Interview: Tom Marshall - Skeleton Key

Last Updated: Wednesday, 30-Oct-2002 01:36:16 EST

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Tom Marshall Interview

INTERVIEW WITH TOM MARSHALL FOR SKELETON KEY: A DICTIONARY FOR DEADHEADS

What follows is a brief, cosmically goofy "interview" that I did with Tom Marshall for my book, Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads. I put "interview" in quotes because our lil' rap was not the product of the typical process of someone asking questions and getting answers. Tom and I collaborated on BOTH the questions and the answers, so some of his answers are slightly me, and some of my questions were suggested by him. This was done to escape the predictable ho-hum format of a "celebrity" being interviewed by a "reporter," and also, I think both Tom and I recognized kindred wacky spirits in each other, and wanted our conversation to reflect that. Further, collaboration and strange telepathy - with a good dose of salty Yankee humor - are what both the Dead and Phish are about, in my opinion. Thus, even though this interview hardly says anything about the Dead at all, I feel it writhes and wriggles with the same pranksterish glittering coyote spirit of the Dead scene in its early young days. Control for smilers can't be bought.

(You can find Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads by David Shenk and Steve Silberman in your local bookstore. To mail order it, call (800) 321-9578.)

Steve Silberman

Steve Silberman:Tom, now that Phish is ten years old, and you've been cowriting songs with Trey(Anastasio, the lead guitarist) for longer than that, isn't it time that you came out of your seclusion, removed your mask, and addressed once and for all the question of the paralells between the Dead and Phish?

Tom Marshall:Yes, yes, no and, er...what was the middle thing?

SS:Would you say psychedelic lyrics like "China Cat Sunflower," were an influence on a song like, say, "Stash"?

TM:I didn't know "China Cat Sunflower" had lyrics.

SS:What inspires you to come up with lyrics like that?

TM:A castaway, asleep on a rock in the middle of the Aegean, dreams of the great flood and his polar opposite, his familiar, a goldfish named Trout. Several years later that same set of circumstances befall him again-this time, as he's packing his designer Sumatran luggage rescue-style.

SS:Could you be more specific?

TM:I take my lover by the hand
to stroll across the ocean strand
until she soaks into the sand
leaving me with empty hand

SS:I hate it when that happens. Is that a future Phish song?

TM:Page(McConnell, keyboardist) wouldn't like it, because of the part I left out.

SS:The Dead and Phish are both jamming bands, both play long sets that are different every night, both draw from many lineages of music in order to produce a sound that is both completely individual and thoroughly American, both bands play to seething hippie-type audiences, both allow taping and have huge underground tape trees on the Net for trading, etc. How can you tell the difference?

(A minute passes)

SS:Have you ever been to a Dead show?

TM:Maybe ten times-those oversized video special effects and that booming, stadium-filling basswash that people groove to stayed with me for weeks afterward.

SS:Did you like it?

TM:At least I'm enjoying the ride.

SS:Do you have any advice for Deadheads?

TM:Drift where the current chooses.

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