ONE-MAN JAM

Trey Anastasio’s first deep acoustic interview reveals how his classical roots inform Phish, and how an extraordinary gift inspired his premiere solo acoustic effort, Mercy.

- JIMMY LESLIE

IT’S RARE TO get Trey Anastasio acoustic or alone, let alone both. He’s traditionally a social creature, one who is most at home jamming with his rock quartet, Phish, or leading his long-standing Trey Anastasio Band, which features a full horn section. It’s even more exceptional to get him on the phone. Anastasio eschews interviews and hasn’t been in these pages for ages. Over nearly four decades, we’ve enjoyed his playful, graceful musicality in myriad contexts, in which the lion’s share of his guitar work has been performed on electric guitar.

But Trey’s times have been a-changin’. In 2017, he began delving into the essence of his songs on short solo acoustic tours, and in 2019 he opened up about his creative process in the documentary Between Me and My Mind and played a pair of sold-out acoustic shows at Carnegie Hall. An acoustic run in fall 2021 included a pair of inspirational performances at New York City’s Beacon Theatre. The coup de grace came when Phish keyboardist Page McConnell gifted his bandmate a custom koa dreadnought that became Anastasio’s main home companion in his New York City apartment (along with his beloved cat Joey).

Just a few months ago, Anastasio used the instrument to cut his debut solo acoustic album,