This story is from Stuff
Martin Phillipps penned heavenly pop hits across a five decade long career, while overcoming some of life’s hardships.
The Chills’ front man is widely regarded as one of the country’s greatest songwriters, and name checked by the likes of Iggy Pop, Neil Finn, influential DJ, the late John Peel, and American indie royalty: REM and Pavement.
The 61-year-old died in his home in the Dunedin suburb of Tainui on Sunday afternoon.
“It is with broken hearts the family and friends of Martin Phillipps wish to advise Martin has died unexpectedly,” long-serving band manager Scott Muir said in a statement.
In a moving tribute, Neil Finn wrote of Phillipps, “He was a good friend, wonderful musician and one of NZ’s greatest songwriters”.
“A true original, fascinated by and devoted to the magic and mystery of music. His recent work was as good as anything he’s done. Martin’s songs live on with his spirit.”
Singer Nadia Reid wrote: “Bless you and may you be at peace now — beyond the pain of this physical world”.
Fellow singer/songwriter Don McGlashan wrote: “He was one of the first musicians who showed us that you could wear your heart on your sleeve and be an artist in this strange country”.
Ricky Maymi, of seminal American psychedelic band The Brian Jonestown Massacre, also paid tribute to enigmatic frontman.
“Martin and I ended up becoming mates and meeting up all over the planet over the following years. I am deeply, profoundly, grateful to have met the man, to have seen him play so many times all around the world, and to have gotten to know him as a mate.”
Phillipps’ musical journey with The Chills began in 1980, when he was just 17, quickly making a name for himself as a prolific songwriter.
Many of those songs involved a familiar sound of keyboard and guitars, and featured psychedelic lyrics.
That was evident on the band’s first single, Rolling Moon, on the fledgling Christchurch-based Flying Nun label, which laid the blueprint for future work by The Chills.
“We wander lost forgotten hills. Blue sky, green grass, we are still. The mists enfold us gently smelling. Breeze in our ears softly telling.”
A review in The Press of that December 1982 release said: “Honestly this record is so good you cannot afford not to buy it.”
The song, which remained a live favourite through the decades, peaked at #26 on the charts, despite almost no airplay from commercial radio.
The single came hot of the heels of three tracks, including Kaleidoscope World, which featured on the famed Dunedin Double recording. That EP cemented the band as one of the luminaries of the growing “Dunedin Sound” scene, which included likes of The Clean, The Verlaines, and Straitjacket Fits.
The death of drummer Martyn Bull of leukaemia on July 18, 1983 severely impacted Phillipps and the band, which was already on its seventh lineup. But the single-minded Phillips forged on, producing a series of songs which would be demanded from audiences decades later.
That included Pink Frost, which led to the band winning an award for most promising group, and Phillipps for most promising male vocalist.
“Just the thought fills my heart with Pink Frost (Oh no!).”
The band was not only making waves domestically, but also internationally, and moves were made to send Phillipps and co for their first foray to England.
The band later sold thousands of copies of their compilation album, Kaleidoscope World, and at the end of 1986 record another fan favourite: I Love My Leather Jacket, a homage to the gift that Bull had left Phillipps.
“I wear my leather jacket like a great big hug. Radiating charm - a living cloak of luck
“It’s the only concrete link with an absent friend, it’s a symbol I can wear 'till we meet again.”
The band’s debut album, Brave Words (which was recently reissued on vinyl) came out a year later, and followed a long tour around Europe.
The album attracted praise from the notoriously fickle UK music press, with the band also having interest in other countries, leading to tours across Australia, the United Kingdom, the Unites States and Canada.
That interest led to the band signing a 1989 multi-album deal with record company Slash, which would feature the band’s most successful album, Submarine Bells.
That album featured the lead single, the perfectly named Heavenly Pop Hit, another future staple from The Chills’ setlist.
“Once we were damned, now I guess we are angels, for we passed through the dark and eluded the dangers. Then awoke with a start to startling changes, all the tension is ended, the sentence suspended, and darkness now sparkles and gleams.”
Music reviewer Grant Smithies wrote: “With the single Heavenly Pop Hit living up to its name, the band seemed poised for great things. In truth, they were poised over the void”.
While mainstream success seemed destined for the band, years of touring, line-up changes, and what Phillipps dubbed the “curse of The Chills” took its toll.
A poorly received follow-up album, Soft Bomb, coupled with Phillipps’ growing addiction for alcohol and drugs meant the band was no longer en vogue in an era where grunge ruled.
It was during that decade that Phillipps got Hepatitis C, with the virus attacking a liver already impacted by alcohol, and threatened to end his life.
“It got to the point where I was warned that even mouthwash with alcohol in it could kill me,” he said.
While Phillipps battled depression over this period, he continued with his music, and it led to a late career revival.
That started with the 2015 comeback album, Silver Bullets, which was well-received by the public.
In 2017 he told a sold-out show at Auckland’s King’s Arms that he was now Hepatitis C free, while his health battles were documented in The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps, in 2019.
Now with a stable line-up, Phillipps began to mine the creative treasure trove of unfinished songs he had compiled over the decades, including Snow Bound in 2018, and Scatterbrain in 2022, and began touring domestically and internationally.
“Essentially I’m still the adolescent creative type, still on my own selfish little pathway but realising a lot of people around me have gained life skills I’ll never have. That’s part of what the record is about as well, realising it’s not going to change now,” he told Stuff about the Scatterbrain album.
“I'm always nervous before a show and yet as soon as that music starts, and I’m up there with my friends, and the power of that sound rises up, its like, ‘Yes, this is it, this is what I’m here for.’”
Phillipps, in one of his final interviews, talked about auctioning some of his extensive collection to help pay for some repairs on his house.
He also mentioned a new album, Springboard: Early Unrecorded Songs, which was due for release later this year, and featured the likes of Neil Finn, Julia Deans and Troy Kingi.
But Phillipps said he had been battling poor health, that he’d “been in hospital four times in the last six months with jaundice and stuff from my liver”.
Still, he had remained hopeful of a nationwide tour early next year.
While his name lives on with his music, including an extensive back catalogue of unreleased tracks, it also lives on in space.
In 2021, Dr Ian Griffin of Otago Museum, an avid fan of the band and astronomy, combined those passions by naming asteroid 53109 “Martinphillipps”.
That meant the Dunedin singer joined the likes of The Beatles and Bruce Springsteen to have minor planets named after them.
“I’m certainly in some pretty good company,” Phillipps said at the time.
