11 tracks,” continued Phillips.
“Over the last 18 months I was
starting to write, but I had so
many losses it was like death
after death. I wasn’t in such a
great frame of mind of how to
start. My friend and photographer
Andrew Cohen passed
away in February of 2018, then
my dad died in May, and the following
January my birth father
suddenly dropped dead and we
had just met. So that was three of
them in 11 months and it was just
that every time I was catching my
breath somebody else would go.
Also my birth mother had a brain
aneurism at the end of 2017 and
she almost died. So, from November
of 2017 to January of 2019 it
was so difficult. But after my birth
father died, I wrote a couple of
songs quite quickly. I think there
was just so much grief that I had
to put it somewhere. It took me a
while; I had been writing a bit before
but they were kind of shit and
then I just started getting ideas.
Richard said, ‘I’ll produce it, just
start thinking of what you want to
write about,’ so I made a list of all
the topics and what I could write
about because so much had gone
on. It was actually really good
for me to do because I had finished
with my book (Somebody’s
Daughter) and I needed another
project. I’d been wanting to get
back into doing music, so I just
started working and then I’d take
the songs to Richard. At first, I was
nervous because I thought, oh
NJ STAGE - ISSUE 72
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