Jill Phillips

My first interaction with Jill Phillips came courtesy of Bebo Norman who came courtesy of Caedmon’s Call. The discovery of one led to another and in the mid-to-late-’90s, I unearthed a trove of acoustic treasures, one right after the other. In the case of the former, I found a promising singer/songwriter who sang beautifully and vulnerably about sin, hope and the journey between both. Over the years, Jill and husband Andy Gullahorn have established a songwriting partnership that continues to flourish on that journey, with album after album cementing Jill’s solid footing.

One of the Square Peg Alliance members, Jill continues to fly under-the-radar, faithfully serving those fortunate enough to have found her. But now it’s been a few years since we’ve heard from her - at least with a original effort. Her most recent album featured favorite hymns and her third child and, well, life intervened to keep her from delivering a new LP until now. The Good Things is her upcoming work and Soul-Audio found out the full details.

SA: So what exactly is happening with you musically at this point?

Jill Phillips: The main thing is that I’ve been working on the new CD and we just finished that up. In fact, we just mastered on Friday, so that was very exciting and rewarding. That’s always so fun because mastering is when they add those last things to make it sound really bright and pop out. It’s always fun to sit there in the room with the great speakers and know that it’s done. So that takes up most of my energy and what I’ve been focusing on. I haven’t been traveling that much but I assume that will really pick up after the record comes out and after the Christmas tour [with Andrew Peterson]. We’re going to try to put together a little tour after the new year and maybe do some house concerts.

SA: What are the details of the album release and title?

Jill: Well, we haven’t decided for sure, but I think it’ll be around December 1 or 2 - the very beginning of December. We’ll set up for pre-orders before then. The title is going to be The Good Things.

SA: Is this an all new studio effort?

Jill: Yeah, it’s all new material.

SA: Because it’s been a while since a project like this from you.

Jill: It has! I think it’s been maybe 3 years. Much longer than what I wanted to be. I had my youngest child in there so that set it back a year. Having a third kid zapped the life out of me for a while. [Laughs] So I wasn’t doing a lot of writing so I really, really was excited to get back into the studio and have new material and work with great players again. It was a lot of fun.

SA: So who are those players?

Jill: I always felt like with this record, since it had been a while, I think it was good to have that time and be able to think about what I wanted to do and have a fresh approach. I’ve changed a lot in the last three years very significantly and I thought that we should start from scratch. I wanted to work with all new people and record in different places that we ever had before. It just felt like I’d become a little stagnant and I felt the songs were a bit different on this record, so we needed that new approach.

We worked with Cason Cooley who is a good friend. He’s produced Derek’s [Webb] records and worked with Sandra [McCracken] some. He’s on the Christmas tour and we’ve gotten to be good friends. A friend of mine in L.A. asked why I didn’t work with Cason and I thought, ‘Of course! I’d never thought of that before.’ [Laughs] I felt like having not worked with him before, he could come to the songs in a fresh way. Andy [Gullahorn, husband] produced it with him and that’s someone I will never cut out of the equation. [Laughs] But he added a ton to the record.

We recorded at Paul Moak’s studio and he played a lot of electric guitar. I’d never worked with him before, but I was really, really impressed. Then we did some overdubs with Andy Osenga and Steve Mason (Jars of Clay) and I’d worked with those two before. Then Will Sayles played drums on most songs and I’d never worked with him before and same with Matt Pierce on bass. Cason and Ben Shive played the keys and I had never worked with him on a record. So that was just a really exciting experience for me - very creatively satisfying.

SA: You’ve said you’ve really changed in the last three years and the music is different as well. Can you give us a snapshot of the changes in both areas?

Jill: I don’t know. I just felt that with this record… I don’t want to put out records if I don’t have anything new to say. I felt that I was supposed to be a bit more vulnerable and personal than in the past. People have often said that I write personal songs, but there were certain things I had shied away from writing about. I’m a private person by nature and I don’t like writing about my family. I just never have. I’ve never liked to write marriage songs or songs for my kids - not because I don’t love them and think that’s really important. In fact, it’s my life.

But it just seems too personal and I wondered how to express my feelings in my songs about my kids without being emotionally manipulative. I didn’t want to be that girl who writes a bunch of songs about her kids and gets all cheesy or something. [Laughs] I think I just went away from those subjects in the past. But then I felt like I was supposed to do that. I was supposed to talk about my kids and my marriage. There’s only one song or maybe two so it’s not the whole thing. But I was open to talk about all areas of my life - friendships, love, relationships gone wrong, friendships in crisis. So not every song is happy, but it’s about the good things within my life.

SA: That does seem a weird tension, because you don’t want to write an album with several “Butterfly Kisses”…

Jill: Definitely not that! [Laughs] I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I made an album full of “Butterfly Kisses.” It’s very much stylistically my stuff. I wanted the record to sound like stuff that I listen to - like David Mead and Aimee Mann and Neil Finn. These are artists I really love and I wanted to use them as a template for what I wanted it to sound like. I feel very proud of the way it sounds. I just think that in the past I thought that I wouldn’t able to write those types of songs in a way that would honor my family, my music and the listener.

But it was just about pushing myself and having others around me push me to be fearless in what I am writing about, to go to that next level. And those who listen won’t think it sounds fearless or anything like that, but for me, it goes to places I’d never gone to. They were obstacles for me to write a song about this or that.

SA: Longtime Jill Phillips fans - will they surprised by what they hear?

Jill: I don’t think so. It still sounds like me. My musician friend and those who know me who have heard the record, they feel like it sounds different. But it’s not different in a drastic way - as in ‘oh my word, what is she doing with horns and a mariachi band.’ It’s not like that. [Laughs] I just hope the people who like my music will like this better. I feel like I’ve grown. It’s a little more… I’m horrible at describing my own records. I have no idea. [Laughs] Ask some of the others. But the production took a different turn and it’s a little less polished and it’s more organic. Ben Shive arranged some amazing string parts. I’m really, really pleased with the way it turned out.

SA: What draws you to the particular music that you mentioned earlier - to those particular artists?

Jill: You can tell that those records are done in such a way that not only is the music and the production beautiful, but the songs are important. They want you to really hear the songs. It’s not about wanting the audience to hear this cool record, but it’s done intentionally that it sounds great, but the voice and lyrics are front and center. The production is really great on those discs. And I think Cason brought that same perspective. He comes from a different place than Andy and I are at and he brought these great ideas than what we would normally come up with. I could do acoustic records all day with Andy [Laughs] but we wanted to take things to a new place.

SA: Switching gears, how is Noisetrade working out for you?

Jill: It’s still so very new and we’re still figuring it all out. But it’s such a great idea and I think it’s just going to grow by leaps and bounds. We will find out if it translates to more sales and new listeners, but I think it will. I hope that it will. I hope people hear it through Noisetrade that could never hear it otherwise. My whole goal wasn’t to make money or to do anything like that. It was just about putting it out there to people who would never hear my music otherwise or would never come to my website. I think it’s a great idea.

SA: What about the Christmas tour? How long have you been doing that now?

Jill: Wow, I think this is year five. It’s crazy! We just got back yesterday from a full band show with some of the guys from the tour in Georgia. We were getting excited again and anticipating the tour. It’s just a great time with great friends and one of the best times in the world. You basically get a chance to do something you love, sing about something bigger than you are, and it’s this great community of artists and musicians for three weeks. Leaving my kids is always a major downer, but everything else is fantastic.

SA: Is it still as exciting after five years?

Jill: Yeah! I kind of think it is! The songs aren’t as new, so we’re more comfortable. It feels much easier to not have to rehearse and rehearse. We’re all really comfortable with the material now, but I think it’s exciting in a different way. We’re getting to be more adventurous or able to go off stage and be that much more comfortable or be much more into what we’re delivering. I still enjoy the Christmas tour every year. Every year! It’s the highlight of my touring year and I think we all feel that way. I think we all love and it’s just so great.

• www.jillphillips.com
• www.myspace.com/jillphillips

↓ One comment

#1 The Rabbit Room on October 10th, 2008 at 7:21 am

[...] can find the full interview over at the Christian music site we recently started: Soul-Audio. Leave a Reply Name [...]

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