DB- Since we’re on the topic of your compositions, can you talk about how “Destiny Unbound” made it back into rotation with Phish?

MG- That was Trey. He’s very good at listening to old Phish and new Phish and Top 40 radio and everything in between and just becoming very aware of what seems to work and what doesn’t work in different situations. We wanted to bring out songs that we hadn’t done for a while that could be rekindled this summer, so that was definitely Trey’s idea.

DB- Were you uncomfortable with some specific aspect of the song that led you to shelve it back in 1991?

MG- I would say that back then the groove might have felt a little bit jambandy, which we sometimes tried to avoid, like jamband groove 101. So that was one thing back then anyway. It’s also a story song and maybe the lyrics just didn’t resonate although much later they did. We heard some old tapes, it might have been Crested Butte or some other tape where it was high energy. The first time we brought it back was a few years ago, I think. Didn’t we play it in Nassau?

DB- That’s right, you did [/2/28/03].

MG- Oh, what a guess. And I’m sure that was Trey also. I’m always looking towards the future. Trey does a great job of being able to fathom all of the different eras at once and mix and match them. For me, I might look at an old song and say, “Oh, I remember where I was when I was writing that song and I can’t relate with that now.” Then, lo and behold I hear an old tape and I think, “Wow, this is raging, we’ve got to play this.” But it was Trey who had originally suggested it.

DB- What about “Middle of The Road,” the Leo Kottke composition on Clone?

MG- After the first leg in June, we talked and we decided we wanted to learn more older Phish songs and different songs from band members. We actually learned all of “Andelmans’ Yard,” which again was Trey’s idea, he always really liked it. I had played him the original demo and he always thought it was a cool song and he wanted to learn it. It’s got some tricky parts. Not tricky like “Split Open And Melt” tricky but tricky and we put in the effort but it didn’t feel right for some reason. There were a couple from Green Sparrow Trey had recommended. He suggested “Dig Further Down.”

Budnick grunts in approval.

Yeah, I think that would be great with Phish too, although it’s great with my band, so either way I get to play it (laughs).

“Middle of The Road” had been on my mind for a while. It has this incredible flow that I thought would be good for a rock band to take on. It’s got this gliding, flowing rhythm and the melody is catchy to me. I guess I had originally thought I would learn it for my band and then in the meantime we were learning songs for Phish and it seemed like the perfect thing.

DB- You mentioned that for a while “Destiny Unbound” didn’t quite resonate but eventually it did once again. Can you think of other songs that have elicited a similar reaction?

MG- One song I can mention is “Who By Fire,” the Leonard Cohen song. Phish used to watch it every night on the tour bus when it was on. We had a tape of David Sanborn’s TV show Night Music. It was with Leonard Cohen and Sonny Rollins together, you can YouTube it.

It’s a really incredible combination of people. Phish played it once and I can’t remember what got me thinking about it again. It’s one of those songs where the chord progression is fun because it’s simple and the melody is eerie and the lyrics are from a different era. It’s not from the jamband world at all and the vibe is just very different. It’s also abstract in terms of what it’s about. I don’t want to imagine that I’m Leonard Cohen because I’m not. That wouldn’t be a genuine thing to feel. I want to internalize it but it’s a different part of my own personality.

A lot of songwriters talk about writing not from their own character but from another character, yet they’re still archetypes within each person’s personality, so you can visit the different ones that you haven’t normally visited. So what I’m looking for or discovering are parts of my personality that have been hidden away for a while. I’m looking to see if the “Destiny Unbound” part of my personality still resonates and if it doesn’t, then forget about it, it’s not worth doing. It has to resonate and if it does, then cool.

DB- Somewhat along these lines, in the content of rehearsing songs with your band can you think of any songs that really surprised you once you revisited them and were inside them?

MG- I had a list of 56 possible songs I wanted to bring to the band. I weeded it down but I still probably brought too many when we were practicing a couple weeks ago. That’s probably when the process of surprise was happening because I practiced them a lot before I got to the band practice room to be able to know what they would feel like.

As an aside, though, I’ll give you a song that I could not get out of my head. For a second I thought I would do it with my band but then I thought there’s no possible way I can do it. It’s called “My Uncle Used To Love Me But She Died.” My advice though is not to listen to it because you won’t able to get it out of your head.

That’ll do it for now but as a reminder, if you haven’t yet had a chance to check out the conversation between Mike Gordon and Dean Budnick following Phish’s Hampton shows, be sure to pick up the June issue of Relix.

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