Story Behind the "Back of the Worm" Chanting

[sophist]

High times 2002


HT: I sure did, especially at The Great Went and the '97 New Year's show in New York with the balloon drop. Now, it's that time of the interview where we ask a few questions about marijuana -- your own use, your stance is on legalization and so on.

TA: I think the same thing that probably any reasonable, sane person thinks: That it's nuts! Particularly with pot being illegal--it's nuts! I've been smoking pot on and off since, like, 4th grade. It's a personal choice--what anybody wants to do. The marijuana laws are absolutely insane. I've had friends over the years, one in particular who did 14 years in a maximum-security prison for selling acid. That's just... insanity. I can say this too: I've never had a bad experience -- maybe there are people who have -- with psychedelic drugs.

HT: Are you a daily smoker?

TA: I don't smoke pot every day. Mostly just because I work a lot. I really get off on writing music. If I smoke too much pot I don't do much.

HT: It doesn't feed into the creativity of making music?

TA: The concept of being able to change your perspective at any given time, especially when you're making an album, is very, very useful. To me, it is. I should probably smoke more pot when I'm recording than anything else. In my own life, it's for a purpose. I'll sit in the studio for four hours staring at a soundboard, and then you start to lose perspective. It's a way of changing perspective.
[cont.]

Trey Anastasio - page 6

HT: How about psychedelics?

TA: I still like psychedelic drugs. I just never stopped liking them. I was in Moab, Utah last spring. I went camping out in the desert. I took acid out in the desert. It was incredible! Just as incredible as it's ever been. I usually get a lot of ideas and then go start writing music.

HT: What about Ecstasy?

TA: I've done it three times. It's not my thing. It's too predictable.

HT: Do you have a good tripping story?

TA: I usually don't talk about my drug use, because I feel it's a private thing, but, whatever, I'll tell you this one story. When we were in Amsterdam, me and a friend took a couple of hits of acid and a hit of Ecstasy later on that night. We were walking around and I started imagining I was riding on this giant sandworm, because the roads kind of go up and down. I was picturing these huge sandworms, diving up out of the canals.


That's where that phrase, "Back of the Worm," came from. The next night in the middle of this crazy jam--one of these jams that get out of control and you feel like you're not really playing, it's just playing for you--I think I was yelling that and people started saying, "Back of the worm!" Then I read about it on a T-shirt six months later and I'm laughing 'cause I was with my friend who was with me that night in Amsterdam. We were just laughing that some guy was wearing a T-shirt with "Back of the Worm" on it.

HT: So when you take acid, it influences your music?

TA: When I do these things, it's generally as a tool for music. To me, it all relates to music. Everything in my life, everything I do, I'm always thinking how can this make music. I get such deep, deep emotion from music that nothing moves me in that way. So if I ended up on some crazy night walking around Amsterdam hallucinating that giant sandworms are coming out of the canals, the next night as soon as I'm on stage I start trying to play the guitar like that. I probably started using effects in a different way the night after that, because I want the music to be able to do it. So I relate it to music.

That time in Moab--I was standing out in this desert with the Colorado River rushing by and I was looking out at all the plant life, the tiny, little, fragile ecosystem of the desert and looking up at the sky and these incredible stars. When I was making this album, I kept referring back to that in my mind, that moment, trying to create some of the soundscapes. If you look at a desert landscape like, everything fits together. It's perfect.

full interview

[qop24]

Haha the story sounds about right...

I have to admit though, that is a pretty weak string of questions for an interview (granted I didn't read the full interview from the link, just what was posted here). Just seems meaningless and childish to ask about what drugs someone does and also ask for a "good tripping story"....but I guess if you sign on for an interview with High Times you know what you are getting yourself into.

[sophist]

Haha the story sounds about right...

I have to admit though, that is a pretty weak string of questions for an interview (granted I didn't read the full interview from the link, just what was posted here). Just seems meaningless and childish to ask about what drugs someone does and also ask for a "good tripping story"....but I guess if you sign on for an interview with High Times you know what you are getting yourself into.

Yeah, it is high times.  The rest of the interview is interesting as well.  Kind of funny to read back on Trey talking about the state of Phish in 2002. 

[Buffalo Budd]

I remember reading this interview a few years ago, very cool.
Thanks for sharing.