Jack Phillips

What's the meaning behind your name?
I chose “Jack Phillips” because “John Phillips” was already taken, and by a famous one at that. I had some trouble with that years ago when I released my first album, and on the day Papa John died, a lot of people bought my record! I’m sure some were disappointed.

How did you started with all this??
I’ve been recording music for years, and my latest album was actually recorded a while ago. I had become frustrated with the project and had shelved it - when I dusted it off recently, I thought that it wasn’t as bad as I had thought, that in fact, there was some really great music there that deserved to see the light of day, so we released “To Whom It May Concern” with 10 of the original 13 tracks we recorded.

What's the message to transmit with your music??
My only message is a love for the songs that I’ve written with my lyricist Jimmy Russell. I honestly enjoy recording and I really love performing. If anything, I think that people really enjoy the music and watching how much fun I am having performing it.

What's your method at the time of writing a song??
It starts with the lyric - Jimmy writes a lyric and I take the lyric and set it to music. It’s about that simple - the music either comes quickly or not at all. I remember the lyric for “Motherlode” sitting on my piano in my flat in London for a month or two and I felt no inspiration for the words. Then one day, it just come out of me within minutes.

Which is your music influences??
I’m influenced by so much music. I was raised on classical music and didn’t discover rock music until I was about 12. As a young pianist, of course I was influenced by Elton John and Billy Joel. But also everything else from Elvis to The Beatles, Johnny Cash to The Rolling Stones, Sting to Lady Gaga - I love what she’s doing and who she is as a person. Right now I’m listening to a lot of 1920s New Orleans jazz.

What plans do you guys have for the future??
We will release a CD/DVD of our shows at The Metropolitan Room (New York City) which we performed in September 2010. And we will begin working on a new album early next year. I tend to take a very long time to make a record so I have no idea when the next one will see the light of day.

Which has been the funniest prank you guys have been or took part while on tour or after a show??
I once played a concert theater in Los Angeles and brought a performance art punk rock poet as an opening act, billing him as the biggest happening of my hometown. The audience were stupefied.

If you guys were stranded in the middle of nowhere after a show or while on tour. The help is 65 miles away from where you guys are, ¿Who would you guys send to look for help? And if while the rest wait, there's no food and the only way to feed yourself is by eating each other, ¿Who would you eat first?
I think I would not be the one eating the others because I’d be on my way looking for help!

Which country you would love to play?
England, definitely - I used to live there and at the time was not performing.

With which bands you would love to share stage??
I think any great band which is melodic. I saw REM at the Brixton Academy in about 2003 and they were brilliant. Melody is important to me and even The Rolling Stones’ music is melodic, so I’d be comfortable jamming with The Stones.

Are you OK, with the direction the band is going actually?
Yes, we made a really great record and it’s not only incredibly radio friendly, but it has really great songs that play well live. I think today artists need to be very good at performing live because of falling record sales, so thankfully, we have great music to play.

Check out more of this artist by going to: http://jackphillipsmusic.com/jpwp/