His Mom Talked Him Into Doing "Thriller"

When I picked the guitar up when I was 14 and a half years old, I knew immediately what I wanted to do, and I just committed all of my time to it. I had a couple of friends - I'm still close friends with them today - but I just didn't do much besides play guitar. I was always learning songs as anyone who's learning music does, but I never got satisfied with it. After I learned the song or parts or whatever it was, I was never really satisfied with just learning a song that someone else made. How can I make it interesting for me and interesting for other people to hear it?

My mom actually was the one who said I should do "Thriller." She's played piano her whole life at church, a lot of hymns and whatnot. She would hear me practicing and playing all the time, and I said, "I'm just trying to figure out a cool Michael Jackson song." I've always loved Michael Jackson - the songs are incredible. I said I was thinking about this song or that song and trying to do one that no one had really covered, like in a different way before. And she said, "You should do 'Thriller.'" I was like, "That's a big song. That song is just too perfect." And that's still one of my favorite songs ever, and I still listen to it all the time. There's always something to pick out in the recording. I said, "I don't know if I can do that." But I tried and came up with what you heard there. She said it was cool, and I said, "Cool, I'll just start playing it."

People seem to like it. And it's constantly evolving. When I play with a full band or acoustic, it just always changes every tour, every time, every year when I play it. But yeah, I really like that one.

My string broke during that performance [in his Idol audition]. I was so nervous, and the string freaking broke. Luckily, I knew where to go on the neck and kinda save myself. I was like, of course, out of all the moments a string's gonna break, it's gonna break during that moment.

From Guitarist To Singer

I was always just a guitar player at first. I loved music and I still love music. I still consider myself a musician before a singer. So I started playing guitar and I always sang the song because it helps. Even if you don't sing as a musician, you know the song and you learn it because it helps keep you in time with what part goes where. Both of my sisters sing, and I started playing guitar for my oldest sister. She would sing with her friend, and my brother-in-law, her husband, would play around at churches. I never sang, I was just the guitar player. But they heard me singing one night and they said, "You're gonna sing this weekend," and I was like, "I'm not singing." And it was like Easter Sunday or something, so it was just packed - you know, atheists go to church on Sunday to make their moms or dads happy. Everyone was there. Pretty girls. I was like 17 at the time. I didn't look up the entire time, and I did it. The good thing about singing in church is that people will say that you sounded good, even if you sounded bad. So that inspired me to keep trying and here we are today.

The Story Behind "Dancing With Your Shadows"

It's a sadder, darker song. My wife, Hannah, has really been struggling with a lot of health issues, and it's been going on for a few years. Watching her go through that is challenging for me because I'm always the person that's trying to fix things for her or trying to help fix it with her. We've been together a long time, going on 14 years, so whenever I can't fix something, it's really frustrating for me. And not trying to make it about me - the song is about her and us - but I had to learn how to accept that I can't fix it and that I just have to be there. You have to be there for her through the bad. When you get married, the vows are through thick and thin, whatever that may be. If it's just a shoulder or if it's just holding her hand or if it's stepping back and letting her have some time. This song is what that's about. And I don't usually tell what the song's about because I want people to have their own meaning to it.

The song actually started off acoustic and slower, more moody, and we might release that demo version later on. But the more we played with it, it wouldn't elevate where I wanted it to, so I started playing it differently from what you hear now on the record. It started to drive a little bit - I told Todd [Clark], my producer, so what about if I'm playing it like this. It's a really driving song, and I thought it was really cool. I actually wrote this whole bridge to it that was lyrics and melody, and I ended up scratching it 'cause I heard him - we were both just riffing trying to figure something out - on this bridge. He started playing [mimics riff], and I said, "Oh man, that's freaking hooky, that's awesome." So we threw that in there. It is a really upbeat song, but when you dig into it, it definitely has a deeper meaning to it.

Dealing With Life Struggles

Especially the past five years, it's been a lot. Through marriage, through things with my family, professionally - it's been a lot going on the past five years. I get depressed and I get stressed out and I kind of deal with it in a different way. I've really shut down when I'm dealing with it, and I get quiet and don't really wanna talk to anyone. And having a kid - I have a beautiful little boy named Patch and he's just incredible. But also having a kid is probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. He's very strong-willed and I love him so much, but I'm very chill. I'm not a partier or anything like that. He just has all this energy and this big personality, and I'm like, woo. It's something I'm learning.

Then my wife got her master's - she's a mental-health therapist - and she created this whole program at our hospital to help mothers. She's doing an amazing job and she's really found her voice. She also has a very intense, heavy, dark, but beautiful, at times, job. And she was always working with me. We worked together. She was a part of my team and she always will be, but she was a lot more hands-on before getting her job. So dealing with her stepping away and chasing after her dream, it's like, she's still in it, but it's not like it was. She used to tour with me and go to shows and all of that. Things change when you have a kid, and she has her own career. This whole learning curve of our relationship, of me being gone maybe a week or two at a time and trying to balance being a father and coming home as much as possible, and a lot of other personal things, you learn that some people in your life aren't superheroes. Dealing with that is very difficult. Life, when you get older, is very difficult at times.

I was talking to my wife's brother a week or two ago, and we were talking about how the whole last year has been. I said professionally it's been good. I did at least one song last year, I did a lot of shows. Things are opening back up. But personally, holy crap. That was a tough past year and a half. He said, "What are you talking about?" And then I kind of talked over some things. And he's like, "Oh yeah, that's pretty tough."

Drift Back Reflects His Current Stage In Life

So this album, Drift Back, it's kind of drifting back and taking a step back and reevaluating myself as a husband, father, a son, brother, friend. I've tried to really open my eyes up and learn more about who I am at this stage in my life. I'm still trying to do that. These songs on this album are very relationship-driven, not necessarily between me and Hannah. Some of it is a relationship between two other people that are very dear to me, and how I kinda see how it all is. It's a love album. It has some sadness, it has some beautiful moments, but that's how life is as well.

All these songs are probably my favorite 10 songs from the past five years. I've written a lot of songs these past five years. There are a lot of songs I didn't finish, which we might do something with later, or I'll just write some other ones. But that's how I deal with things in my life, and I've always done it. You just write it out. Even if it's a bad song, it's like, "Okay, I feel better." It's a part of therapy for me. I told my wife the other day about these songs. I love all three of my albums, but there's always one song on there when you deal with a major label that you have to play the game - there's always one song on each album that I just hate. Even if I wrote it, I didn't want that song. It's like, why that song? On this album, I love every one of these songs.

"Love Come Back To Me" Isn't About A Lover

That song's just for me - it's not about anyone else. It sounds like it's about a relationship, and maybe it is for some people, but when that song came out, it was just another song that was after "Dancing With Your Shadows." It was just to build some more excitement, but the reaction was really cool. A lot of people, either when I was here at home, walking around town, or obviously on social media, were commenting things like, this song means this to me or this happened to me, I just lost someone. Seeing the reactions of people and what that song means to them has been pretty amazing.

But that song is very personal for me. It's just about me. I was very unhappy and trying to figure out how to be happy. I still try to figure that out every day. Some days are better than others. But that song is me asking to find some happiness for each day to hold on for the next one. Just one more day. What's tomorrow gonna bring? Try not to get too bogged down in sadness and things you have no control over. So it sounds like it's a relationship, but it's maybe just a relationship between me and myself - me and my old crazy mind.

That line, "Paint me in the corner of your picture," may for me mean it's okay to be myself, and it's good to have the people that accept you for who you are around you, and to recognize your failures and your accomplishments. I don't want to get too far in depth with it, but it's a very personal song to me about trying to find my own happiness in life.

It's about me, but it's for two to three people in my life that I need for them to hear it, especially that line, "Just listen to me for once." That's all I need. It's like you know something, but you know they're just not gonna listen. It's like, "I promise you, this is gonna help. I promise you, this is gonna make it all better." But that's what it is. We can only have control over ourselves in some way.

Singing "Home" After Winning American Idol

This is the God's honest truth - during that moment, I didn't think I was gonna win. I never really knew what was going on. We were never watching the show. I didn't go out much. I was really sick, so I never really had any idea of what was going on. I'd never even watched the show before I even tried out. I was really sick, and a lot of people were like, "Oh, you okay?" I went to the producer like, "Hey, I've gotta quit. I'm in a lot of pain." I had to get a big surgery after the whole Idol thing. It was only supposed to be like an hour and a half, and it turned into a six-hour surgery because of some complications and stuff that went on, but really serious. So during that whole process, they had to put quite a bit of makeup on me because I was super pale, very sick. I was always hooked up to IVs before I went up to perform on stage. So I'm always wearing long sleeves.

My wife was out there with me for just about the entire time helping out. I'm very thankful to her, and to her parents for letting her do that, especially coming from a small town where that's frowned upon.

But when that happened, I didn't know what song I was supposed to be singing. If you watch, they hand me the guitar and I'm looking like, "What am I supposed to be doing?" It's really quick, but I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. And then I hear it in my ear monitors that we're singing "Home." So then I started singing it.

But that time was one of the highest points in my life. It was just a super high. But there were also a lot of personal things going on with my family and stuff. It was a very tough time in my life. So when I'm crying, it's not crying because I'm winning. It was because so much else was going on. You get this release of like, yeah, and things would still be going on, but it was just the moment of like, Holy crap, this thing is over. In a way, what am I letting go of? I didn't know what was gonna be happening after all that.

When I walked down to my family, that was just me because I was never in it for the fame or anything like that. I just wanted to walk down there and be with my family. There were a lot of people that I found out going through that show, they wanted to be famous and I was just wanting to make great music the best way I could and just be myself. And, constantly, I felt like I've always been able to do that. Here we are now talking about album number four, and very blessed. Getting some grays in my beard, losing a little bit of hair, my forehead's getting bigger, and I'm maybe getting somewhat wiser and maybe somewhat dumber. I don't know.

May 29, 2022

For album details and tour dates, visit phillipphillips.com.

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Photos: George Whiddon

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