When Live For Live Music caught up with bassist Mike Gordon by phone last week, he was preparing to leave for tour at an unusual moment: Phish, a band that has been synonymous with off-kilter, grassroots, under-the-radar success for four decades, is up for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
In fact, the quartet comprised of Gordon, Trey Anastasio, Jon Fishman, and Page McConnell is leading the ongoing fan vote by a considerable margin, though that title carries minimal weight in the overall process. The official Rock Hall induction decisions will fall to an opaque panel of critics and other stand-ins for the rock and roll establishment—the very establishment Phish famously circumvented with its unorthodox route to rock stardom.
Still, Gordon was flattered by the nomination. “It’s nice, what can I say?” he relented at one point, his sincere excitement about the honor shining through his patented stoicism. “We’ve done so much on our own path and that’s been incredible and I would not change a bit of that, [but] to have some recognition… there’s something nice about that.”
What still brings Gordon the most happiness, however, isn’t recognition but exploration—projects like the “joyous experiment” he’ll launch with his solo outfit on Saturday, May 2nd at The Joy Theater in New Orleans, LA: In an update to his longtime lineup featuring veteran collaborator Scott Murawski on guitar, Mike will take the stage for his Fest by Nite show with two new guitarists, Xavier Lynn and Bob Wagner—though this is less the new group than a new group.
“I have one band where the members stay the same,” Gordon explained, “and I think it’s gonna be super fun in this era to accept it that the other band has people sort of coming and going a little bit. … And I think that the way to handle it is to have a lot of exploration.”
Read our Q&A with Mike Gordon below, edited for length and clarity. Tickets for the Saturday, May 2nd show at The Joy Theater in New Orleans are on sale here.
Live For Live Music: Where are you now? Back in Vermont?
Mike Gordon: Yep, I’m just bopping around Vermont, doing some last-minute errands and things before going away [on] Wednesday for Phish tour.
Live For Live Music: You’ve obviously prepped to go out on tour with Phish countless times, but never while Phish is an active nominee for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame…
Mike Gordon: Oh, yeah [laughs].
Live For Live Music: The fan vote stays open until April 21st, another few days. Phish is running away with it. You’re like 50,000 votes ahead of the runner-up right now.
Mike Gordon: I think Bad Company is the one that’s second, right?
Live For Live Music: Bad Company’s coming up behind you, but there’s a sizable gap.
Mike Gordon: [But] it’s really the panel, whatever you call them, [that] vote. I think the fan vote just inspires them.
Live For Live Music: Exactly. So, I guess my question is—and I mean this in the most sincere, constructive way, knowing that your band has always operated outside the mainstream—do you care?
Mike Gordon: It’s a tricky answer because it’s somewhere between yes and no, on neither end [laughs]. So, yeah… I mean… [with a note of sudden resolution] It’s nice. What can I say? Just because we all grew up listening to rock and roll in its different forms, and to have some recognition… You know, we’ve done so much on our own path and that’s been incredible and I would not change a bit of that. But then to be kind of recognized in some of these ways by the more… what’s the word?
Live For Live Music: …conventional?
Mike Gordon: [pauses for a beat] …by society [laughs]. There’s something nice about that. There’s a huge New Yorker piece [that just came out] that they worked on for eight months. … There’s a handful of things like that. So, it’s nice, but it’s nice as long as one keeps one’s eye on the ball.
Live For Live Music: However it turns out, Phish running away with a fan vote when there are actual judges out there being like, “Why are they even in the running?” is the most “Phish” thing I can think of.
Mike Gordon: At least we can get a kick out of it. I don’t think [Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Rolling Stone Magazine co-founder] Jann Wenner ever liked anything about Phish, and eventually he had to cave and let us be on the cover of Rolling Stone, and then now he’s not involved with the Hall of Fame anymore… all the more funniness about us getting this [nomination].
Live For Live Music: Looking beyond Phish tour, you have what promises to be an interesting solo gig lined up at The Joy Theater in New Orleans during Jazz Fest on Saturday, May 2nd.
Mike Gordon: Yeah! I’m really excited about that. It’s one of the things I’m most excited about.
Live For Live Music: Same! I’ve been seeing your solo band for probably ten years and it’s always been the same lineup, so hearing that you’re shaking things up a little for this show definitely piqued my interest.
Mike Gordon: I can shed some light on that. [Longtime touring guitarist] Scott Murawski and I have been friends and been doing musical things for 33 years together. With this band, in ’09, we basically started it together. We just got together and started auditioning people and we started writing songs. It was really a together thing. And now he’s just busy and he’s got a lot on his plate and he just needs to have a couple less things in his life, and less touring. Not that I tour that much, but it ends up being a lot once you put in rehearsals and logistics and travel and all the elements.
Scott and I love each other, and we’re still working together. We’re still doing songwriting, actually. … And I have some other songwriting experiments going that don’t have to do with him, but there’s a lot with him, too. And so the vibe is great, and we just got to this place where he said, “I just can’t be touring as much.”
So… I met some guitar players—some different kinds—and made this decision for this [show]. I started to like the idea of doubling up some instruments.
I really like the rhythmic aspect of having someone doing kind of a rhythm guitar thing—not that we’re dividing out the roles like that, per se, but there’s something… if a guitar player is strumming and there’s a keyboard solo, it has a certain feel. And then, let’s say the keyboard starts comping. I mean, I only play with keyboard players who are incredibly rhythmic, so the rhythm continues, but there’s something different about not having a guitar strumming when the guitar solo comes. So it’s been a fantasy [to have two guitars]. Of course, it’s been done before—in fact, when I saw Molly Hatchet open for the Allman Brothers at Boston Garden there were four guitar players, and that might’ve been one too many at 200 decibels [laughs].
Live For Live Music: I can see it with these two guys. I really only know about Bob Wagner from the clips you’ve posted, but he definitely seems like he can hold down that kind of rhythmic role. Xavier Lynn I mostly know from catching a few memorable sit-ins with other bands, and a lot of those memories are him coming in blowing minds with a solo.
Mike Gordon: The great thing about this New Orleans thing is it’s trying out a certain lineup of musicians—not trying out but just experimenting—and I think it’s going to keep evolving and changing. … Yes, Xavier rips, but I would do it the other way around, because what he does when he’s playing chords is incredibly creative, and rhythmic. … There was even a time when we were playing together and I said, “What effects pedal are you using to harmonize those notes?” And [Xavier] said, “You mean when I did this?” And there was no effects pedal, it’s all in his fingers. He was doing double stops and triple stops, and every chord is a little different. In fact, [Xavier is] kind of a little more in the Scott [Murawski] camp of piecing together these parts of chords that are really thoughtfully created and sequenced—and he can rip.
But the thing about Bob is that Bob is just drenched in soul. It sounds cliché to say, but not all of the great musicians I get to play with have that as their thing—drenched in soul—both in the singing and playing. He’s got a lot of licks in him. He might not play as many notes in a guitar solo as some other people I play with, but they mean something emotional. His strumming is great, and Xavier’s lead playing is great, but I like the idea of trying at least some of the time with it [the other] way. … What’s going to be cool about this is it’s like a joyous experiment.
Xavier plays with MonoNeon, and he also plays with Jon Cleary, who I love, and I cover one of his songs, but I just like everything he does. He’s kind of from a different part of the music business in that there’s a lot of raging going on with those bands, but in terms of the freeform jamming where we might make up a new chord progression or take a sudden right turn together and we don’t know what’s going to be until we get there, I don’t think he’s as used to that. But that’s one of the things that makes it especially exciting.
And then Bob Wagner, one great thing about him is that he’s in town here in Burlington, so we’ve just been getting together and singing and figuring out harmonies and jamming. I had been playing with him on and off in all kinds of different situations. He’s toured with Kat Wright for a long time, but he also puts together these benefit shows. He’s an incredible organizer. He’ll get 40 great singers and players into the same room and raise $10,000 for Vermont farmers. He’s a real bringer-together. He just brings a lot to the table. He’s been writing an album, and I heard it, and I got goosebumps ’cause there’s such good material on there, and I think it might be his first solo album. And he’s a very kind and open and wonderful person to be around.
Honestly, I wanted to double the keyboards, too, because I’ve been playing with [Dopapod keyboardist] Eli Winderman and loving his contributions. He’s been singing, and he’s also very rhythmic and, you know, bubbly keyboard-playing that makes the groove propel, and he’s got a really open, joyous attitude. And Robert Walter liked that idea, [Eli] just wasn’t available [for this gig]. We were thinking of doubling both the keyboards and the guitars, or maybe another time we would do it and use one guitar and two keyboards.
So this is just all joyous stuff, and it’s kind of like an ongoing experimental era where it just might change a little bit each time. I don’t know, maybe I’ll do more with Scott. Generally, he kind of needs to stay home more, but we’re certainly doing other kinds of things. … I think that the moral of the story is I have one band where the members stay the same, and I think it’s gonna to be super fun in this era to accept it that the other band has people coming and going a little bit to have … these different experiences of more people, less people, people doubling up. And I think that the way to handle it is to have a lot of exploration.
Live For Live Music: New Orleans during Jazz Fest feels like the perfect setting for experiments in collaboration. That’s part of the DNA of the whole thing. Did you single out a late-night during Jazz Fest as the right platform for trying this out?
Mike Gordon: Actually, it was serendipitous. … Almost on the same day, or maybe it was the day before [we booked the show], me and a couple managers said, “It would be really fun to just get a bunch of people together who we’ve been playing with and want to play with and just go do a one-off show.” And the thought was, “Yeah, this is a nice idea. It’s just kind of too late to book something for the spring.” And the next day, the offer came in, and it was just perfect serendipity. It’s like, “Okay… perfect.” We’ll do it.
And in some ways we will have some rehearsing, but in some ways it’ll be throwing caution to the wind and just getting in there and experimenting, which I think is the best way to do it. It’s a new level of improvisation where … three of us have played together for ten years now, but where the others are just kind of welcomed into the mix and given artistic license to soar through the musical skies—people who are great, but in a new situation. I think it’s just fun.
Live For Live Music: And the upside is huge—given all the things you’ve mentioned as well as that intangible thing in the air in New Orleans that week. It always feels like it’s the right place and right time to try some stuff.
Mike Gordon: Exactly. And I love New Orleans so much. I’m actually going to be there for a few days and soak it all in. My last time [in New Orleans during Jazz Fest] I did so many things. I recorded with Leo Kottke, I had time with my family, I went to the festival, and I did my gig… I sat in with Les Claypool, one of his bands, and I bounced around town and I just went to all these 3:00 a.m. funk jams…
…and had breakfast with Phil Lesh [laughs]. Leo Kottke was still down there, and he was supposed to come, and they both had some similar dealings with some composers that they like, and Phil’s foundation was supporting some composers that Leo was really into. And then Leo chickened out and he was like, “Oh, but I don’t really know him.”
Live For Live Music: Ahh, man, Leo!
Mike Gordon: And I got to the breakfast, Phil’s like, “Where’s Leo?” And I was like, “I’m sorry. He is reclusive. He doesn’t always want to come out, even when he says he’s going to.”
Live For Live Music: Add that to the list of great Jazz Fest missed connections.
Mike Gordon: Yeah. There’s just so many friends that all come together, and it’s a musical Mecca. So much of the music from our country emanated out of there and from the swamps of New Orleans… and It’s been six years, so [I’m] just excited to go back.
Tickets for Mike Gordon with Karina Rykman at The Joy Theater on Saturday, May 2nd are now on sale here. This show is part of Live For Live Music’s Fest by Nite concert series during New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival 2025. Find a full list of Fest by Nite shows and ticketing details here.
