“...that's how it was with Phish. We just put them in our system and the music touched a nerve”
Phishbase is a project that runs on a thirst for minutiae. When was the first time Trey struck “the Note” in YEM? How many shows did they play at The Cotton Club before they moved on to a bigger venue in Atlanta? If you’re following along it’s probably because just like me, you care to know answers to these kinds of questions.
So when I came to the end of 1990, on the heels of the release of Lawn Boy, I realized that I’d be coming up on the time frame where the band got signed to a major and that I didn’t really know anything about how that came to pass. Who brought Phish to Elektra? What in the world were they thinking when they signed this quirky band?
Well, the answer is: Sue Drew. Sue has had a long and varied career in the music world, starting as an A&R rep at Elektra, moving on to other labels and later, working on the music publishing side of the business with ASCAP and now at Kobalt Music Group in Los Angeles. The range of artists she has worked with over her career run the gamut from They Might Be Giants and The Barenaked Ladies, to Bette Miller and Taylor Dayne.
Rewind back to 1990 though, when Sue was a young A&R rep in New York City who came across a new release by a relatively unknown band from Vermont:
Phishbase: So what I was curious about, I mean I’ve been a fan for a long time, and you know, Phish fans kind of pick apart these details incessantly, and I realized I really didn’t know too much about how they got signed to a major label. So let’s start at the beginning, you first saw the band towards the end of 1990?
Sue Drew: Yeah I saw them in 1990 probably in the fall of 1990.
Phishbase: And had you heard about them before then?
Sue Drew: Oh yeah, I had heard about them because CMJ, which was actually a publication at the time, had put Lawn Boy on the cover and when I saw that I went to the record store and I bought the record and I checked it out and I listened to it and thought this is probably the strangest album I have ever heard. But there’s something about it. And so I just I put it aside, but every so often I would listen again and then I would go, this is really the oddest thing but there’s something about it. Then I saw they were playing in New York here and there, especially at The Wetlands which was a club down on Hudson, but I never made it to the Wetlands for Phish, but then they played a gig at..it was a club that didn’t last very long and it was in the.. I’m going to say in the 20s on the West Side. I wish I could think of the name.
Phishbase: The Marquee Club?
Sue Drew: The Marquee, yes! So, it was about a thousand people I think at the Marquee. Anyway I went to The Marquee one evening and I opened the door and I was just amazed at what I saw, I was completely blown away. The crowd was one thing because they were all so into their own little world and into the whole music but the band was just incredible. The musicianship was amazing. And from that minute on I just became obsessed with them as musicians and so I started paying attention to where they were playing. They played the Chance in Poughkeepsie and literally there were very few people at that show and that was not too many weeks later. And then they played the Capitol Theater in Rye, New York.
And so, I reached out to them and I’m not sure how I did that. I might have had a contact from the back of the CDs or something. I don’t really know how I did it. John Paluska was the manager at the time and he had just started managing them and you know, they were not at all interested in signing to a major label. I mean not at all. And frankly, there were no major labels interested in signing them either. I would go to these gigs back then and there wouldn’t be another A&R person for miles, like nobody was there. But I had a boss at the time who said to me “you know a band’s worth is inversely proportional to the amount of A&R people in the room.” So, I thought, you know he’s right in this case because no one’s there and I think they’re amazing.
So, I started pursuing them and I flew to Burlington and Paluska picked me up. Two or three of them lived in the same house at that point. And I spent some time there in the afternoon and then we all went to dinner in the evening. And I think they were just being polite. Frankly I don’t think they had any interest in signing to a major but at some point they came back to New York. At Elektra Records we had a wonderful secret in our record cabinet. In those days we used to keep copies of all the CDs that we had released previously. We’d have five to ten copies of everything and it was an incredibly impressive roster through the years from Elektra’s inception until that time. So I brought them into the record cabinet, opened it up and their eyes just popped out because you know everything from the Eagles to Tim Buckley to Motley Crew and Metallica and The Pixies, I mean, it was just an amazing array of talent historically speaking and current day. And I think at that point, when they opened that up and saw that, they might have reconsidered and thought yeah I want to be part of this.
You know in all honesty the deal was not difficult to conclude because they weren’t greedy. They knew that their fan base was such that when they released something next, if they asked for a modest advance they would be in the black from the day the record shipped. So we gave them some sort of advance which I don’t remember what it is now and that indeed was true: From the minute the record shipped they started making money for us.
Phishbase: So, was it a harder sell then to convince your bosses that they were worthy of signing?
Sue Drew: I mean not really and I’ll tell you why because again, at Elektra musical uniqueness was of a premium and anyone who really listened to the music and really saw the band got it. Even though the head of the department absolutely would never have gone for a band like Phish, not at all. He was like Mr. Super Cool and they weren’t going to fit into his aesthetic, but otherwise they were very good about letting people pursue what they wanted to pursue.
The Chairman of Elektra at the time was Bob Krasnow and Bob, you know he produced Captain Beefheart. They were very open and it didn’t take a lot to convince then. I mean, it took a little bit only in the sense that here’s this thing that no one else was interested in. And yet, you could point to it and say these guys are doing well on the road, they had two independent records out that are doing well and I have a feeling that when they release the third one, whenever that is, it will do great. And so, they were OK about it and really it wasn’t that hard.
They might have teased me because, you know, super geeky me wasn’t into what was happening at the time which was more in the Teenage Fanclub, Sonic Youth, Hole, that type of stuff. So I’m sure I got teased a bit. But I’ll tell you, they did let me do it without any complaints or questions really.
We had a few funny little things happen because the band, you know, they never dealt in that world, right? The major label, sort of erudite music business, Rockefeller Center world. They would show up just like, stinking to high heaven, and we would take them aside and go “Look guys you have got to put on deodorant and take a shower. You can’t just show up at 75 Rock and then ‘just be’.” So they were kind of funny, but then they also had their serious side, like look "we don’t want any publicity. We don’t want to do any radio promo. We don’t want to be on any late night television. We don’t want anybody hawking our music to the trade and we don’t want to do any opening slots. We won’t do any of that. We’re going to play by our rules and that’s what’s working for us.” And that was not easy at first for us to get down with because you know the major labels have a machine and you get slotted into that machine and they do everything the way they do.
Somebody once asked the head of marketing at Geffen Records “what did you do differently for Nirvana to make them so successful?” and he just said “we did absolutely nothing differently.” And that’s how it was with Phish. We just put them in our system and the music touched a nerve. And there you go. And that’s really how it was.
Phishbase: When you talk about them outlining their rules, what they would and wouldn’t do, were they in any way difficult?
Sue Drew: They said no plenty of times to David Letterman or any late night things. I think there was a time that Rolling Stone was considering putting them on the cover. And that didn’t happen. There were a lot of things like that that they didn’t want to do. When we released Chalkdust Torture to radio because they did an edit of it and it was probably the most accessible radio type song they had ever done. So, they let the promo team work it, but not, I mean they weren’t going to pander. That’s for sure.
Phishbase: So, once they get signed how long did that carry through? Was there ever pressure to try to shift them towards commercial success or was it always hands off?
Sue Drew: It was mostly hands off but there were always little attempts to try to push them. There were always attempts from the publicity department to get them to do more, to do some interviews. There were always attempts from the promo team to get them to go to radio stations and to invite programmers to the show, which they did do a little bit of. There were always attempts at things like that but everyone really understood they were just going to do it their own way.
Same with the tapers. You know at the time that was revolutionary to actually have a section set up for people to tape your music when you were signed to a major label. Everyone thought that would impede and interfere with record sales but it only spurred interest among fans and people started acknowledging that they really were at the beginning of this whole sort of you know social sharing movement. I mean, I know the Dead did that although in all honesty I don’t know that much about the Dead. I saw them once at Madison Square Garden, but I was not a serious fan so I don’t really know what they did. But this whole idea of making it easy for people to tape shows and get the best quality was all new and really started with Phish.
Phishbase: I think, in a way, they’re really the first internet band.
Sue Drew: They totally were! And that’s the other thing, they came to us and said “hey, we have our own website, it’s Phish.net” and, at this stage, we weren’t even on computers or e-mail at Elektra you know, and vaguely I thought I knew what they were talking about but not really because it was so new. So they were very forward thinking and they were very forward thinking in their merchandise too. They did a newsletter every month where the band all contributed little pieces and then they sold their merch.
Phishbase: At that point, that early on, did you see them becoming kind of this big generational arena rock band or more of a quirky band that would play theaters and always have their die hard fans and make a career out of that route?
Sue Drew: I thought they would be bigger than they were for sure because when you walk into the venue and you saw all these kids who were young and into music and it really wasn’t about a scene it was just great music.
I actually introduced them to their booking agent this wonderful man named Chip Hooper who I had known many years back and I remember really teeing Chip up and saying “look, this isn’t anything you’ve ever worked with before, this isn’t any music I think you’ve really paid attention to before. It’s very unusual, it’s very different, but they’re very smart, their manager is really smart, he’s a young kid but he’s got all the right stuff.” At that time in my opinion Monterey Peninsula was the best booking agency because they booked artists, true artists. I really wanted him to take it on and he did. And I think at that point I thought “OK they’re in good hands now and I think they will get bigger.” But never could I imagine, I mean, even the first time they sold out Madison Square Garden you know, that was huge.
Phishbase: That is still, I think, the loudest crowd I’ve ever heard at a Phish show
Sue Drew: It must have been mind blowing. The funny story about that: After I did leave Elektra, I left at the end of ‘92 and, after we signed them and they were making A Picture of Nectar or maybe when they were releasing it, they did a big show at the Roseland Ballroom. It was their biggest show to date in New York and all of Elektra Records came including my boss who was the very snooty one who only liked super hip cool music and including the chairman of the company Bob Krasnow and it was during that show that they just, they flipped out. Howard Thompson, who was the head of A&R, came to me and he said “Jon Fishman is my favorite drummer in the whole world.” Like, he couldn’t believe what a drummer Jon was and then within a month or two of that show Bob Krasnow promoted me to Vice President and I’m fairly certain it was that show that really got him to look at me in a different light and it was because they played Take the A Train. I mean, this was an older guy at the time and you know it was just like “oh my god, Take The A Train,” he completely got it.
So then, about Madison Square Garden. After I left and after Bob Krasnow left, somebody else became the chairman of Elektra Records and this person knew nothing about this band or this kind of music and Paluska went in to have a meeting with this person and he was trying to get them to pay attention to the band, to acknowledge the band, not in too overt of a way, but just to acknowledge that this band that was selling records and was making a name for itself and was on the label. So, he wanted to introduce himself and he said “look, we’re playing the Garden next week if you’d like to come to the show.” And she goes “well who are you opening up for?” And at that moment he realized “hey I get it, this is not the place we originally signed. These people have no idea what they’re dealing with.“
Phishbase: So how did you break it to them that you were moving on?
Sue Drew: Honestly the worst thing you can go through as an A&R person is telling a band you absolutely love, that you signed, is that you’re leaving. It is a horrible thing.
Phishbase: And at that point, it’s 1992 and still relatively early in their career.
Sue Drew: I mean, it was very early still early on. A Picture of Nectar had come out, they were working on Rift. I kind of stayed involved a little bit just because I couldn’t help myself because I loved them so much. You know, I just called Paluska, he lived in Boston so I didn’t see him as often but we spoke on the phone, and I just let him know that I had another opportunity. And you know, I felt terrible and I do to this day feel terrible. But there you go. And honestly I stayed very friendly as you do for a while with people that you’ve worked with. I have seen Trey in recent years. I go to see the guys when they play the Hollywood Bowl. Now I live in L.A. and you know I hung out with Trey and Page a little bit a couple of years ago and it was so nice. I went to see Trey opening up his musical at the La Jolla Playhouse and you know they’re just outstanding people.
