Martin Phillips, whose channel the Chills was a foundation of the 1980s New Zealand indie-rock picture that served as a teenage effect on the likes of R. E. M. and Pavement, has died. He was 61.
His passing was made public on the Chills ‘ social media accounts on Sunday. The statement did n’t say when or where Phillips died or specify a cause but noted that he’d died “unexpectedly”. According to New Zealand’s Otago Daily Times, Phillips had just been admitted to Dunedin Hospital with heart problems in a 2019 documentary about him and the chills, which chronicled the singer’s struggles with hepatitis C.
The Chills played jangly still motor piano music that set melancholy melodies against arrangements reminiscent of rock and psychedelia, and were a champion of the so-called Dunedin sound associated with New Zealand’s Flying Nun record label. Phillips, who wrote with a literary elegance about art, death and love, was the band’s even constant member in a career that attracted a dedicated cult following across four decades.
In a statement released on Sunday, Crowded House’s Neil Finn, a fellow New Zealander whose first circle Split Enz once included the Goosebumps as the opening act, called Phillips “one of NZ’s greatest artists” and said he was “fascinated by and devoted to the wonder and mystery of music.”
In 1982, the band signed to Flying Nun, whose other closely related acts were the Clean, the Bats, and the Verlaines, and began recording a string of scrappy yet tuneful singles, including the stomping” I Love My Leather Jacket” and” Pink Frost,” which became perhaps the band’s most well-known song.
Over an oddly upbeat bass line, Phillips sang,” I want to stop my crying/But she’s lying there dying,” which was a telling statement that led Spin magazine to advise readers to “imagine Paul McCartney attempting Joy Division.”
Having already cycled through more than half a dozen lineups, the Chills dropped their first studio LP,” Brave Words”, in 1987, for their follow-up, 1990’s” Submarine Bells”, they signed in the U. S. to Warner Bros. subsidiary Slash Records, which helped drive the knowingly titled” Heavenly Pop Hit” to No. 17 on Billboard’s modern rock chart.
Eager to capitalize on that success, Slash brought the Chills to Los Angeles to record the band’s next album, 1992’s” Soft Bomb”. Peter Holsapple, who’d played with R. E. M. on its smash” Out of Time” LP, contributed keyboards in the studio, while Van Dyke Parks devised a characteristically whimsical orchestral arrangement for the song” Water Wolves”.
In 2022, Phillips told KCRW that Parks, a veteran pop eccentric best known for his 1960s appearances with Randy Newman and the Beach Boys, invited the Chills to watch him supervise the recording session. The band arrived late, Phillips said,” We took a wrong turn, and we missed Van Dyke’s speech about what they were doing.” However, hearing it come to life was beautiful.
The Chills broke up after touring” Soft Bomb” but later reunited ( with yet another lineup ), the band’s most recent album,” Scatterbrain”, came out in 2021.
Information about Phillips ‘ survivors was n’t immediately available.
In a 1992 interview with The Times, Phillips acknowledged that the” single biggest problem so far has been just trying to keep bands together when we ca n’t afford to pay ourselves anything,” about the difficulties of surviving the music industry.
However, the music from the Chills conveyed a steadfast belief in the impact of great music.
In” Heavenly Pop Hit,” Phillips sang,” So I stand and the sound goes straight through my body / I’m so bloated up, happy, I can throw things around me.” ” I’ve been growing for ages, just singing and floating and free,” I said.
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