The Phish interview with Bob Harris
| Phish appeared on the Bob Harris show on London's local BBC station GLR on Tuesday 11th February 1997 two days before their appearance at the Shepherds Bush Empire. Bob Harris is a legend in the UK, he came to fame as the presenter of "The Old Grey Whistle Test" - one of the best television rock shows ever. Lately he worked on Radio 1 until being removed to make way for someone younger and now he presents his show 3 nights a week on GLR.
Bob: Nine minutes past 9 o'clock,Greater London Radio from the BBC, the Bob Harris show on 94.9 FM through to 10 o'clock we're here on 0171-224-2000 that's the telephone number particularly if you have a question to ask of Phish, the four guys from the band will be in, in a couple of seconds time...........But certainly for the next half hour we're concentrating on a band who suddenly seem to have broken through in this country, we're hearing so much about them these days, their new album "Billy Breathes" is just released, we'll be hearing a track or two from it in a moment or two but firstly let me play something from a collection of theirs called Stash, this is Phish and "Sample in a jar" Bob: Absolutely superb, it's called "Sample in a jar" it's from the collection Stash which came out, last year actually in this country, it's released on the Electra record label and Jon and Mike from Phish are with me in the studio on GLR tonight , welcome along it's really nice to meet you both. When did you arrive?, you got in this morning to London. Mike: Yeah we did, actually we were in Newark and our guitar player realised he forgot his passport so he's still over there. Jon: He was supposed to be here instead of Mike Bob: Are you going to be all right for the gig?Will he be here in time. Mike: No..er we know plenty of guitar chords between the three of us! Bob: It's an incredible story you're story in many ways I mean particularly the extent to which in this country you have been something of a well kept secret through the years considering that the band began, what? fourteen years ago now Mike: Yeah something like that Bob: Tell us something about the growth of the band because I obviously realise that weight of support that you've got has come a lot through the constant touring that you've done during those years. Mike: yeah, I mean even in the US where we have crowds that are a lot bigger - to a lot of people we're still a secret and the reason is that we've just built up our following and our career in a very different way than probably most bands..er have done, we toured a lot and we never really..er never really made a album until our sixth year or something like that and... er even then we then we really had a following and it was just word of mouth and playing a lot and playing long shows and trying to put ourselves into that Bob: Because word of mouth is an incredibly powerful thing isn't it when you're talking to somebody you trust and they're recommending a band or they're recommending a single or whatever it is that they've heard and you trust that person and you think yeah, right okay and follow through and it's a solid base that kind of communication builds up isn't it? Jon: Yeah...definitely, much more so than I would think that any.... media and stuff can push things but people have to ...er you can expose things through media but then people will, you know some people will grasp on to it that's sort of like ..erm advertising and stuff you know is, you know you see an commercial on TV and people.. er some would buy the product and some wouldn't where as if it's a friend of yours comes up to you and says "use this thing or check this out - this is the best, this is the best thing to clean windows with, or this is the best, this is my favourite band I've heard in a while" or whatever, I don't know I think it establishes it more in someone's mind . - It's a slower process and it like it takes years and years and it's like, you know, but it sticks more I think. Bob: It does, I entirely agree with that....and there's a moment when it all seems to click in because if one tells one that makes two, two tell two,four.... Jon: Yeah you do get critical mass at some point.... Bob: and suddenly you break through, that certainly in this country to have happened now, because you've also managed to do it pretty much out of the glare of the MTV.....cameras and the MTV regime.... Jon: Yeah well we sort of fell right between the crack as it were, we're the MTV generation as it were, I mean when we started MTV was really just starting too. kind of and it just never...at that time no one took it seriously and no one thought it would be that big a deal and so I don't think that... ourselves and many other bands in the same boat, with us in the same peer group were really aiming at the MTV thing and by the time MTV really caught on, we were already 8 years old or something and it was kinda past the point for us, we'd been concentrating so much on live shows for so many years that it took us until recently to get a clue about albums...(laughs) well see I'm calling them albums .. CD's you know but you know I mean 'cos even CD's themselves were only documenting our songs as we were going along. Bob: Well they're sort of snapshots of a moment in time but certainly with the new album you've concentrated probably more time and focus on this album than you had done albums previously Mike: Yeah we spent more time in the studio and we really wanted to have the same kind of.....well not the same kind but a variation of just experimenting and allowing ourselves to be loose and free as we do on stage .. with this album rather than other albums and we just experimented. Jon: Also I think we understood the context of the separation between the world of a live show and the world of an album. For years and years we tried to get what we do on stage, the energy of what we do on stage on to an album and it was sort of like...you know beating your head against the wall and you can't do it so then we eventually put out a live album and then we just decided okay so now we've done that so now let's just look at the world of recording as an entirely separate entity from the world of the stage and now it's twice the fun...'cos now you've got two whole different worlds to er... Bob: ...because rumours and reports abound about your live shows...in particular I mean you know there's been all along this direct comparison with the Grateful Dead and the fact that you do very, very long sets probably is as much the point of comparison as anything else but there's a freedom about you on stage which people say is absolutely extraordinary particularly the idea of taking an album, somebody else's album and say playing through The Beatles; "White Album" in sequence and just playing it through...because you did that did you do that? Mike: Yeah we did that, that was actually three years ago and then we did Quadrophenia the year after...actually I met Pete Townsend and I told him that we'd done it... Jon: and he didn't care! Mike: ..he didn't care too much but then he went and did it (Jon: in the same city!)...yeah we did it, our Halloween show was in Chicago 18,000 people and the next year the Who played Quadrophoenia in Chicago on Halloween so they copied the idea but we copied the album and this year we did "Remain in Light" , the Talking Heads album... yeah that whole concept is just.. it's kinda like one idea in this big basket of ideas we have floating around..and we like to try to do things that bands don't usually do... Jon: That in particular was the Halloween concept of you know people dress up in costumes on Halloween and so..we've been trying ..if you dress up in costumes on stage you can only keep them on for about 3 seconds before you get too hot so we decided why not take on a musical costume? and so that was the start of the Halloween ..that was the concept of doing those other albums... for one set we will actually try and be another band and even down to the point of... not even doing...the emphasis was really to try to recreate that album as much as possible.. you know when most bands cover another song.. and usually when we cover another artist you try to do your own thing with it, you try to take it in your own direction, make the song yours and...the point of this was more to actually have it be a musical costume.... Mike: but the other thing is also..it takes a lot of work to learn someone else's album as and what ends up happening is we just learn a lot...we're kind of ..erm four people who are really eager to learn from a load of musical styles and...erm so that's really a way to get inside another groups thing.... Bob: Did you not do the same with..er as Queen and yourselves have called it "Bo Rap"...Bohemian Rapsody....that was part of your New Years Eve show which in itself appeared to me to be an absolutely spectacular event...(Mike: oh you may have seen that in Q magazine).. that's right..with 60,000 balloons..... Mike: yeah erm we had a 30 piece choir which you can see, oh there you are, in the magazine Bob: ..and these aren't small balloon either are they... Mike: ..they were actually covering the stage and all of our electronics ..we had to have a guy with a jack knife ..I think it was Brad.. bursting balloons so we could see our effects pedals and all that.. Jon: They should have just let us get completely buried... Bob: ...and the front row fans were just pushing them up on to the stage.... Mike: yeah.. I guess that's what happened... Bob: Let's just break off for music for a second because I want to play the opening track from Billy Breathes if we may...just tell us a little bit about the song "Free".... Mike: Free, this erm.... what can we say about free, actually it was a song we were playing before it was on album, it was a live show thing, and then it morphed a few times and we went in to the studio and we had some different version of it and er... I don't know... Jon: Live it's more of an excursion, a textural excursion, the point is it has a steady rock beat and then we kinda change textures and Mike randomly changes bass notes and Trey's kinda doing textural things and Page tries to follow the chords.. you're sort of the melodic leader there... and that's what that is live and on the album it a much tighter version..... Mike: I think we really liked the album version enough so that we started doing the album version live too..... "Free" Bob: That's the one I've been playing so much just lately, It's called "Free" it's opening track from the new album "Billy Breathes" and Jon and Mike from Phish are here with me in the studio at GLR tonight, it's just coming up to half past nine, if you want to get a question asked, if you want me to ask a question of the band on your behalf while they're here, 0171-224-2000 of course is the number to dial. I remember talking with the late John Campbell three or four years ago, John was signed to Electra actually, a great blues player who had been travelling America for pretty constantly for twenty, twenty five years, always on the road.. and er I was talking about a home base to him and he was saying, well for like twenty years I didn't have a home, I was basically, you know, someone would invite me to stay at their place or I'd sleep on somebody's couch or stop in a hotel around the corner from the gig and then do the same the following night....and of course you've been on the road, as we've been saying, pretty constantly through a long period of time, how does that, you know, connect with home base and having a ...er Mike: I think we're probably more...oh I'm sorry I cut you off there...(Bob: I was trailing into a dot,dot,dot...)I sensed the dots! I think we're probably a pretty homey band as far as bands go because we've toured a lot but we've kept the Burlington Vermont as a base for a long time, the whole time and we never had any interest in leaving, maybe there was one night in '88 when one of us said "Maybe we should move to Boston" and someone else said "No" (Jon: (laughs) and that was about how long it lasted...) because we really like where we live and we've settled a lot there, so we go on the road, and our tours aren't as long as they used to be..erm but we do go on the road and there's is this feeling of a different hotel every night and there's something exciting about that to me it just sort of...(Jon: It's like the tree growing at both ends, like the roots definitely grow....)for us it's real balanced that way. Bob: Yeah but the chemistry of the band must be right, mustn't it because touring throws you in to situations that test you constantly... Mike: Just being together with the same people for maybe 16 hours a day for 13 years... erm you'd have to be tested at some point (laughs) and also the chemistry would have to be right I would think (Bob: Well clearly it is...) Jon: Yeah, it's been amazing, there's been discussions among us where we've thought the only thing standing between us and the destiny of being the rock band that's had the same line up for the most number of years is just getting along now because we know musically we could probably do it(Mike: ..and staying alive...)staying alive and continuing to get along, continuing good relations. I think that's the number one reason that bands either make it or don't, really I don't think has as much to do with music as it does with perseverance of a good relationship amongst the band members... Bob: Yeah, it is true and also not blowing you're brains out with off stage distractions...helps ultimately doesn't it because you need super human stamina to run through any length of time..doing that as well Jon: Luckily we didn't get flooded with that ..... non of us became drug addicts or alcoholics along the way. Bob: Yeah quite, there seems to be and I'm picking this up from the article in Q magazine, a very kinda of er organic feeling about the growth of popularity of the band, relating back to what we were saying before, but you've never gone for the quick hit of big promotion or hype and all that, it has been a very gradual process so does this mean that at this particular moment you can sell out huge auditoriums in America, you are now making front pages of magazines.. Rolling Stone, there's a big article in Q this time and the breakthrough is now, from our perception this side of the Atlantic beginning to happen now, does that increase the pressure? Mike: Well it could but I don't think it is in our case because what happened to us...erm there was never one moment when we broke through in our minds....there were times when we said this is a landmark gig in some way, the first time we sold out Madison Square Gardens, the first time we played there, was kinda like that we felt we don't need to play anywhere bigger than this, this was the kind of a gig people strive for and that was when we released our live album and the first time we were on network TV in the US and this was kind of all in the same season. And the way we felt about it was not there would be more pressure but there was a lot more relief, I mean if we ever had anything to prove, we don't now and we could do things on our own terms more than ever and if our next album sound like ducks squawking for an hour then so be it, although that's not what happened because we like songs and we wrote an album full of songs (Jon: It could happen!) ... but you never know... Bob: Do Electra give you that amount of freedom? Jon: Yeah, with them it's always been like if it's not broken don't fix it kinda thing Mike: It's a real good situation.....there has been pressure along the years especially when we're more open to it like with hoist we said we want to do what's right to promote an album so we invited them in more, erm but mostly over the years they've just respected that we want to do things our own way, they've been really good like that. Bob: We've had a number of callers with questions.. a number of them are how you feel about this constant comparison with the Grateful Dead Mike: That's.....do you want to do that? Jon: I guess it's just one of those things it's either...I don't know, I guess every band gets stuck with some comparison early in their career and... I don't know it just sort of part of being in a band..... Mike: There's definitely er.. people like to categorise and it's not erm It's based on some truths like we jam a lot and like you said we play long shows and we change the set list from night to night and The Grateful Dead were doing some of those things and er..... Bob: ....because people say they can see you three or four night running and never hear the same song twice.... Jon: There are structural similarities but musically.... Mike: There are musical differences too, there are similarities and differences and it's kinda one comparison that we just sorta lived with over the years and just listing the comparisons and differences usually. Bob: ..and er Kevin in Rochester says how do you feel about a lot of your audience in the UK being Ex-Pat Americans?.. cause er I don't know I ... every time I go and see Jimmy Barnes it's absolutely packed with Australians you see ... do you think you are having problems breaking through to the European audience? is the question from Kevin. Mike: I wonder if he means Americans that have settled here or Americans that have flown over in the same week as we did?.. yeah that's erm..... Bob: Do you have American fans jetting around the world after you? Mike: Some!....probably we're thinking there were more in the summer when we came than in the winter... Bob: weather's a lot better!!!) Jon: You see when you were saying from your side of the fence this big breakthrough is happening in Europe but from our side of the fence there's still a lot of Americans at our gigs still in Europe. I don't really..you know, that's kind of...you know that's kind of the same..maybe that perception is coming from the Americans coming to our gig's here so it appears the Europeans you know...maybe that'll get more Europeans to come to the gig....I guess that's a good thing I guess anyone coming to your gig is a good thing! At this point Bob does a competition with 5 sets of T-shirt and album to win. The question was name the first tracks from both "The white album" and "Remain in Light" Bob: So you're over this time to do the Shepherds Bush Empire ... what other gigs are you doing in the UK while you're here? Mike: (To Jon)Do you know what we're doing? Jon: I think that's the only one we're doing in the UK this time.... Bob: But then you're back in the summer, June 16th, and that's the big one at the Albert Hall and presumably tickets for the gig tomorrow night at Shepherds Bush are I'm sure they are actually........So final, sort of, ambitions for the band and the way you would like to see things develop from here.... Jon: I would like to be the first band in the history of Rock and Roll that people when our careers over people say "Yeah their early stuff was pretty good but their later stuff was really good... that was the best their later stuff was the best...cos you never hear that about anybody you know really....well actually well The Beatles, a lot of people said their later stuff was better but... but their whole career was only eight years.....but like you know most of the time you hear people say "Their early stuff was good but then they sold out or whatever... you know but for me that's a personal goal, I'd like to keep getting better and changing as a band.. Mike: Yeah....that's what it would come down to, it's always been our philosophy to keep trying to play in different ways and sometimes we feel like we're stagnating a little more and we talk about it, why don't we jam in this way and .....we've actually been switching instruments (Jon: you know Walk a mile in another guys shoes .....it's that old saying) and just trying to think of things like that, that would push us in different directions and to do that indefinitely as long as we're a band. Bob: It's been really good to meet you, I've enjoyed it thoroughly, thanks very much for coming in, good luck with the gig tomorrow night I shall be there myself at the Royal Albert Hall on June 16th and I'll round off now with the title song from the new album Billy Breathes "Billy Breathes" Since the Interview was broadcast I was lucky enough to meet the band and the story of this can be found with reviews of the three gigs I went to on my Phish 1997 Spring European Tour page. Mike, obviously paranoid , from my question above asked, unprovoked, If we had felt there had been many Americans at the gig in Brussels. I also got the chance to ask Jon about his impression of Bob Harris and he replied "The old Guy, yeah he was really nice", when I pointed out that Bob was pretty much a legend in the UK he replied "Yeah, I heard that afterwards" |