In a recent piece for Rolling Stone, Phish frontman Trey Anastasio recalls a special anecdote involving the late legend Prince about the time Anastasio and his band were invited back to the Purple One’s Paisley Park residence in Minnesota.

“It was just an unforgettable night,” Anastasio says of the evening. The party, which took place in November 1996, was a celebration of Prince’s album Emancipation, and Phish happened to be in Minneapolis for a show. In the piece, Anastasio recalls two things specifically: the fare and the music.

“One thing I remember is he didn’t serve cocktails,” he says. “So in lieu of cocktails he served little Captain Crunch cereal boxes. I thought that was the coolest thing.”

Anastasio wasn’t able to formally meet Prince (“I don’t think he would have known who I was, but it didn’t matter”), but the memory of the host’s performance that night sticks with him. “He was such a great guitar player, but people don’t point out he was a great rhythm guitar player,” he says. “I remember thinking that everybody tries to play like James Brown’s rhythm guitar player. Jammy guys do it a lot, and they all get it wrong, myself included. He was playing the most badass little rhythms with the drummer as soon as he got out of the spotlight. That’s when I noticed what a great guitar player he was.”

Anastasio also praises Prince’s abilities as a bandleader, likening his knack for getting together talented groups of musician to Frank Zappa’s. He also laments the world’s loss of such a musician icon: “It’s horrible that he’s gone,” Anastasio says. “I was heartbroken. He was way, way too young.”

Read the full story here.