A Quote by Trey Anastasio

We were always a party band and we used to play outside a lot. — © Trey Anastasio
We were always a party band and we used to play outside a lot.
In the early eighties, there were a lot of artists involved with the music scene. All those young artists, before their careers took off, were into music. Robert Longo used to play some guitar. He had a band for a while. Basquiat had a band. I mean, people were always trying to mix music and art - in fact, I'm guilty of it myself.
My mum was a big fan of E.L.O. and Elvis Costello. She used to play that, consistently, all the time when we were kids. And my dad, he would claim to be a singer... You know, he loves singing, and he used to sing a lot when he was a kid and at parties and stuff like that. So I come from a very party-musical family.
Usually we're always working on something with this band a tour, making an album or a video or whatever. I don't have any desire to do anything outside this band, except play a movie part or something.
My friend and I were in a band together and we used to always refer it it as 'floor-core,' meaning that we would sit on the floor and play stuff.
I had friends in this band called Mars and they used to play a lot.
In my day, when I was a young kid, army duty was compulsory in South Africa or you go to jail. I had the choice, so I spent a year in the entertainment unit, and outside of doing shows - and I used to write for, arrange for the big band - outside of doing that, I actually had a rock band in the army.
I was born just after the end of World War II, and with my friends in our little suburban backyards in New Jersey, we used to play war a lot. I don't know if boys still play war, they probably do, but we were thrusting ourselves into recent history and we were always fighting either the Nazis or the Japanese.
My parents would tell us to go outside and play or to do creative stuff, but television was very limited. So we used our own creativity to entertain ourselves. We were out in the woods a lot making huts and playing horses.
I can't just play in a rock band. The National is a great, exciting band to play in. We improvise a lot onstage, and it's very intense, but after a while, I crave other kinds of experiences.
Lenny Breau was a genius - inspired and really loose. I loved how he used the guitar as an extension of his inner freedom, because, obviously, on the outside there were a lot of trainwrecks going on. But when you listen to him play, you hear what kind of guy he really is
I always wanted to do what my brothers were doing. I always wanted to play the games they played and play rough and wear pants and go outside.
Steve Van Zandt, the poor guy, doesn't get to play enough as it is with me hogging a lot of the solos. Steve has always been a fabulous guitarist. Back from the day when we were both teenagers together, he led his band and played lead and was always a hot guitar player.
I used to see a lot of cocaine. There were journalists who used cocaine and didn't write about it and I didn't write about it. I would never do drugs, so I would always get the same response from people: "Smart kid, more for me." Whether it was a joke or sincere or both, but I was just happy not to be in there partying with the band like some of these other journalists.
I'm from a singing family, but they're not professional singers, only gospel - my grandfather was a minister. I started to sing the music that was out then because my mother used to play it all the time. It was the end of the '50s, the beginning of the '60s. There was Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers, Etta James... We used to sit outside on the stoop and sing. We even used to put our radios and record players outside.
I play Rock Band, which is Guitar Hero times ten. You can play with four people, so when you have parties, you have a real band. Nobody ever wants to sing, so I'm always the one throwing down on the mic.
In high school no guys wanted to be in a band with me unless I was going to play bass or play grindcore or be in a scream-o band, so it was fun to finally have that experience of having my songs backed by a drummer and a bassist who were just as excited about it as I was.
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