Biography
Singer, bassist, guitarist, and actress Britta Phillips possesses a sweetly melodic yet commanding voice and has built an eclectic path both independently and alongside fellow artists. She gained her widest recognition through her role in Luna while also forming half of the Dean & Britta partnership alongside her husband, the Luna singer and guitarist Dean Wareham. Born in Boyne City, Michigan in 1963, she spent her childhood in Bucks County, Pennsylvania as the daughter of musician, songwriter, and educator Peter Phillips.
Determined to launch a music career early on, she relocated to New York City at nineteen. During that time she secured the vocal role for the lead character in the animated series Jem after a successful audition. Between 1985 and the program’s conclusion in 1988 she laid down every Jem and the Holograms track. In 1988 she made her first appearance on the big screen with Justine Bateman, Julia Roberts, and Liam Neeson in Satisfaction, portraying a guitarist and vocalist inside an all-female rock group.
Throughout the nineties Phillips concentrated chiefly on musical projects. She assembled the short-lived shoegaze trio the Belltower together with singer/guitarist Jody Porter and future Fountains of Wayne founder and bassist Adam Schlesinger. The band lived for a spell in London and issued the album Popdropper in 1992. Following the Belltower’s 1997 dissolution she entered the indie-rock group Ultrababyfat, contributing to their 1998 release Silver Tones Smile.
Phillips exited Ultrababyfat in 2000 and stepped in for Justin Harwood on bass in Dean Wareham’s former Galaxie 500 outfit Luna. Her tenure yielded albums such as Romantica in 2002 and Rendezvous in 2004. She and Wareham later married, issuing several recordings under the Dean & Britta banner, among them L'Avventura in 2003 and Back Numbers in 2007. The pair also supplied the score for Noah Baumbach’s 2015 film Mistress America.
Phillips issued her first solo long-player, Luck or Magic, in 2016. Conceived initially as a project with electronic producer Scott Hardkiss, the set was set aside following his death in 2013. She later returned to the recordings, completing them alongside engineer Eric Broucek (LCD Soundsystem, the Juan Maclean, Eleanor Friedberger) and drummer Roger Brogan (Spectrum) with additional input from Wareham and others. The finished work contained five original compositions plus interpretations of material by the Cars, Fleetwood Mac, and Dennis Wilson.
Determined to launch a music career early on, she relocated to New York City at nineteen. During that time she secured the vocal role for the lead character in the animated series Jem after a successful audition. Between 1985 and the program’s conclusion in 1988 she laid down every Jem and the Holograms track. In 1988 she made her first appearance on the big screen with Justine Bateman, Julia Roberts, and Liam Neeson in Satisfaction, portraying a guitarist and vocalist inside an all-female rock group.
Throughout the nineties Phillips concentrated chiefly on musical projects. She assembled the short-lived shoegaze trio the Belltower together with singer/guitarist Jody Porter and future Fountains of Wayne founder and bassist Adam Schlesinger. The band lived for a spell in London and issued the album Popdropper in 1992. Following the Belltower’s 1997 dissolution she entered the indie-rock group Ultrababyfat, contributing to their 1998 release Silver Tones Smile.
Phillips exited Ultrababyfat in 2000 and stepped in for Justin Harwood on bass in Dean Wareham’s former Galaxie 500 outfit Luna. Her tenure yielded albums such as Romantica in 2002 and Rendezvous in 2004. She and Wareham later married, issuing several recordings under the Dean & Britta banner, among them L'Avventura in 2003 and Back Numbers in 2007. The pair also supplied the score for Noah Baumbach’s 2015 film Mistress America.
Phillips issued her first solo long-player, Luck or Magic, in 2016. Conceived initially as a project with electronic producer Scott Hardkiss, the set was set aside following his death in 2013. She later returned to the recordings, completing them alongside engineer Eric Broucek (LCD Soundsystem, the Juan Maclean, Eleanor Friedberger) and drummer Roger Brogan (Spectrum) with additional input from Wareham and others. The finished work contained five original compositions plus interpretations of material by the Cars, Fleetwood Mac, and Dennis Wilson.
Albums
Singles
