Biography
Martin Phillipps, who handled vocals, guitar, keyboards, and percussion for the Chills, composed over five hundred songs. During the 1980s and 1990s, however, only a small group of devoted fans in the United States and England paid attention to his output. Even so, he ranks among the most influential indie-pop songwriters globally, having built a widely praised catalog that began in New Zealand’s late-1970s punk scene. Born in Dunedin, Phillipps first encountered punk rock in 1978 at age fifteen; inspired by the local band the Enemy, he launched his own project, the Same, initially playing guitar before also taking on lead vocals. When the Same dissolved in 1980, Phillipps started the Chills and invited Peter Gutteridge of the Clean, a band he greatly admired, to join; Gutteridge departed before the group cut its debut single. The remaining members soon left to pursue travel or studies, leaving Phillipps temporarily without a band. In 1981 he toured with the Clean and, upon returning, assembled a fresh Chills lineup that secured a deal with the independent label Flying Nun Records the following year. After drummer Martyn Bull succumbed to leukemia in 1983, Phillipps placed the Chills on hold and briefly pursued solo work. Later that December he assembled another roster under the temporary name A Wrinkle in Time. Throughout the 1980s the Chills cycled through multiple personnel configurations while issuing singles that reflected Phillipps’s fondness for psychedelia and 1960s garage rock. Their first proper album, Brave Words, finally appeared in 1987; an earlier collection, Kaleidoscope World from 1986, had simply gathered previously released singles. Following their dismissal by their American label, the Chills disbanded in 1993. Phillipps then joined forces with the Clean’s David Kilgour on guitar and vocals in the Pop Art Toasters, which recorded an EP of 1960s covers. He reactivated the Chills in 1995 under the name Martin Phillipps and the Chills, and the group issued Sunburnt on Flying Nun the next year. Martin Phillipps died on July 28 at the age of 61.
Albums
