The highly resonant hollow-body electric guitars built by Languedoc[37] for Anastasio, his Ibanez Tube Screamers, and Ross Compressors are key to his signature tone. Anastasio has several custom Languedoc hollow-body electric guitars, which make use of set maple necks with 24-fret ebony fretboards and dual Seymour Duncan SH-1 '59 humbucker pickups. During Phish's 2018 Halloween "musical costume" set, Anastasio deviated from his Languedoc guitars and performed with a white Ed O'Brien model Fender Stratocaster.[38]
Anastasio's electric guitar technique is largely conventional; he does not typically make use of tapping techniques and does not usually play slide guitar (an example of when he does is in the Oysterhead section of Les Claypool's 5 Gallons of Diesel) but is known to be competent at both techniques. He normally uses a 2.0mm Adamas graphite guitar pick, but does not always do so. Melodically, he often incorporates modes, notably the dorian, mixolydian, and locrian, as well as pentatonic scales. In addition to scales, Anastasio makes abundant use of arpeggios while improvising as well as in his compositional material. Anastasio's guitar influences include Robert Fripp, John McLaughlin, Jerry Garcia, Pat Metheny, Frank Zappa and Jimi Hendrix.[39]
Effects processors play a crucial role in achieving Anastasio's guitar tone. He uses effects such as two Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamers (with Analogman's Silver Mod) in sequence, the famous Univibe clone the Black Cat Vibe, and a Ross compressor. He switched to Analogman's Bicompressor around 1998, dropped the compressor from his rig in 2002, and resumed use of the Ross Compressor in 2008 when a group of fans who desired the return of Anastasio's "signature" Ross compressor sound pooled their resources to obtain a vintage Ross Compressor and sent it to Anastasio in an attempt to compel him to return the vintage effect pedal to his rig.[40] Anastasio responded through friend and longtime collaborator Tom Marshall's website explaining that he had lost his original Ross Compressor and that he was so touched that people cared about his effects and guitar tone that he would add the gift to his rig in the original configuration where it has remained ever since.[41] He also uses a wah wah pedal (usually a Real McCoy Custom 3 by Geoffrey Teese), a Boomerang phrase sampler, Custom Audio Electronics Super Tremolo, Ibanez DM2000 delay, Alesis Microverb II (set to reverse), Whammy II pitch shifter, as well as a Leslie rotating speaker horn. In 2009, Anastasio added a Nova Repeater (delay). He controls these devices singularly or in batch with a Custom Audio Electronics RS-10 footpedal bank.
In the early 1990s, Anastasio employed a custom 2x12 speaker cabinet powered by either a 100W Mesa/Boogie Mark III head or, later, a Custom Audio Electronics 3-channel preamp and Groove Tubes power amp. In mid-1997, he switched to a pair of modified 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb amps, one serving as a backup. When Phish returned in 2009, Anastasio was back to using the Mesa Boogie MKIII. In 2013 he added a Bogner Shiva amp to his arsenal, which can still be seen on stage as recently as Summer Tour 2014, though has not been used much during that tour.
Anastasio played three different acoustic guitars by Martin. The first is a D-45E which has East Indian Rosewood sides and back and a solid Sitka Spruce top. In 2005, Martin released a Trey Anastasio signature model acoustic guitar, with a dreadnought body with a curved Venetian cutaway. The guitar also has an Italian alpine spruce top, mahogany sides and a three-piece back with "wings" of mahogany and a center wedge of flame-figured Hawaiian koa (similar to a D-35). The guitar is finished with a flamed koa headplate and snowflake fingerboard inlays. Martin built only 141 of these guitars, which quickly sold out.
As of 2017+, a Martin 1943 D28 is main guitar for standard tuning, Martin 1934 00028 for finger-style/open tunings, 1968 D35 for Drop and slack key tunings.
The history of Anastasio's guitars, rig and equipment has been meticulously documented by music writer Ryan Chiachiere on the blog Trey's Guitar Rig.[42]
Personal life[edit]
He has been married to Susan Statesir, his college girlfriend, since August 13, 1994. They live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan[43] and have two daughters, Eliza and Isabella.[44] His sister, Kristy Manning, died of cancer in April 2009.[45]
On December 15, 2006, Anastasio was stopped by police in Whitehall, New York, on a traffic violation.[3][46] He failed a field sobriety test, and was subsequently arrested for possession of heroin and other drugs, and driving while intoxicated. Anastasio pleaded guilty to a reduced felony drug charge and spent 14 months participating in daily meetings, drug testing, and performing community service in the Washington County, New York, drug court program. In June 2008, after completing all phases of the New York State drug court, Anastasio graduated in good standing. His conviction was reduced to a misdemeanor. He has publicly thanked the officer who arrested him for turning his life around.[47] Following this experience, he became an active participant in the National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP), sharing his story on Capitol Hill, and working to help raise awareness and money, for a National Drug Court.[48] Anastasio has maintained sobriety since January 2007, and detailed his opiate addiction, arrest and rehabilitation in a January 2019 GQ feature on sober musicians.[49]
The Barn[edit]
"The Barn", also known as "The Farmhouse", is the name given to Anastasio's rehearsal and recording facility in the countryside near Westford, Vermont in the state's Lamoille Valley region. It was reconstructed between 1996 and 1998 from an existing structure, the Alan Irish Barn. The Barn has been used by Phish and most of Anastasio's projects since 1999. The cover photo of the Phish album Farmhouse is of the outhouse located right next to The Barn.
Other artists who have recorded or performed at The Barn include Gordon Stone Band, Herbie Hancock, Béla Fleck, Swampadelica, John Patitucci, DJ Logic, Toots & the Maytals, Tony Levin, The Slip, RAQ, John Medeski, Jerry Douglas, Nicholas Cassarino, Van Ghost and Addison Groove Project, Karina Rykman, among others.
Beginning in 2006, The Barn was transformed from a commercial recording facility into a studio environment providing accommodations and work space for artists participating in the Seven Below residency program.