Monsters

• Performances
• History
• Lyrics
• Artist
  • Phish
  • Fish
  • Mike
  • Page
  • Trey
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Originally Performed By	Trey Anastasio
Original Album	Evolve (2024)
Appears On
Music	Anastasio
Lyrics By	Same
Vocals	Trey (lead), Mike, Page (backing)
Historian	Stacie Ledden (sallymags)
Last Update	2025-12-08

History

In the Nov. 12, 2025, episode of Wong Notes (the second episode in a two-part interview with Cory Wong), Trey Anastasio describes the origin of “Monsters”: 

I've been having this experience recently that keeps repeating itself, where I'll write all these songs, and I'll go up to the barn, and I went up to the barn with Fishman and Tony when before I did Ghost of the Forest. I was playing them all these songs I had worked really hard on. And then somewhere in the pile of all this, somehow somebody put on some demo on the sound system or something.

It was like this tape of me yelling this thing, “I'm about to run.” And Tony and Fish were both like, that's my favorite one. I was like, that can't be your favorite one, that's not a song.

It's just me yelling how I actually feel. That can't be your favorite, that's not a song. And they're like, sorry, it's my favorite….

And then lo and behold, suddenly it was a song. And then after that, there's another one called “Monsters” that we're doing now, that again, when we were doing the Evolve album cycle, that wasn't a song really.

It was just me actually saying how I feel. And so I think there's a learning thing in that, that people keep responding to vulnerability…

The familiar arms of Colorado provided the perfect venue to showcase that raw vulnerability when “Monsters” and 14 other songs debuted during the Trey Anastasio Trio shows, June 9, 10, and 11, 2023, at Denver’s Mission Ballroom. Many of these songs, including “Monsters,” would eventually make up Evolve, the band’s 16th studio album released July 12, 2024.

These Trio shows felt significant. Featuring Dezron Douglas on bass and Jon Fishman on drums, they included three nights at the Mission, where Trey Anastasio Band helped kick off the venue’s opening weekend in August 2019. 

Previous performances of The Trio included TAB members Tony Markellis and Russ Lawton, in Spring 1999 and 20 years later in Spring 2018. 

The energy is always electric when fans all hear new songs at the same time and the band can see the crowd’s immediate response. Similar to the ’99 Trio tour, where many of Farmhouse’s songs debuted, this run was a test drive. There was an air of experimentation, a fun looseness, coupled with Trey’s usual laser focus. 

Fishman on drums added to the run’s magic–not to mention the raucous vibes–and allowed for half of Phish to work through the debuts together.

“Monsters,” the eighth track on Evolve, debuted on Friday, June 9, 2023, along with album and live show favorites “Oblivion,” “The Well,” and “Ether Edge.” Phish debuted “Monsters” the following month at Star Lake Amphitheater on July 22, 2023. 

Defined by its haunting vocals and scorching guitar solo, the listener is taken on an emotional journey of reflection and regret. As the song comes to its passionate crescendo, Trey belts the last lines: “I wake up in my bed; With monsters in my head.” Whether these monsters refer to Trey’s own past struggles with addiction, or his sense-making of an often-cruel world, has yet to be revealed. What’s obvious is that he plays the song with fervor and sincerity, and “Monsters” has become a welcome addition to the rotation. 

9/16/2025 - Monsters (4K HDR) Alpharetta, GA. Video by Phish

Last significant update: 12/8/25

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