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Features

Published: 2012/04/06

American Pie Creator Adam Herz Talks Phish (Relix Revisited)

As American Reunion opens this weekend, we look back to our September/October 2005 issue and this piece on American Pie screenwriter Adam Herz

Name: Adam Herz
Occupation: Screenwriter, Producer
Claim To Fame: American Pie Series

“I still listen to Phish all the time,” admits the 32-year old Adam Herz. “I am in denial that there will not be another show.” The young Hollywood insider responsible for the American Pie franchise says that Phish remains his favorite band, although the jamband channel on Sirius has turned him on to Umphrey’s McGee, Robert Randolph and Keller Williams. “And I still love the dead, “ he says. “All versions of them.”

Herz caught his first Phish show in ’93 and has seen them an additional 46 times, including their farewell show at Coventry. And he misses them as much as anyone: “We’re all trying to treasure and be grateful for the times we had, but well, the truth is that’s just something we say because we have no alternative.”

Having enjoyed the financial rewards of three blockbuster movies, Herz stumbled upon a practice of giving away free popsicles at concerts. At Coventry last year, he bought 10,000 Otter Pops (and 700 pounds of dry ice to keep them cold). “I spent most of my non-show time walking around, handing them out, and meeting people,” he says. “It was a blast. And I never saw a single one of those wrappers on the ground, which is just cool.”

Herz currently runs Terra Firma Films, which has a deal with Universal, and is working on upcoming film projects, both as a screenwriter and producer. “At one time or another, every Pie script had a Phish reference in it,” he reveals. “But all the noticeable ones fell out during the filmmaking process.” And while the “Boy! Man! God! Shit!” dialogue got cut, Herz maintains that “vague” references remain.

“The thing about listening to Phish now, though, is sometimes I just get sad that they’re not around anymore. Some of the fun of listening to a smoking ‘Harry Hood’ was the anticipation of the next time I’d see the song,” he says. “I want my Phish back!”

Comments

There are 2 comments associated with this post

Goldcobra May 4, 2012, 04:35:50

Then there must be some fine line between “being down” and glziariomng that I am not seeing.Gangsters with tattoos have been covered by many media outlets to point to where its played out. This website is a good resource for shows and events, but you would hope that it would cover art movements and topics that are not as trite as some homie in the park at sunset talking about how he went to jail.

Irfan May 10, 2012, 20:57:41

I can remember a few years back when hknaicg a person computer was wrong in so many levels. Why not today? Is it ok to do it? It sure sounds like it.I use to do computer repairs. And I remember that not just any one had a desktop, even less a portable laptop. Computers are a new thing to consumers, and technology will keep it that way. One of the main problem that customers had when they approached me for repairs, aside from the usual (how do I turn it on, I already pushed the on button on the TV) was “my computer is slow and windows keep popping up”.People just kept clicking the wrong sites. I recommended AOL because of its “safer” community, but that did not seem to help some of my customer when the got infected with BlackIce for clicking on the wrong image or song.Oh that Trojan was spectacular, it gave just about complete control on the client computer, and I believe if memory serves me right, you could even fry the motherboard by accessing the bios and changing the voltage on the CPU. But this is a sad story better told some other time. Now that was bad…very bad…Ok, now there is software like PCAnywhere or LogMeIn which do exactly the same thing, but is accepted. It is ok to spy on the client computer with their permission. So it is really not my fault if they failed to remove it after it’s no longer needed or did not set a password right?What I am trying to get at is…well I don’t know, but I think it is invasion of privacy.They can always do it like at my place of work. It pop ups a legal disclaimer when you log in to the domain. It boils down to: Its ok for us to monitor your station…

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