Phillip Phillips Album Update: Producer and Songwriter Collaborations!

By On 07/04/2012 · 82 Comments · In American Idol, Phillip Phillips

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Phillip Phillips is recovering nicely from his kidney surgery, thank you very much. And finally, he’s hitting the interview circuit after disappearing post American Idol win to take care of his pressing health issues.

Phillip tells Billboard Magazine that he’s recording a bunch of songs that he wrote. The good news, is that he fully expects and is willing to co-write with others. However,  he would like to have at least a co-write on every song.  It sounds like there’s compromise going on, which bodes well for his relationship with the label. Considering how head-strong he presented on the show, I was a little worried about that!

He also name-checked a co-writer, a fellow Georgian. He hopes the song makes the album.

“We recorded a bunch of songs I wrote and I’d say we got some rough tracks coming along. We’re going through them just to see — some parts may need to be fixed or we may need to switch a few things and I’ll re-write. We’re just trying to make the songs come out a little more.”

Phillips says he’s not necessarily counting on being able to write the whole album himself, but he wants to work with any outside writers who are brought into the project. “I’m hoping I’m going to be able to at least write on every song for the album, ’cause it’s hard for me to connect with a song I had nothing to do with,” he explains. “Hopefully I’ll get to write half of a song with other writers.” Phillips has already worked on one song with fellow Georgian David Ryan Harris, coming up with a song he says “is really beautiful and I really hope makes the album. I really love the song.”

Phil is already working with an unnamed producer, whom he may or may not continue to work with.  His album will contain  ”some rock and jazz and probably a couple of acoustic things.” I wonder if Phillip will end up with a single producer, or work with several? It may depend on his scchedule:

As for producers, Phillips says he’s been working with “a certain person” he declines to name, and he’s not sure if that will continue as the process continues. “We’re just going to be moving around so much with the (tour), so we’re going to see how it goes and figure out if I’ll still be recording with that person or doing it with somebody else,” Phillips says. He expects to continue working on the album during off-days of the Idols Live! tour for a November release. As he says, “It’s going to be a very busy summer and a very busy year.”

Phillip revealed to Yahoo.has said in previous interviews that he expects his debut album to drop in either November or December.

About the upcoming Idol tour, which begins on July 6 in Detroit Phillip says he’s expecting it will be a LONG SUMMER:

As for being on the road with the other “Idol” finalists, Phillips predicts that “It’s going to be a lot of fun at the beginning, and then probably a few weeks into the tour — I give it about six weeks — people are probably are probably going to want to cut each other’s throats and get mad at each other. I hope it doesn’t get that way, but I have a feeling it might be, because we’re gonna be tired from doing interviews and just wanting to sleep. Heejun (Han) is probably gonna be really messy; I might be a little messy, no lie, but I try not to be. It’s gonna be a long summer.”

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  • http://profile.yahoo.com/57KPQ4K7HIGPGR7PDW333QMZJQ Steppen

    hmm…I wonder if P2′s album will sound like Casey Abrams’ debut album.

  • windmills

    curly_yenta: Daughtry had a LOT of money being thrown his way to buy his way onto the charts and in promotion after his debut was released - that’s why his self written songs had as much success as it did.  As it turned out with each subsequent album and singles, with less money coming his way, it is proving to be much more difficult for him to get that same level of success for his “good writing” in 2012. 

    I am in no way, shape, or form a fan of Daughtry’s music but I don’t think you can accurately attribute Daughtry’s success only to money being thrown around to buy his way onto the charts. Daughtry’s style of music was hot at the time of his Idol season, and when you looked at non-spammable callout surveys that gauge what radio listeners thought of what they were hearing, Daughtry’s songs consistently rated high. Radio promotion happened because Daughtry’s sound was hot at CHR/HAC and radio listeners liked what they were hearing from him. Now that CHR/HAC has moved away from the emo post-grunge pop/rock sound, Daughtry’s singles aren’t doing as well. It was a self reinforcing cycle back in 2006/2007 just like it is now, it’s just a question of what kind of music is included in the loop. 

    The fact that Chris Daughtry continues to be an in demand collaborator in the rock world and has landed a bunch of outside cuts is a reinforcement of the idea that a bunch of people in his sub-genre genuinely think he’s a good writer. 

    As far as P2, I’m curious to see what kind of personality he has as a writer and what comes out of him. I hope that he sees writing collaborations as an opportunity to learn and expand his craft. I’m getting the vibe that he’s more anxious to define himself based on his pre-Idol identity and I can understand not wanting to change musically for anybody else. But, he’s going to have the opportunity to learn from people of a higher caliber than those he’s worked with before, so I hope he can separate the marketing/commercial aspect from the art and not be afraid to explore and expand who he is. It’s fine not to consider himself mainstream, but I hope that P2 realizes the opportunity the bigger world he’s in gives him to define a bigger, better version of himself.

  • getaway1

    Well the guy who signs Phillip’s paycheck, who also happens to be the head of a successful record label, thinks he has crazy charisma. And Jimmy Iovine said this before the finale, before Home.

    Props to his team for having done a really good job, especially in the last month when Phillip missed out on a lot of the winner’s initial promos.

    He’s young, not married, good looking with a charming personality, musician guy who loves to jam with the band. Reluctant heart throb – a lot of people have started their careers this way.

  • Anonymous

    Reminder:

    Why are we bringing Daughtry into this conversation other than as an opportunity to take a dig at an Idol who stole a favorite’s thunder?

    Phillip is the subject here. Let’s stay on topic.

  • Anonymous

    Aside from the not married part, you are basically describing Kris. And as we’ve seen, being young, good-looking, charming and a person who obviously loves just making music doesn’t automatically mean one is going to become all that commercially successful. And he is more mainstream than Phillip seems to want to be. So what Jimmy I thinks about Phillip’s personality, while a nice compliment, means little in terms of whether he will end up being successful. 

    If his album stinks (which I doubt it will, but go with me here) and/or he is marketed poorly and/or radio refuses to play his music, it won’t matter if he is the best looking, most charming person in the whole world — it’s unlikely he will do all that well. On the OTHER hand, if his album is fantastic, he is marketed smartly and radio embraces his stuff, then he could be a horrible unattractive ass and it still likely wouldn’t matter all that much — he would probably be pretty successful. I think we’ve seen many examples of total jerks who are huge stars, and likewise I’m sure there are lots of very good-looking, wonderful, caring people who struggle to make a living in the industry.

  • Anonymous

    Aside from the not married part, you are basically describing Kris. And as we’ve seen, being young, good-looking, charming and a person who obviously loves just making music doesn’t automatically mean one is going to become all that commercially successful.

    So far, the media has been more open to seeing and presenting Phillip as someone who is young, charming, and passionate about music, so that is a huge difference.  And Phillip has been more willing to show off these aspects of himself.  And while Phillip’s style isn’t a perfect mainstream fit, what will matter in terms of whether or not he’s accepted and successful, is will he release songs that catch people’s attention, and that showcase his strengths.  Home does that, so that’s a good sign, but we will have to see if he and Interscope can come up with a few more songs in the same vein.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/DJ4FPAE2BM4XDCNVQITJSS3S2Q Sue

    Not a fan of WGWG style music but I love Casey’s album. Albums like that take time to make, they can’t be thrown together in a few months. So unless PP has songs in his back pocket that are good and Jimmy let’s him use them then I’m not expecting PP’s debut to be anywhere near as good as Casey’s.

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