Interview: The Low End with Mike Gordon

The famed bassist talks about his new solo album and life as a member of Phish
By Ryan Heinsius

Ryan Heinsius: So, how are the current shows going with your band? Is it like discovering a new relationship?

Mike Gordon: It’s really been taking off; I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s almost been three years with the same band. Because it’s relatively newer there’s a lot of surprises—I guess with Phish there’s still surprises that happen—where I don’t expect some groove to feel so good or whatever it is. It’s uncharted territory.


Moss doesn’t feature a whole lot of solos opting for these kind of floaty soundscapes. Did you consciously try to take a different tack than, say, Phish might take on a record?

I have heard that comment before where sometimes there’s kind of a fade at the end and it implies there would be a big jam that we’re not getting to hear. I guess, often on albums I’m not listening to—well, it depends on what kind of music. I was going to say, I like to hear albums of songs that are made concise and that flow nicely from one to the next, whereas live, I always like to go as long as possible, if it’s feeling like a musical adventure than I would rather it went for an hour rather than three minutes. So, I just sort of have a different philosophy. A lot of times I’ve felt like that’s not necessarily what I’m looking for. I want to be able to put together a well-crafted song and have it say what it wants to say very efficiently. I don’t know, there’s just something fun about that to me and some of my favorite albums work like that. But, it’s an interesting concept too to sort of do more extended … I don’t know, I guess, and being in the jam band world too and—it’s a horrible word—where doing long improvisations is what it’s all about, and Phish has done it for 27 years, but then you know, the Grateful Dead and other groups have done it long before then. But I’m kind of feeling like, well, a lot of that’s been done—if a jam is feeling fresh then only true to the moment and it’s not something old. But still, I feel like I’d like to work on stuff that, for me, hasn’t been done as much.

Yeah, “Norwegian Wood” is only two minutes long, and it certainly gets the job done.

If you think about how many pop songs that have been—there’s been so many millions of successful ones and how many more millions of ones that never really worked out in the last few decades—it’s pretty amazing and it’s definitely not as easy as it seems to carve a message to its raw essence and get it out there.

You’ve said that Moss is a more bass-rooted record. As a bassist, why is this the first album that you’ve described as bass centered?

Maybe it’s because growing up I heard a lot of albums by bass players like Stanley Clarke and Jaco (Pastorius) that were attempting or trying different ways of being bass-centric, and I was finding it to be a difficult challenge. It just doesn’t always seem to work to me, where I guess I’m very passionate about the roll of bass—and a lot of bass players are—where it’s not just standing out it’s also being functional in the way that it’s flowing and that functional way is part of the charm. That’s why this album is a compromise because it’s not the lead instrument but it’s working in interesting ways—the ways that the bass work the other stuff is forced to dance around.

Now, on the other hand, I’ve heard some albums by bass players that don’t have any interesting bass lines at all; like they 100-percent ignored that aspect. And that seems kind of like not very cool either because there’s something unique about this bass player and they’re being smushed into this standard roll. It was interesting working with Warren Haynes when I made the movie “Rising Low,” and I was with him for a year making an album with 25 famous bass players. A lot of times someone would come in—like John Entwistle came in—and they’d be warming up and they’d shoot out some of the fiery licks they’re known for, and as soon as the song came on that they had worked on it would be a very supportive roll, and it would make me think, ‘Well, s**t, this is a bass players’ album and I’m sitting here and I want to hear some good stuff!’ They were all mature musicians who had all gotten to a certain point in their life where they, I’m sure, had learned the beauty of songs. If everything is supporting the song then it’s going to be magical. And, if people are trying to steal the spotlight and rob it away from the essence of the song itself then it might not be as magical, and I guess they sort of knew that. So it ends up being a compromise. If you think about, like, the Police, there’s an example where everything that Sting does is really supportive to the groove, but the bass lines are unique and the rhythms in their music are unique. So sometimes it’s being just a little unique within a certain genre, or usually I think it’s just tweaking the genre just a little bit that’s the most groundbreaking as opposed to just going crazy—trying to go crazy. So that’s what this album is for me is I’m trying to work on my own music and have it be pared down and allow the bass to kind of forge the path but not stomp out the song either—not get in the way of the song either … Some of my favorite things to play are songs that are incredibly simple. Sometimes it’s a cover song or something, and sometimes there’s only a few bass notes. I just feel like I can sink myself so deeply into them if there’s less to think about. So even though I can handle the more intricate ones, I’ve been hungry for the simpler ones … To make simpler patterns interesting is harder but more rewarding than making intricate patterns.

With multiple projects, how does writing songs and coming up with ideas work? How do you know what idea is going to go where?

It’s tricky because sometimes it’s a matter of—I guess on occasion it’s obvious: This song should be for Phish. But usually that’s not the case with me. I mean, I know Trey (Anastasio) said that before about his stuff; that sometimes a song will be more intricate and he’ll think this’ll be good for Phish, and he ends up being right. People outside of Phish have the talent and patience to learn intricate stuff too. So it just depends. I guess what Phish does with the intricate stuff is we make it sound very natural and very organic and kind of off the cuff—make it sound more imperfect than studied if there’s a memorized part. And that might have taken years of cultivating; that kind of a mixture of planned out but carefree at the same time. Especially bands that have been together for 27 years are going to be great at doing certain things or certain kinds of things … I guess I usually imagine them for my band because I know that if I really like a song a lot I could play it 20 or 30 times with my band. With Phish, I know if I like a song I know they’ll play it, but I don’t know if they’ll play it more than a couple times. And usually it takes a whole bunch of times to learn what’s working and what’s not working.

I imagine to some degree being a member of such a well-known band as Phish can be at least a little overwhelming where so much energy goes to that specific project. What do your solo and outside projects give you that might not be a readily available in such an established band as Phish?

Well, I can be the principle songwriter, or one of them. And, that alone is the main thing I’m doing now, is further cultivating my talents as a songwriter. And Phish will definitely play my songs, but there isn’t enough time, there’s too many of them or something. Whenever I want to play one they play it, but there’s already so much other material that’s great. So, that’s probably the biggest thing, but it’s not just that. It’s getting to be in the leadership role and to make some decisions. I’ve always had sort of a planning side of me. I was planning out organizations, clubs; typing out things on typewriters before computers, when I was 5 years old even. By the time I was 10 I had a whole filing cabinet of documentation planning out projects, and clubs, that for the most part were just fantasies. One was a car that I wanted to build and it was called the Hawk sports car. There probably is a Hawk car now. Six or 7, and I had the color scheme, and it was shaped differently than normal cars, the way the engine was going to—not how it was going to work—but how it was going to sit in the car. Anyway, so all this planning is something I love to do, and eventually when I got to be a teenager, I started following through with my plans. I would plan something and I would do it and I just like seeing a project from beginning to end. And in Phish, there’s so many people planning, brainstorming and coming up with ideas on every level, that just another person’s ideas aren’t really needed, is my feeling. I could come up with some ideas, and if I spent a lot of time doing it I’m sure they’d be good ideas—this is everything from the music to the business of how we’re touring, recording and everything. Promoting and publicizing. I could come up with some good ideas but there’s already good ideas.

I need the creative outlet, the leadership outlet and the planning outlet. I would like to work on singing more and now I’m getting to because we cram so many dates into a month with my band. It’s just great practice for me. The reason it’s a tricky question is that I’m not an egomaniac. I don’t need to have my name on everything. I’d like to find a band name for the band other than my name. And I don’t want to make every decision, I don’t need to write every song at all. That’s not my personality. In fact, if I were doing all of that I think I would feel kind of lonely. I don’t really fantasize to be Sting, although I love his playing and his writing. But, for the solo career, I would rather cultivate … well, I don’t know. I’m a big admirer of Sting so I shouldn’t even say anything. He’s just one person that I see as someone I admire. I just feel like in Phish my role is sort of defined de facto. I’m sort of the quiet one at band practices. And I enjoy that. It allows me to concentrate on bass playing as my main focus and really to get deeply into the Zen of it. It’s such an amazing experience to do that. I feel like if I were more of a leader in Phish, of more of a soloer, or more of a singer, or more of a planner or all of those things, then I wouldn’t be able to as deeply get into the meditation of bass playing, and having religious experiences doing that. So that role is an excellent role for me. I have no complaints. But at the same time, as I get older I’ve needed to explore these other kinds of more intellectual, creative outlets.