1. Ernest Joseph "Trey" Anastasio III was born on September 30,1964 and is an American guitarist, composer, and singer-songwriter best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Phish, which he co-founded in 1983.
44 Facts About Trey Anastasio
1. 2.
Trey Anastasio 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.
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Trey Anastasio has been part of several side projects; these include the Trey Anastasio Band, Oysterhead, Ghosts of the Forest, Phil Lesh and Friends, and Surrender to the Air.
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Trey Anastasio 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.
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Trey Anastasio was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and moved to Princeton, New Jersey, when he was three.
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Trey Anastasio's mother, Dina, was a children's book author and editor of Sesame Street Magazine.
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Trey Anastasio attended Princeton public schools through the fourth grade, then transferred to Princeton Day School.
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Trey Anastasio enrolled at the University of Vermont as a philosophy major, where he met original Phish bandmates Jon Fishman, Mike Gordon, and Jeff Holdsworth.
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Trey Anastasio is a founding member of the rock band Phish, serving as lead guitarist and vocalist since their inception.
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Trey Anastasio Band debuted in 1998 as Eight Foot Fluorescent Tubes, as a local band in Vermont fronted by Anastasio, on April 17 of that year at the opening week of the nightclub Higher Ground, co-owned by his brother-in-law.
11.
Markellis was an early influence on Trey Anastasio and seeing the bassist perform with the Unknown Blues Band was a major reason he decided to attend UVM.
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Trey Anastasio can be heard playing guitar on the song "Sweet and Dandy".
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Trey Anastasio sat in and jammed with the band during "Lie in Our Graves".
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In June 2008, Trey Anastasio guested on the Robert Randolph Band's set, who opened for an Eric Clapton concert.
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On September 27,2008, Trey Anastasio debuted Time Turns Elastic, an orchestral epic co-created with composer Don Hart, at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville Tennessee.
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On July 30,2020, Trey Anastasio released Lonely Trip, a collection of original songs written during the COVID-19 pandemic and recorded at his home studio in New York.
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Trey Anastasio says the project reminded him of his pre-Phish 4-track home recordings.
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In October 2020, Trey Anastasio performed an eight-week residency at the Beacon Theatre in New York.
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Trey Anastasio raised $1.2 million of donations from the Beacon Jams for his Divided Sky Foundation, which used those funds were used to purchase a property in Ludlow, Vermont to act as a drug rehabilitation center.
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On March 11,2022, Trey Anastasio released his first all-acoustic solo album, Mercy.
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In college, Trey Anastasio studied composition under composer and arranger Ernie Stires.
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Trey Anastasio has used improvisation as the driving force behind simplified songwriting, particularly in the music he has written for his touring and recording projects apart from Phish.
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Trey Anastasio writes a number of his own lyrics, including all of the lyrics on his first release with Columbia Records, 2005's Shine.
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Trey Anastasio previously collaborated with Hart and Orchestra Nashville in his orchestral performance of "Guyute" at Bonnaroo 2004.
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Trey Anastasio performed the same composition at Carnegie Hall with the Vermont Youth Orchestra on September 14,2004, and with the New York Philharmonic on September 12,2009.
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Trey Anastasio played the Walt Disney Concert Hall accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic on March 10,2012.
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Trey Anastasio's 2012 album Traveler was a collaboration with producer Peter Katis, whose longtime band The Philistines Jr.
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Trey Anastasio was nominated for a 2013 Best Original score Tony Award, an Outstanding New Score Drama Desk Award, and Outstanding Music and Outstanding Orchestrations Outer Critics Circle Awards for the musical Hands on a Hardbody.
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Trey Anastasio co-wrote the music for Hands on a Hardbody for a Broadway opening in March 2013.
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Trey Anastasio has employed the services of his friend, luthier and audio-technician Paul Languedoc throughout his career.
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Trey 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.
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Trey Anastasio normally uses a 2.0mm Adamas graphite guitar pick, but does not always do so.
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Trey Anastasio uses effects such as two Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamers in sequence, the famous Univibe clone the Black Cat Vibe, and a Ross compressor.
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Trey Anastasio 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.
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Trey 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.
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Trey Anastasio uses a wah wah pedal, a Boomerang phrase sampler, Custom Audio Electronics Super Tremolo, Ibanez DM2000 delay, Alesis Microverb II, Whammy II pitch shifter, as well as a Leslie rotating speaker horn.
37.
When Phish returned in 2009, Trey Anastasio was back to using the Mesa Boogie MKIII.
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Trey Anastasio has been married to Susan Statesir, his college girlfriend, since August 13,1994.
39.
On December 15,2006, Trey Anastasio was stopped by police in Whitehall, New York, on a traffic violation.
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Trey Anastasio failed a field sobriety test, and was arrested for possession of heroin and other drugs, and driving while intoxicated.
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Trey 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.
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In June 2008, after completing all phases of the New York State drug court, Trey Anastasio graduated in good standing.
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Trey Anastasio has publicly thanked the officer who arrested him for turning his life around.
44.
Trey Anastasio has maintained sobriety since January 2007, and detailed his opiate addiction, arrest and rehabilitation in a January 2019 GQ feature on sober musicians.