When The Chills’ songwriter and sole fixed Martin Phillipps died in July 2024, he left behind a final testomony. His band’s eighth and last album, Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs, includes recent takes on demo tapes from the ’80s and ’90s. “These had been issues that he was imagined to report again within the day, however by no means received round to as a result of he had a lot materials,” explains Todd Knudson, The Chills’ drummer since 1999. “He was not very properly and struggling a bit, however I feel he knew that with all of the injury he’d finished to himself, he solely had a sure period of time and he needed to finish issues. He was a little bit of a completist anyway. And this album brings him full circle.”
Fashioned in 1980 in Dunedin, New Zealand, The Chills led an area scene that helped outline indie-rock. Phillipps refreshed ‘60s verities by mixing melancholy sensitivity with darkish lyrical twists, punk idiosyncrasy and aggression, his compatriot Neil Finn noting (in 2019 documentary The Chills: The Triumph & Tragedy of Martin Phillipps) “a way of longing, slightly alienation, but in addition an embrace of all these issues”. The band’s affect extends far and large. “The Chills have this outsider attractiveness,” Jane Weaver tells Uncut. “Martin Phillipps was such an enigmatic frontman, poetic and deep in his phrases however then melodic and poppy – a bittersweet combine.”
Phillipps’ persona could possibly be equally knotty and rewarding. “He might look like he’s on one other planet, like an alien,” recollects Chills bassist Callum Hampton. “His sense of humour didn’t come out within the songs, however he was very dry, very fast.” Knudson concurs: “In one other life he might have been a comic – or a pirate!”
Phillipps practically died within the 2010s from alcoholism and Hepatitis C, contracted as a consequence of earlier heroin dependancy. Restoration from each gave him a brand new, pressing lease of life. “Did he have a way of restricted time? Undoubtedly,” Knudson says. “He felt fortunate to be given a second probability and he went for it.” The Chills launched three albums since 2015 (having solely managed 4 within the earlier 35 years) and this momentum was maintained for Spring Board.“All the songs wanted numerous levels of rewriting,” Phillipps stated of the mission. “A 60-year-old man couldn’t simply persist with the lyrics of these youth.” Nevertheless, his chosen closing music, “I Don’t Need To Reside Perpetually”, with its now-poignant line “There’s a lot to do earlier than I’m by”, was left largely intact. “I don’t assume he modified it from the demo,” Hampton says. “That’s him within the ’90s.”
Phillipps had been anticipating a February 2025 stay return to the UK and Europe. “The precise final present was in Galway,” Hampton says. “However the final New Zealand present was at Feastock [on April 22, 2023], a competition within the yard of my home with just a few hundred folks. Martin was like, ‘Fuck yeah, we’ll play that.’ He cherished it, and afterwards he watched all the opposite Dunedin bands and chatted away. It was a particular second.”
Jane Weaver recollects one other shifting scene. “After supporting The Chills within the US, I purchased Martin a signed card from the band to say, ‘Thanks a lot for having us on tour!’ Our bass participant noticed Martin open the cardboard and skim it – he stated he was it for ages like he was actually touched by the straightforward gesture. It makes me cry a bit now, as Martin was such a candy man.”
“I nonetheless speak to Martin, and I miss him so much,” Knudson says. “However then I bear in mind the physique of labor he put out. My goodness!”
Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs is accessible now from Hearth