by Ernie Thomas
For one time rock star Glen Phillips, waking up one day and finding
himself out of work and seemingly out of luck turned out to be really good
thing.
“I was cocky and thought the world owed me something,” he said. “I was
used to getting things handed to me and not really having to work at anything
too hard,” he said. “Sometimes you really need life to give you a good,
hard slap in the face to learn who you really are, and appreciate what you
have and show you that the world does not revolve around you.”
At age 30, the former frontman of Toad The Wet Sprocket, is beginning
the second phase of his career, that of a solo artist. His first phase
lasted 13 years and spawned 6 albums that sold close to four million copies.
“We were a pretty successful band and we really never ‘paid dues’ to get
to where we got,” he said of when he fronted the post-punk/pre-alternative
rock quartet, which made him an MTV star. “The truth of the matter is that
we lucked out.”
Toad died of natural causes in 1997. “It really had gotten old and I
wanted to do something else,” he said of the mindset he held when he pulled
the plug on the band who enjoyed such chart hits as “Walk The Ocean,” “Good
Intentions,” “All I Want” and “Fall Down.”
As the most visual member of a successful major label rock band,
Phillips made the mistake many lead singers make. He underestimated the
power of the unit and the old adage that there was strength in numbers.
Going solo was not the walk in the park he thought it was going to be.
“Nobody wanted me,” he sighed. “At that time (1998), there was
absolutely no interest in singer/songwriters. Thanks to people like David
Gray who have re-opened that door a little, there is a place for guys with a
guitar like me now.”
With a wife and two kids to support, life got a little scary for the
musician. “I really thought that I was going to have people throwing money
at me when I stepped out on my own,” he said. “I wound up broke and
depressed and very confused. It was a very humbling experience that in
hindsight was a very good for me as a person.”
Newly signed to the indie label, Red Brick/Gold Circle, Phillips has
just released his set of first post-Toad material, a 12-song collection
called, Abulum.
His music is paradoxical, in that dark and foreboding lyrics are buoyed
by very upbeat and melodic music.
Phillips seems like a rather happy-go-lucky guy as you first latch on to
the hummable melodies of his songs, but then you realize he is singing about
things like –– post- apocalyptic life where people live in card board boxes
in abandoned shopping malls (in his first single, “Fred Meyers”), the broken
dreams of an actress turned junkie hooker (“Train Wreck”) and tragic
one-sided relationships (“Men Just Leave”).
“Yeah, I’m a realist,” he said of his intense lyrics. “I’m a gloomy
sort of guy who has an aversion to rose-colored glasses.”
One reality that the artist is trying to look on the bright side of, is his
not having enough money to bring a band along on the road with him.
“I’m going out on the road with just a spotlight and a guitar,” he said.
“Hopefully, if the CD starts selling and some money starts coming in, I’ll
be able to afford bringing a band along with me on the road. But until then,
it’s up to me to sink or swim. It’s scary, but it’s also invigorating.
With Toad, we were always about the music and never about the show. Being
out there by myself gives me the opportunity to be more of an entertainer. I
can tell stories and joke around with the audience and pace the show anyway I
want. It’s a freedom I’ve never had before. If I paint myself into a
corner, then I have to figure a way to get out of it, because there’s nobody
else up there to bail me out.”
As to why he set up the dominos of his creative life to fall this way
they have, when he was once firmly established in a band that critics now
hail as the successor to REM and the precursor to Radiohead, Phillips chalks
it up to boredom.
“We had known each other a really long time. Two of the guys, Todd and
Dean, had been friends since they were five-years-old and They’d known Randy
quite a long time and I started hanging out with the three of them when I was
a freshman in high school. “Having that kind of history, there was a lot of
excess baggage on board with us as a band,” he said.
Looking back with hindsight, he is proud of what the band accomplished,
but now realizes that they ended things before they hit their creative crest
as a group.
“I was only 14 when we started that band and I had just turned 18 when we
got our signed to our deal with Columbia Records,” he recalled. “It was all
just dumb luck and a fluke really that I am doing what I’m doing. We
started a band in high school and figured we would have some fun doing a few
parties and dances and whatever and then go on with our lives.”
Seems that fate was determined to save the acerbic songwriter from a
mundane existence in the 9 to 5 world. As Phillips remembers it, a
starry-eyed California artist who knew one of the guys he was jamming with
wanted to record an album and needed a backing band in the studio. “He told
us that if we’d back him up on his songs, he would pay for us to do two songs
of our own,” said Phillips.
Those two songs were routinely licensed through the local branch of ASCAP
publishing. What was not routine though, was that a rep at ASCAP was so
impressed with the demo tape they had sent with their registration paperwork,
that he made copies of the tape and forwarded them to A&R people at various
labels.
“We were a high school band and suddenly record companies were calling us
with record contract offers and wanting to hear more material,” laughed
Phillips. “We owe our career to that (ASCAP) guy. If it weren’t for him
doing what he did then, I wouldn’t be talking to you here now.”
Glen Phillips performs at Lincoln Park Fest in Chicago on July 29