Phillips has done more than simply dangle from the fringe. The film-school dropout is now a cult-music hero of sorts, packing clubs from L.A. to London. Phillips honed his vocal skills early on, singing church hymns with his grandma in his hometown of Stockton, Calif. His passion for spinning colorful narratives eventually drove him to film school in L.A. Soon he strayed from his curriculum and started the psychedelic acoustic outfit Shiva Burlesque, which morphed into Grant Lee Buffalo by 1992. Phillips became known as a curious eccentric who wrote cinematic lyrics in his High Desert, Calif., trailer home (“an alien landscape where they filmed all those Lone Ranger and corny Martian movies”) while tarring roads for a living.
After only two Grant Lee Buffalo albums, Rolling Stone named him best male vocalist of 1995, and his trio toured with everyone from Pearl Jam to R.E.M. But by 1999 he felt stifled and split with his band and label, Warner Brothers. Phillips hit the club circuit as a solo artist, released an acoustic album online last year and finally signed with the independent label Zoe/Rounder for “Mobilize.” “I went so grass roots, I was selling albums out of my car trunk,” says Phillips, “but every little step was a victory.”
“Mobilize” is another triumph for Phillips. It’s full of his amazing harmonies–sweet sighs, glammy falsettos, dreamy melodic lows–and vignettes about characters even more bizarre than himself. He explores L.A.’s underbelly, spinning the tale of a couple who constantly tear at each other in their cramped apartment only to make up on the fire escape, a powerless man with Napoleonic visions of grandeur and a violent romantic who has nightmares of his heart being cast out to sea. The music and production are a melodic, poppy and often surreal mix of jangly guitar, buzzing sci-fi electronics and vintage pump organ, all of which are played by Phillips himself.
As the new CD’s title suggests, Phillips is an artist obsessed with switching directions and meddling with his own style from album to album. “The thrill for me is attempting to destroy then re-create what I’ve done in order to move forward,” he says. “Sometimes it’s hard for people to hop onboard and remain there, but there are folks who have followed me through every phase of my career. Somehow there is a consistency in that spirit of adventure. Maybe my need to be inconsistent is the very thing that is consistent about me.” That’s the skewed logic that makes the strange bird sing.
