Martin Phillipps, founder of The Chills, has died. Photo: Dave Simpson/ WireImage / Getty Images
The writer of some of NZ's best and most beloved guitar-pop tunes, Martin Phillipps was a talent with rare commitment to his vision.
After a run of definitive, internationally-successful singles by his band The Chills in the '80s and '90s, ill health and a run of bad luck saw his plans somewhat stymied. Following a period of relative quiet, he re-launched the band in 2015, releasing three more critically-acclaimed albums that grappled with a changing world, and his place in it.
Phillipps played guitar (and later sung) in one of the country's first punk bands, The Same, in 1978, aged 15. Two years later he formed The Chills, part of a particularly fruitful period in the Otago music scene.
In 1982 The Chills contributed three tracks to the Dunedin Double, one of Flying Nun's first releases, and the recording debut of Phillipps' band. The EP was a seminal release that helped define the 'Dunedin sound', merging pop, punk, and psychedelic music. It was marked by jangling guitars and heavily-reverbed vocals, and would influence American bands such as R.E.M. and Pavement. It's frequently referenced to this day.
The Chills. Photo: 2019 ALEX LOVELL-SMITH
One of The Chills' most loved tracks emerged a few years later. 'Pink Frost' charted at number 17 on the local charts, but its legacy as a pivotal '80s release remains. The band toured heavily that year, joining Split Enz for a series of shows.
Their tunes were scrappy in that 1980s Dunedin way, but Phillipps' mastery of stately melancholy was already established. The carefully-picked lead guitar and splashes of organ would remain part of The Chills blueprint in years to come, and while Phillipps' voice was bolshy at times, the gentle, warmer tone of future songs was present too.
The band had already gone through several lineup changes by this point, and he began to gain a reputation as a difficult band leader. In 1985 they played shows in London, and taped their first live set for the hugely-respected radio host John Peel.
The following year 'I Love My Leather Jacket', a single about the second Chills drummer Martyn Bull, who had died from Leukemia, reached number four on the NZ charts, and 25 on the UK Independent Singles Chart. Encouraged by this, the band relocated to the UK.
In 1990 their second album Submarine Bells charted at number one locally, with its single 'Heavenly Pop Hit' an international success, reaching the Billboard charts in America. 1992's Soft Bomb was marginally less successful though similarly acclaimed.
The singles from these albums (including 'The Male Monster From the Id'), showed band and songwriter at full force; infectious, eminently hummable and lyrically thorny. His voice had reached its ideal form, and while the person responsible could be, by all accounts, quite difficult, hearing him sing felt like receiving a hug.
He disbanded the band soon after, however another album, Sunburnt, (credited to Martin Phillipps and The Chills) emerged in 1996, featuring Dave Mattacks of Fairport Convention and Dave Gregory of XTC alongside the frontman.
In the late '90s he suffered from depression, and after trying prescription medicines, began using heroin. Inadvertently sharing a needle with another user, he contracted Hepatitis C.
Phillipps told The Guardian In 2014, aged 51, "I'm up to stage four of the disease. Stage five is cancer. So it's already cirrhosis of the liver, and that means I really don't know how long I've got."
He'd spent a lot of time and effort getting sober and healthier, and 2015 saw a minor miracle: a new Chills album.
"I'm up to stage four of the disease. Stage five is cancer. So it's already cirrhosis of the liver, and that means I really don't know how long I've got," Phillipps told The Guardian in 2014. Photo: © 2017 Chris Sullivan Photography. All rights reserved.
Silver Bullets drew acclaim from The Guardian, who called it a "minor triumph", and Pitchfork, who praised the band's "ability to summon a kind of effortless beauty". The plaudits for 2018's Snowbound, and 2021's Scatterbrain, were just as strong. Phillipps' melodic gifts were firmly intact, as was his gift for wry lyricism, with the albums' expansive arrangements befitting a new, modern version of the band.
The story of Phillipps' return was told on screen in 2019's documentary feature The Triumph & Tragedy of Martin Phillipps.
On July 13 The Press ran an interview with Phillipps, in which he talked about a new Chills album called Springboard: Early Unrecorded Songs. Recorded with the new lineup, it found him revisiting tracks he'd written aged 20.