What Trey Anastasio, Jerry Garcia, & Chappell Roan Have In Common

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Phish guitarist/vocalist Trey Anastasio reflects on the uniquely overwhelming weight of being a central cog in an operation that has suddenly grown into something massive. In the course of discussing the downsides of getting too big too fast, Anastasio reflects on the Grateful Dead‘s late Jerry Garcia and the intertwined struggles with fame and addiction that led to his untimely death in 1995—struggles Anastasio famously faced himself. But while the parallels and intersections in the stories of Jerry Garcia/Grateful Dead and Trey Anastasio/Phish are numerous and well-documented, the guitarist also notes a sort of kinship to another more surprising artist: rising pop superstar Chappell Roan.

For those unaware, the 26-year-old singer is currently exploding in popularity thanks in part to a string of enormous performances at mainstream festivals like Governors Ball and Bonnaroo. But while much of her music and aesthetic is accompanied by an air of irreverent confidence, she has been vocal about the toll that her rapid growth has taken on her mental health.

Between the two aforementioned June festival gigs, during a show in North Carolina, Roan became visibly overwhelmed onstage. “I’m trying to figure out how to say this,” she began before starting to choke up. “I just want to be honest with the crowd, and I just feel a little off today because I think that my career’s just kind of gone really fast and it’s really hard to keep up. And so, I’m just being honest that I’m just having a hard time today.” She apologized to the crowd, noting that she didn’t want to give them a lesser show but that “there’s a lot on my mind.”

“Thank you for understanding,” she added. “This is all I’ve ever wanted, it’s just heavy sometimes, so thank you.”

Chappell Roan on Her Disorienting Rise to Pop Stardom – 6/12/24
[Video: FoxieGaspie]

The reference to Chappell Roan in the Trey Anastasio Rolling Stone interview comes in response to a line of questioning about Jerry Garcia, whose notable aversion to the trappings of fame have been cited by many as a catalyst for his eventual spiral into addiction. When asked by RS‘s Andy Greene whether he empathizes with the burdens Garcia faced on that front, Anastasio explains, “I do. This is going to sound funny, but Chappell Roan just said something onstage like, ‘This is everything I always wanted, but why am I so unhappy?’ Thank God she’s saying that and not holding it in. What she’s going through always happens. Just think of Amy Winehouse.”

Earlier in the piece, Trey says he’s thankful that Phish never had a true “make it big” moment like the Dead’s experience with “Touch of Grey” or Chappell Roan’s ongoing mainstream breakout. In fact, he refers to the band’s “glacial” expansion rate as a “superpower.” Still, he likens his own experience in Phish ahead of the band’s 2004 breakup to those overwhelming situations. As he notes earlier in the conversation of that period, in addition to battling addiction, “on the inside [of the Phish operation], there was exhaustion and the problems that come with growing too fast. … And there were a lot of hangers-on. So that was why we stopped.”

“When that train leaves the station,” he adds on the topic of exponential growth, “there’s so much to be gained from so many people around you. And everybody has an agenda. And most people with this job are people pleasers or they wouldn’t be good entertainers. When you’re an entertainer, you go out onstage, and you desperately want the audience to have a good time. And you spend hundreds and thousands of hours trying to get to that point — whether you’re a Broadway actor, or Chappell Roan, or Amy Winehouse, or anybody. You want it to be good, so you pour everything you can into it.”

“But then by definition, people in your orbit have something to gain by being attached to that,” he goes on. “And they’re not bad people, they just … suddenly they have something to gain. So maybe you’re in the entourage, and you get to stay at the Four Seasons. Or maybe you’ve always wanted this, but it was never going to happen for yourself, but by attaching yourself to it you get your backstage pass, and there’s people cheering. And you get to go to the party. It gets very hard to say no to people. And then there’s more and more and more and more and more people that you can’t say no to. You start agreeing to do stuff that you didn’t want to do. It’s just … it’s a tsunami. I think for a young musician, it takes a minute to identify what’s actually going on. Like, ‘Why do I all of a sudden have 750 best friends? When two months ago, before I was famous, I had one best friend.'”

“The worst part [of success] is that it makes you self-conscious, and it’s horrible,” he says elsewhere in the piece. “I’m in a band that isn’t very famous. It’s been the luckiest thing that ever happened to us. And yet, every time I walk out the door, I keep getting reminded that maybe I am. People who come up are always nice. But suddenly you’re conscious of the fact that you’re being watched, and that can really f— with your head. If you take that to an extreme, it’s killed people before. Many times, thousands of times. It’s the story of a thousand years.”

“This happens all the time,” he adds, “and it’s all a hippie-dippy peace and love and happy dancing bears. But I wish Jerry Garcia was still alive, personally. I wish everybody had just stopped, and left him alone, and let him get his shit together, so I could still hear him play and sing those songs, and play that guitar like he used to, which is better than anybody ever.”

While Garcia’s story ended in tragedy and Roan’s is unfolding in real time, Anastasio notes the perspective he won from making it through to the other side of his most trying, disorienting times. “It’s a learned skill,” he explains, “and you can figure out how to live with it. And once you do, you’re fine.”

Read the full, wide-ranging Rolling Stone interview with Trey Anastasio here. The new Phish album, Evolve, arrives on Friday, July 12th ahead of the start of the band’s summer tour in Mansfield, MA next weekend. For a full list of upcoming Phish tour dates, head here.