Chris Kuroda Interview: It Always Goes Back to Phish

Randy Ray from Jambands.com interviewed Chris Kuroda in a stellar piece which touches on his thoughts on his stint with Phish and working with R. Kelly, Aerosmith, and the Black Crowes.

Check out Chris Kuroda: It Always Goes Back to Phish.

The most haunting part of the interview was how Kuroda describe Vermont after Phish broke up. Here's an excerpt...

Vermont reminds me of your old Wild West gold town. When the gold was flowing, Vermont was thriving. There was a lot of Phish-based income going into the state. There were tons of people around that were either related to Phish, working for Phish, or people who just wanted to be in the scene that Phish had created in Vermont. There were a lot of people who were moving up there—college kids at UVM. Obviously, there was a whole lot going on besides that, but that’s the world that I live in, so that’s what I saw.

When Phish broke up, when the office closed down, and the whole operation came to a screeching halt, a lot of people moved on, left, and went their own way. There is very, very few of us left. My family, Kevin Shapiro’s still up there, a handful and smattering of people—obviously, Page is still up there, but it feels like a ghost town. That thriving Wild West gold town has become a ghost town with tumbleweeds blowing through. I feel like Vermont lost something very important and very strong when Phish hung it up. It doesn’t have the same magic that it once held. It’s hard to describe. For me and my family, there just is nothing really going on anymore up there that we fit into. There’s no real scene for us. We have our close circle of friends, but there’s just not much going on up there, anymore. A lot of people left and it is very quiet. Yes, it’s changed quite a bit. I definitely feel that Vermont—wonderful state that it is—lost a little piece of its heart when Phish broke up... More