Ricky Phillips interview

[styxfanNH]

RICKY PHILLIPS - ON STYX, FERGIE FREDERIKSON AND MONTROSE:
I was very fortunate to catch up with bass player Ricky Phillips late last week and talked about a few things going on for him right now - the most important of course being his role in Styx and the band's new upcoming covers album Big Bang Theory.
Ricky spoke enthusiastically about the album, saying that the songs chosen reflect their influences and more importantly, why they are musicians today. The band have been writing new material and were ready to move forward with that until the cover of I Am A Walrus took on a life of it's own.
The album Ricky says, is recorded "without rehearsal in a live environment to best capture the essence of each song." "Let's make it good - let's give it a reason to exist" continues the bass player, "if nothing else, we can still be very proud and fans will get a kick out of it."
So what of the tracks that make up the album and with 4 vocalists in the band, who got what? This time around there are no lead vocals from Ricky. He said he was still the new boy on the block and he left it to Tommy Shaw, James Young and Lawrence Gowan to deliver the vocals.
I Don't Need A Doctor, the Humble Pie tune is a "balls to the wall" version featuring Lawrence Gowan; Can't Find My Way Home, the Blind Faith song which was also covered by House Of Lords in 1990, features a "very organic arrangement", and Tommy Shaw's voice is apparently "amazing!"; The Who's I Can See For Miles is pretty straight forward on the original, as Ricky says "John Entwistle was a great influence and he wrote the book on bass playing, so it's hard to change that"; James Young sings Jethro Tull's Locomotive Breath in a great Miss America style vocal.
The full CD track listing is: Big Bang Theory: Blue Collar Man 2004 (Styx) . I Can See For Miles (The Who) . Summer In The City (The Lovin' Spoonful) . A Salty Dog (Procol Harum) . Can't Find My Way Home (Blind Faith) . Manic Depression (Jimi Hendrix) . Locomotive Breath (Jethro Tull) . Wishing Well (Free) . I Am The Walrus (Beatles) . Find The Cost Of Freedom (Crosby, Stills & Nash) . It Don't Make Sense (You Can't Make Peace) (Willie Dixon) . Talkin' About The Good Times (Pretty Things) . I Don't Need No Doctor (Humble Pie) . One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band).

Ricky has also been busy working with Fergie Frederiksen on his new album with Tommy Denander. Ricky and Fergie of course previously delivered the amazing Frederikson/Philips record. Ricky has co-written 5 or 6 tracks with Fergie for the record, and will produce the vocals at his studio in LA. This promises to be a fabulous release for traditional AOR fans, as Ricky says the songs written so far are "all with 80's AOR style melodies" adding that he hasn't written in that style for quite sometime.

Not only that, but the long in progress Montrose record continues to take shape under Ricky's guidance. With much of the music completed, it's now time to start recording lead vocals for the album, which is set to be an all-star affair. Musically the line-up features Ronnie Montrose on guitar, Ricky on bass and Eric Singer on drums. Guest vocalists lined up to do a track each include Sammy Hagar, Eric Martin, Tommy Shaw, Paul Stanley, Gregg Rolie and more. The style of the album says Ricky "is old school 70's heavy rock n roll...no overdubs, no computers..."

from melodicrock.com