E.G. Phillips is a San Francisco based songwriter who creates lyric driven songs with his own special blend of whimsy and cinematic imagery which he uses to give a wry take on dealing with the longings of the heart and the madness of existence. In possession of a degree in Geography, he comes from a country called the Midwest and his favorites include Bob Dylan and The Kinks as well as Duke Ellington...and that crowd. When it comes to his stage presence, there's a touch of satirist Tom Lehrer in the mix.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
What first got you into music?
I suppose it depends upon what you mean by “into” — as a kid I had a copy of “Peter and the Wolf” on vinyl that I played endlessly until I wore it out. But, other than a short lived elementary school encounter with the clarinet (not the greatest choice for a kid with asthma in retrospect), it wasn’t until college that I picked up an instrument — the guitar — on which i played a lot of Bob Dylan and Beatles tunes. Though in reality from the start I was really more interested in seeing what I could create on my own. But I was also quite shy about it, preferring to tinker with MIDI composition software in isolation and a bit mortified about sharing with people. It wasn’t until much later in life that I got the bug to perform live and started doing open mics in and around San Francisco.
What do you think your role is in this world?
That’s a heady question. I can barely figure out what my role is in my own life some days. Existence is sort of a mad thing when it comes down to it, whether you think it all ends with the heat death of the universe or what have you. The best we can do is help each other through it. I guess that’s what I try and do with song.
Your latest track is 'The Octopus Song'. Can you share with us the background of its creation and did any unusual things happen during its creation?
I was inspired to write the song because I had a gig at the now sadly defunct Oakland Octopus Literary Salon and I had come across the book “The Soul of an Octopus” by Sy Montgomery. I had previously written a song called the “The Albatross Song” (which had proven to be quite popular with live audiences) based on a book called “The Thing with Feathers” by Noah Strycker and I thought writing a similar song inspired by natural history would be a fun way to promote the event. Sy’s book had all sorts of wonderful anecdotes and bits of found poetry in it. The bit about the Hawaiian myth of creation and octopuses being from another world was a bit too perfect — it sounded like something out of Doctor Who, which I have been known to allude to to in other songs. I was also really into Nat King Cole’s song “You’re Looking At Me” and that became a musical and structure jumping off point.
The fact it got recorded as it did is a whole other story — but in short, if someone asks you to record backing vocals, say “yes.” I did luck out in that I ended up meeting Chris McGrew (who produced the album) and Kevin Seal (who played keys) at Hyde Street Studios and they seemed like “the guys” who I would want for this particular set of songs and the overall vibe I wanted to create.
What are your ambitions in life?
I really enjoy creating music. The process of recording an album intrigues me, whether its in a home studio or a professional one as was the case for this album. The collaboration aspect can be amazing — seeing what happens when you allow others to take what you’ve created as sort of broad outline and channel it through their own abilities and perspective. It’s a bit like a play — you provide the script and the setting (harmonic in the case of a song) and then you see it come alive in the hands of the cast and crew you assemble. I want to go on and keep creating like that and sharing those creations with other people.
How do you spend your time?
Well, these days there’s a lot of promotion related stuff for the album, although the churn of the pandemic has really dampened the who live performance thing. It’s a very different mode than when you’re focused on creating and it can be be hard to switch gears, so I’m not writing nearly as much… although I do dream quite a bit about future projects base don the existing cache of songs I have. There is of course the “day job,” such as it is and I spend way too much time paying attention to politics (that’s most of my Twitter feed). For recreation there’s a lot of watching of YouTube videos, going down various rabbit holes related to science and history… a reference to the ambush of the Romans in the Teutoberg Forest worked its way into one of my more recent songs.
What are you most proud of?
I guess I was being canny I would say my upcoming album “Alien from an Alternate Earth” on which "The Octopus Song” plays a central role (it’s where the title of the album comes from).
In general, it’s when other people enjoy what I’ve created. A whole back I got into following a webcast called “In Lieu of Fun” (or ILOF) which was started up by Ben Wittes of Lawfare and Kate Klonick, a law professor at St. John’s University in New York, as way of killing time during the pandemic. Through a curious set of circumstances I ended up writing a theme song for the show (I don’t think Ben seriously thought I’d do it when he suggested it) but now it’s been incorporated into the show and Ben mentioned the other day that he was really fond of it and has been listening to it a lot as it’s being used as bumpers at the beginning and the end of the podcast edition. The fact that he and the audience (a little community that refers to itself as “The Greek Chorus” owing to the chatter that goes on during the show) enjoy something I’ve created is a point of pride.
What is the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
Being someone who suffers from depression, managing that has been a long standing struggle. It’s certainly taken me from some very dark places and circumstances I wouldn’t recommend. Asking for help when I needed it most was probably the hardest thing… walking away (or letting myself be let go as the case may have been) from things that weren’t working wasn’t easy either.
What book and movie spoke to you, and in what way?
Well, Doctor Who has played an outsized role in my life since I woke up one morning as a kid and stumbled into the living room where the family was watching an episode called the “Seeds of Doom” — apparently my dad had switched to PBS because he was very tired the usual Saturday Morning dreck and they happened to be running a marathon that included that serial and another episode called “The Sontaran Experiment” — I was hooked immediately. It has been a source of community and has undoubtedly had an impact on my view of the world — both in terms of having a sense of irreverence but also valuing intellect and curiosity about the world.
Do you think that technology is improving lives?
My Grandmother had a saying “The world is always getting a better set of problems” — while technology improves or lives by facilitating communication and giving us vaccines for novel viruses in incredibly short spans of time, there are obviously downsides. One downside I allude to in The Octopus Song is “the infinite division of our attention” — social media in particular is ever encouraging us to add more and more to our “feeds” to the point where the feed becomes an unmanageable firehose. The ease of communication in general has erased certain boundaries, like that between work and home, yet has also made face to face communication and intimacy more difficult as well as making other people that much more of a commodity — swiping left or right and all that.
What are your plans for the future?
Well, if I have my druthers I’ll keep creating music and releasing it out into the world and hopefully folks will enjoy it, take into their hearts and make it their own. Doing it in the way that I would like can be so terribly expensive, unfortunately.
How does the ending of the Muppet movie go? “Life’s like a movie, write your eon ending — keep believing, keep pretending” — well something like that I guess.