On September 8, 2021, Osiris Media will launch season two of Undermine, focusing on the community of fans that help make Phish one of the most compelling and enduring bands in the world. Based on more than 100 interviews with members of the community from all walks of life, this season will provide the most comprehensive look at the Phish fan community to date.
From day one, the fans have been an integral part of Phish, helping the band spread their music, carrying traditions and inside jokes forward, and providing inspiration. As guitarist Trey Anastasio said in Relix last year, when he’s playing, “it doesn’t feel like an audience—it feels to me, like a community.”
Narrator and Phish lyricist Tom Marshall will be the season’s guide to exploring the fan community, and how it has evolved alongside society, technology, and culture. For this season, Osiris added New York Times' best selling author Benjy Eisen as head writer. A longtime Phish fan, artist manager (Billy & the Kids) and music journalist, Benjy has covered Phish professionally for more than twenty years for Rolling Stone, Esquire, Relix and more. Benjy is helping to craft the main narrative of the season: although the Phish community is often depicted as a homogenous hippie mass, it’s much more complex, diverse and profound.
“Our goal is to make Undermine the definitive Phish podcast, a show that people will be listening to for years,” said RJ Bee, CEO of Osiris Media. “For this season, we wanted to push ourselves, and the audience, to dig into what makes this community so different, and so special. There are lifelong friendships and marriages that come from this community, and there have been spaces created for LBGTQ fans, sober fans, and many others, all around Phish. The band has inspired fans to create their own enterprises, from Jambase to HeadCount, and Phish fans have inserted their influence everywhere from the Obama administration to the NBA. This is a huge opportunity, and I’m grateful to Benjy for joining the team. His knowledge, incisive writing and wit are a huge asset to our team. We can’t wait for people to hear this season.”
Season two premieres September 8. The embargoed trailer can be found here, and on September 8, it can be found on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
