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…
By now you’ve probably discovered that I make a pretty ugly woman based on the video of my new song, “If I Were A Girl”. It’s below if you haven’t seen it yet. A lot of people have asked if I’ll be making a habit of wearing makeup. The answer is an emphatic “No.” I’m…
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…
This song has taken way longer than I wanted it to to get done. Sorry about that. I think I remixed it about 10 times and had to learn some new software in the process. Finally finished the final mix literally 5 minutes before I walked out the door to catch my flight for the…
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…
Hey Friends… I’m on the road, spending a couple of off days on my tour in Seattle where it’s, of course, raining. But I thought of a fun idea, I want to tell you about. My next single, “If I Were A Girl”, is one of the more involved recordings I’ve undertaken. It’s going through…
I don’t remember exactly when I became aware of Butch Walker. Probably in his time with Marvelous 3. And, if not aware of him in particular, I did know about Southgang back in the day. My girlfriend was a big fan. In fact years later, we saw Marvelous 3 at Slim’s in San Francisco and…
This is a rarity in the world of Phil Johnson and Roadside Attraction these days. An actual, heartfelt, earnest, serious song. I haven’t released a serious song since 2005. A lot of people ask me how I write songs. For me, it’s all about having a concept in place first. For this one, I wanted…
My favorite songs tend to be those that are really funny or tear-jerking, shut the blinds and cry over a guitar sad. Since my song “I’m Not The One” tends toward the latter, I thought I’d run down some of the songs that were an influence on it. These are my top 10 favorite sad…
A lot of music licensing gets done through 3rd party music libraries that I’ve submitted stuff to. And usually I don’t hear about placements until months later when they show up on my statements. While looking at my ASCAP statement the other day I discovered that Last Call With Carson Daly used my song “Hello…
In 1984, Purple Rain was a huge hit album and “When Doves Cry” was all over the radio constantly. And I hated it. My brother and I used to make fun of the lyrics all the time. After that, we had only a passing knowledge of Around the World in a Day and Parade when…
For most of high school, at least since I’d picked up a guitar during my sophomore year, I’d been telling people I was going to start a band. There were a couple false starts. Lots of talk about a band with my friend Carlos that we were going to call Social Disaster… until we heard…
Ok, I’ve got some geeky comedy and music thoughts on my mind today. I’ve been pondering the effects of “threes” in comedy and “fours” in music to try and figure out why those “threes” work. In comedy we have a type of joke called a “triple”. It’s a joke that sets you up with two…
A friend of mine asked me to write a song for her new baby and baby shower. I asked if she remembered that I’m a comedian. Well, ya get what you ask for. And today is the release of my latest single, “Dodged A Bullet” (aka The Baby Song). Most people like to think about…
A few people have asked recently about how much it costs me to release new music. Obviously it’s much cheaper than it was even just a few years ago. But it’s definitely not free. So, since I have a new single coming out this Thursday (watch here for an announcement…) and all this is fresh…
Here’s this week’s episode of Phil’s Fast 15, my weekly live webcast, every Monday night at 8pm. You can join us live and pop into the chat box right here. This week’s show both went long (by a whole minute!) and includes two songs instead of three. The public domain cover song of the week…
In June I performed a week at Laughs Unlimited in Sacramento, CA and the audiences were great! So for my August release I’d like to share some of that with you. You can see from the cover photo why I decided to make this an audio release. 🙂 I’m calling this album “Live Behind A…
Here’s this week’s episode of Phil’s Fast 15, my Monday night live broadcast featuring a variety of tunes dug out of my vault. It’s a military grade vault made of platinum and I often go swim in my songs like Scrooge McDuck. This episode features the songs “Judgment Day” and “Hillbilly Love” from the album…
Hey Kids… I’m leaving for LA in just a few minutes, but I wanted to show you this great flowchart a friend turned me onto. It’s how to pick the perfect musical instrument for you. I’ll let it go that the guy spelled “bassoon” wrong. Just go with it. The rest is funny, and true…
Here’s episode 7 “The Eb Chord Strikes Back” of Phil’s Fast 15… My weekly Monday night online show at 8pm PST. Join me live on Mondays nights right here. This week I pulled out “Blue Collar Anthem“, a song I rarely play because it’s sad and it hurts (physically). You’ll also hear a dirty little…
