BURLINGTON, Vt. – Trey Anastasio, guitarist and founding member of the acclaimed jam band Phish, has been asked to leave the group following his arrest for driving under the influence of drugs, possessing drugs, and driving with a suspended license.
Mr. Anastasio, 42, came to grief on Friday when he could not keep his vehicle from drifting as he approached a traffic stop in Whitehall, New York, at 3:30 a.m. Patrolman Andrew Mija, who had noticed Mr. Anastasio’s free-style performance, thought he might be drunk, but a breath test did not reveal the presence of alcohol.
Mr. Anastasio failed the Gamehenge field sobriety test, police said, and a search of his black 2004 Audi yielded three prescription drugs—the painkillers hydrocodone and Percocet and the anti-anxiety medication Xanax—all of which had been prescribed to someone named Wilson.
Mr. Anastasio was charged with aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, criminal possession of controlled substances, and DWI-drugs. He was released to a friend on an appearance ticket for a January 10 court date at Whitehall Village Court. If convicted of the charges, he faces up to a year in jail.
Police did not say if they would seek Mr. Wilson, who is believed to live in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
Mr. Anastasio released a brief statement late Friday afternoon: “I feel terrible about what happened last night, and I am deeply sorry for any embarrassment I have caused my friends, family, and fans.”
He should have apologized to his band mates also. Later in the day they issued a statement of their own, announcing that Mr. Anastasio had been asked to leave the group, which he had founded in 1983 and had disbanded two years ago.
“We can no longer tolerate Trey’s dependence on controlled substances,” said the statement, which was signed by Paige McConnell, keyboards and vocals, Mike Gordon, bass guitar and vocals, and Jon Fishman, percussion, vacuum cleaner, and vocals.
“His excessive use of drugs not only caused the break-up of the band but also prevented any hope of a reunion, a hope that so many of our fans had clung to for the last two years. For their sakes as well as our own it is necessary to find a replacement for Trey and to start touring again in the spring.”
Among those mentioned as potential replacements for Mr. Anastasio are Warren Haynes of Government Mule, Patchen Montgomery of Strangefolk, and Billy Nershi of The String Cheese Incident.
Before their break-up Phish commanded the loyalty of hundreds of thousands of young people, many of whom “toured” with the band. These free-spirited and thoroughly lovable folk slept in trees, fornicated at will, and sold drugs, organic grilled cheese sandwiches, $5 tabs of high-quality acid, neo-hippie clothing, and all manner of things to earn money for tickets to the next show.
Collectively known as Phisheads, they are disaffected, mostly middle-class youth, a disproportionately large number of whom are named Justin or Willow. They are typecast by the mainstream media as having dreadlocks, a musky odor, loose, often tie-dyed or corduroy clothing, and a fondness for the scent of patchouli. Truth be told, you will find more of all that and then some at the hippie flea market-freak bazaar that is the parking lot at a Phish concert.
You will also find at a Phish concert more people dancing, swaying, and whirling about ecstatically—unfazed by the fact that they can’t move for shit.
One fifty-something gentleman upon first visiting this scene, on a December night in Philadelphia, remarked, “Wow, man, this is just like the night market without the Arabs.”
Phish fans—like anything hippie-ish in philosophy and/or appearance since the unfortunate, but happily brief reign of punk—take a caning from the media. Even someone as hip as The Onion did a piece several years ago claiming that Phish deployed industrial-strength fans at the front of the stage and activated them to blow back the smoke and odor coming from the audience when wind conditions were unfavorable. One night the fans on stage malfunctioned, and the band members had to be hospitalized.
In related news, a source close to Trey Anastasio said the musician was despondent that his two solo albums released since the break-up of Phish “did not sell enough to pay Trey’s dealer for a month.” Mr. Anastasio was also said to be dispirited at having to open for such mainstream dinosaur rock groups as Tom Petty and the Rolling Stones, neither of whom had ever heard of him.
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