Listen to the Trey Anastasio interview

Before the rock band Phish left for its current tour, bassist Mike Gordon brought the group a traditional Hebrew song he’d found.

In Phish, where the unwritten credo is “anything goes, so let’s give it a shot,” the four-part a cappella song – to be sung entirely in Hebrew – could wind up on the band’s next record.

“It’s an open pad,” guitarist Trey Anastasio says. “I think I’m happier about this than with anything else about this particular band. I don’t think there’s been a moment since the first couple of years of the band when someone said, `Let’s try this,’ and everybody else said, `We can’t play that.’ “

Phish albums, then, tend to veer wildly from style to style. The band’s fourth record, Rift, its second for Elektra Records, moves freely from fugues to jazz to quirky rock.

Catch of the night

And Phish shows, like the one coming up Friday night at the Murat Theatre, can be spontaneous free-for-alls. Drummer Jon “Tubbs” Fishman might bang out a solo on a vacuum cleaner; the band might improvise based on the rhythmic bouncing of beach balls it tosses into the audience.

In the nearly 10 years since Phish took shape at Goddard College in Vermont, the band has built a loyal following through word of mouth generated by nearly constant touring.

Anastasio says Phish decided early in its existence to earn its living from concert tickets rather than record sales. The members figured correctly that its music would be too offbeat for commercial radio.

“We’ve been going for about 10 years now and just basically making decisions based on what we enjoy doing as opposed to what would make us the big bucks,” Anastasio says. He pauses for a moment, then adds: “Boy, that sounds idealistic, doesn’t it?”

Singing the bugs out

Maybe. But in Phish, idealism reigns. When producer Barry Beckett suggested that the band might not be able to sing the difficult multiple harmonies it had written for the song Rift, the members devoted two weeks to working out the vocal parts.

It made the final cut.

Beyond that, Phish allows – even encourages – its fans to tape the concerts and trade the cassettes.

“I get off on the idea that people are going to be trading the tape around,” Anastasio says. “When something really great happens, I want people to hear it.”

That attitude often gets Phish tagged with the neo-Grateful Dead label. The category doesn’t fit. Though both bands vary their shows greatly from night to night, Phish is far more adventurous.

Occasionally, Anastasio acknowledges, the band loses its way during its improvisations. More often, he says, the ever-changing show keeps the performances exciting and the performers invigorated.

“If you just let go of yourself and your fears and ego and just enjoy the experience of music – which was the reason we all got into this – it’s amazing how much fun it is,” he says. “And if you’re having fun, that’s what’s translating out to the audience. If you’re worried about proving something, inevitably, you’re going to fail, I think.”