On WIZN's "Blues for Breakfast" program on Sunday, December 11, 2011, Phish archivist Kevin Shapiro visits the WIZN studio to spin tracks from the seven-cd box set Hampton/Winston-Salem '97. Tune in from 9:45am-11am EST. Live stream at: http://www.wizn.com/wizn_live_stream.html.

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I'm the chooser of what we're going to play. I wonder how it got to be that way. I guess it's just my personality. To me, it's like composing, and I really like composing and I don't get to do it when I'm on the road, so it's my little way of making little suites every night. I usually plan something out before we go on stage, and then we change it when we get on stage. It's very rare that we stick to the whole songlist. Or any of it, for that matter. But I choose it, partially by what we haven't played for a couple of nights before.

We consider the community aspect and the communication aspect of what we do to be the whole point of it, the whole fun of it. That why we like playing live so much better than making albums. Though I do like making albums a lot, I could see myself getting to a point in my career where, if we could get to a situation where we had a studio near our homes — which we’re working on, we’ve actually built the building, and we’ve started buying equipment — it won’t be long until we have a studio in Burlington. At that point, I could see going much more into the album end of things. But the communication thing is definitely where it’s at.