Having picked up drums, guitar, bass and keys by roughly the age of 10, Phil Parky had always been into his music. Playing whenever he could, he discovered his musical heroes such as Vinnie Colaiuta, Dominic Miller and Sting through school friends, and would practice their styles parrot fashion. Phil joined a jazz quartet at school when he was 15, and a year later he was playing the drums for his first indie band. Growing in confidence and popularity, the band outgrew their hometown of Preston and moved down the road to Manchester (which happens to be the greatest city in all the world). After a couple of line-up changes, Phil himself left the band in 2004 and went in pursuit of session work. He ended up playing drums for a number of artists, including Doug Walker, for whom he also sang backing vocals. This also allowed Phil to discover his own voice.
Having already written his first song way back in 2001 (When Will You Learn), Phil still didn't consider himself as a songwriter until some 3 or 4 years later when hundreds of pages of short lyrics started to come into focus.
'I think I always wanted to write songs at some point, but the bands I had been in over the years just had amazing songwriters already, so I guess there wasn't much drive to create my own. I've always been more of an arranger than I writer. I guess, though, that as you go through more of life, you have more to talk about. Lyrically, I found myself writing about anything and everything - relationships, the pressures of life, the art of conversation, and anything that I could take a sarcastic spin on! I like songs you can relate to, a bit like comedy - observational jokes are alway the best.
'I suppose the thing that made me really want to write in the end was that I wanted to make something happen for myself. As a session musician for artists, you have to work on their clock. If there's nothing going on for them, you're sat around twidling your thumbs.'
So began in the incarnation of 'The Popular Beat Combo' - a name Phil chose for no reason in particular, and also has some unintended irony about it as its really a solo project.
'In autumn 2006 I decided to take the plunge and start something properly. I'd been writing songs for a few months and knew I would do something with them, but I'm very good at putting things off. So I ended up telling my mates to watch out for my solo project in the new year, that way I had to get myself into gear!'
Phil is still playing for other artists, but is also doing acoustic gigs of his own and is looking for a live backing band to really 'do the songs justice'. In the early stages, its an exciting time in the PBC camp.
Long overdue, but its coming....
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