I’ll never fuck up if I don’t think about it! I’ll look out into the audience or do something to distract my mind. Whenever we come to a hard passage, I try to think about anything but that particular lick. Is it difficult to perform these long, complicated instrumental passages live? Things like this were written out on paper. Back in 1995, one of the things we liked to do was have everyone play in a different time signature at the same time: I’d play eleven beats, Fish would play seven beats, and Mike would play five beats, and this would cycle a few times until we all met on the downbeat of '1' again.ĭid you work that out through experimentation, or was it written out? The use of arpeggios in 'You Enjoy Myself' is definitely influenced by Bach. The sound of Bach’s music has always appealed to me. The influence of Bach’s fugues is apparent on songs like 'You Enjoy Myself,' in which the melody is based on a progression of baroque-sounding chordal arpeggios. But I moved on to the electric right after that. When I first started to play the guitar, I took some classical lessons and learned to play the Bach Chorales and the basics of fingerstyle. I had always played the drums in the bands I was in, and in high school I switched to the guitar. I played on and off, but I always had a drum set in my room. Actually, I played the drums from a very young age I was probably about 5 years old. I was obsessed with them I had every album, and I memorized them all. Led Zeppelin was a huge influence for me. TREY ANASTASIO: The first three albums I ever owned were Diana Ross Presents The Jackson Five, the first Led Zeppelin album and The Best of Cream. GUITAR WORLD: What fueled your initial interest in music? In it, he details the intricacies of Phish’s more complex music and provides a broad overview of his approach to music and the guitar. Enjoying a brief respite before heading out on a huge summer tour, Anastasio took some time out to give Guitar World an exclusive guitar lesson.

Trey anastasio guitar rig