The world class, league of their own, and legendary jam band embraces Whirlwind!
By Will Young
To their fans, Phish are not just a band, they're a way of life. Although the group's studio albums sell well enough, Phish are primarily a live phenomenon: the living, breathing, noodling embodiment of the term "jam band." Like Deadheads before them, Phish fans have followed the group city to city, traded bootleg tapes with the band's blessings, and feverishly debate the merits of past gigs (Phish never plays the same set twice). By nurturing this grass-roots following, Phish bypassed commercial radio and evolved over the course of a decade into one of—if not the— hottest live attractions in America.*
I can tell you from my 30 plus years of dealing with "mega bands" there is no amount of salesmanship or "freebees" that will sway an artist one way or another... They typically are striving for perfection in their performance, both from a production stand point to the essence of their sound, (after all it's how they got to where they are now.) That said, when we were contacted by the band, and told how much they liked our gear, it was an undeniable affrimation that we too have done it right!
It's not a huge surprise when our interface systems (splitters, Dis, and of course cabling) are used in most aspects of "large productions", but it is a special kind of awesome, when our gear ends up in line, on stage, actually affecting, and shaping the musicians tone, as it is in this case. Currently Page McConnell (Keyboardist) has added our Orange Box phaser to his rig, and they've asked us to send them our Bomb boost pedal, as well as our Gold Box distortion! All hand made right here in our one factory, in Rochester NY! It has been a personal pleasure following this band succesfully define their place in music for so many years, while watching entire genres come in and out of favor... Thank you to all of you at Phish for never compromising on your art, and a huge thank you for choosing Whirlwind!
*Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Joel Hoard contributed to this story.
