Phish was formed in 1983 on the campus of the University of Vermont. Its four members played together for 21 years, until the band’s last day in 2004, losing only one member over the years.
From the 1980s to 2004 Phish consisted of: Trey Anastasio – guitar, vocals, Jon Fishman – drums, Mike Gordon – bass guitar, and Page McConnell – keyboards. All musicians are excellent vocalists, but Anastasio stands out as the leader in this matter.
The band made their studio debut six years after forming. In 1989, the album “Junta” was released. The musicians released it with their own money. As a result, the album received a large circulation already in the period of the band’s growing fame, largely thanks to devoted fans. The LP “Junta” was re-released by Elektra Records in 1992, and the song “You Enjoy Myself” became one of the most frequently played songs at Phish concerts.
The album “A Picture of Nectar” was already released on the major label Elektra Records in 1992. In it the musicians of Phish pay tribute to American musical culture, its palette spreading from jazz to bluegrass, rock and roll, and prog-rock.
By the mid-’90s, the Phish had reached the scale of the stadium bands of the ’70s. The point of their world fame was their fifth album, Hoist (1993). The song “Down with Disease” became a breakout hit on American rock radio, reaching No. 33 on Billboard’s major rock tracks chart in June 1994.
What is Phish?
Phish is an American rock band that formed in 1983 in the American Canadian border town of Burlington. It is the most populous town in Vermont and one of the most sparsely populated municipalities in the United States. Phish’s music is a universality of all kinds of genres: prog and psychedelic rock, folk, country, jazz, blues, bluegrass, funk, and reggae.
Even though the name of the band, by the words of musicians, represents the sound “pshhhhh”, coming from an airplane during the take-off, or from a brush on a drum, in terms of visual identity, Phish has chosen the Fish image for their logo, which might also be a tribute to the band’s drummer, Jon Fishman.
The Phish logo was created by Trey Anastasio in 1986. It depicts a stylized name of the band inscribed into a silhouette of a fish with a cat-like head. So, this funny and unusual emblem can be called a catfish, or high in today’s slang has an interesting meaning of a person, who hides his identity and plays someone else. The image of a fish is accompanied by several small bubbles, which are outlined in black and have small black dots inside.
The Phish logo is fully hand-drawn, and the bold uppercase lettering in the center of the composition is set in a custom designer typeface with no commercial analogs. As for the color palette of the Phish visual identity, the primary version of the logo was set in black-and-white, which could be changed due to the needs of the designers and depending on the backgrounds it was placed on.