It’s be a year in the making, but we’ve finally released Super Dan! When I sit down to write each day, I often don’t have any good ideas to start. The proverbial blank page stares at me until I put something on it. One of my triggers to get started is to spin random songs…
Every artist has their heroes. And I have plenty. Eddie Izzard, Prince, Robin Williams, Aerosmith… Artists that regularly come and go in my playlists. Sometimes I don’t hear them for awhile. Then they’re back again like old friends. But that man you see at the left almost never leaves my ears. His name is Butch…
I went to see Motley Crue and Alice Cooper the other night. That was the music of my teenage years and you get stuck with that through your whole life. It’s why my parents still listen to Roy Orbison, 90’s kids will always listen to Nirvana and Tupac, and some poor child today is going…
For the past couple weeks I’ve been working on a new song called “The Legend of Ms. Garcia”. It got a trial run at a gig in Santa Cruz, CA last night and did pretty well. The recording for this one will need a hefty dose of strings, so I’ve been spending midnights sitting with…
Rock Formations was a milestone event in the career of Roadside Attraction. And some milestones are both good and bad. Normally I would give you insights to these songs, but I didn’t write the lyrics for any of them, so I’m honestly not sure what some of them are about. But from a musicians standpoint,…
There are certain songs that make me want to write. Maybe it’s a great lyric, or a killer riff, or a neat production idea, or a cool groove. Something about the songs makes me want to pick up my guitar and write a song. Usually I hear those songs on shuffle with everything else and…
Over the last few months, I’ve given myself license again to write songs that I might not necessarily play at a comedy club gig. Sometimes that may take the form of a song like “I’m Not The One” – ie. something way too serious. Or it may be a funny song that just isn’t the…
Some metal bands attack a Christmas songs with a healthy sense of how ridiculous the whole idea is. Or they’re versatile enough musicians to really pull off a cool version of a Christmas song without seeming like a parody of Spinal Tap. Yes, I know Spinal Tap is a parody itself. But I already covered…
In case you’ve never spoken to me for more than 5 minutes, I’m not a big fan of Christmas music. After hearing “play some Christmas music!” every year of our young music playing lives, my brother and I swore it off years ago. But, of course I have released a few Christmas songs over the…
Years ago when I was working in grocery stores, they would torture us every Christmas with the worst versions of every Christmas carol ever. And those people doing those versions were getting paid every time it played. I vowed that one day I would write and record some Christmas music and get some of that…
I started working on a new song recently called “Super Dan” and I’m just getting down to recording it. Thought I’d do up a little acoustic version video for you to check out. Love to hear your feedback on it. This song is so new that I can’t yet play it and sing it at…
After my show last night, I was doing a little playing in my studio to wind down. Decided to whip up a little cover of Butch Walker’s new song “All The Love You Need”. It’ll be included in the documentary coming out about him next month called “Out Of Focus”. This is one of those…
Have you ever considered the plight of the poor microphone? That poor little device that has to deal people screaming at it constantly and beer (and lord knows what else) breath? It’s a tough job for the little guy. So as I was tracking the vocals for my next single, I thought it might be…
Like most parents, my Dad did his best to understand the crazy music I was listening to as a kid. And he was on board with a lot of it, but he never “got” hip hop music. Fast forward a few years, my Dad and I were at a music conference hanging out with tons…
As usual, the name I gave the thing is way too long, but there ya go. Par for the course. Anyway, part of the reason this blog has been a little quiet lately is because I’ve been working on a whole new section of my website that you’re going to love! Inside, you can download…
I can’t say I’ve ever been a huge fan of western films. I mean, I’ll watch “Tombstone” whenever it’s on (because it’s awesome). But I’ve never watched most of the classics. But somehow the music from those films like “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” and “A Fistful of Dollars” has infiltrated my brain…
When I first started writing comedy music, there was one thing I swore I wasn’t going to do. Parodies. Why? Because so many of them are so terrible. As one friend put it, “Replace ‘heart’ with ‘fart’ and there’s your parody.” Not exactly high brow stuff, right? Besides, nobody does parody better than Weird Al…
I grew up in the early days of rap music and have been a fan since the beginning. I suppose it’s thanks to MTv (back when they played music) that I was exposed to RunDMC, Grandmaster Flash, and the Beastie Boys so early. I’ll put it this way. I discovered Aerosmith after thinking they were…
“Music is stupid.” That may sound like an odd thing to hear coming from a musician. But I think it explains a lot about my approach to music. Let me explain…. This last weekend, my girlfriend and I were celebrating our anniversary in a nice hotel in Monterey, CA. We’d had a day on the…
Today we announce the winners of the “If I Were A Girl” Trivia Contest! Thanks to the 42 people that entered! Are you excited? I know you are! Drum roll please….. First off, here are the correct answers to the 5 questions… 1. What brand of “back massager” is mentioned in the first chorus of…
Or maybe, “behind the board” would be a better title for this post. Awhile back, while I was working on the recording of “If I Were A Girl”, I took the fans on my email list on a ride through the different versions of the song and how it changes over the course of the…
Did you get your download of “If I Were A Girl” yet? Today is contest day! Answer 5 questions correctly and you can win these prizes! 1st Place: Phil Johnson and Roadside Attraction DVD 3-Pack – Including “What Color Is Your Laugh?”, “Raising A Rockus”, and “What Color Is Your Laugh?” A “Be Yourself…Unless You’re…
Beyonce, eat your heart out… Oh, boy… I’ve been working on this one for quite awhile. It was written a year ago and today it’s officially available for download! “If I Were A Girl” started off as an idea for a parody song based on Beyonce’s “If I Were A Boy”, which I find to…
Thick and chunky guitars, sweet Beach Boys style harmonies, punk rock attitude, and a sense of humor? It’s like The Wildhearts said, “Let’s write an album for Phil.” The Wildhearts are not a super well known band here in the US, but in the UK they’ve developed a devoted fanbase over the last 20 years…
