BIO/EPK

While most of Phil's turbulent youth was spent in the coldest parts of northern Minnesota, Phil also spent time intermittently growing up in northern California where he discovered his rock roots at the age of 11 just as the dawn of grunge swept the world stage. 90s bands like Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, as well as classic rock acts like U2, Metallica, Guns & Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Aerosmith, and Faith No More all made lasting impressions on Phil throughout his developing musical pursuits. It was during this time that Phil picked up his first guitar.

A child of the juvenile justice system with no permanent place to call home, Phil found himself constantly on the move throughout his teenage years and taught himself how to sing and play guitar to pass the time between homes. Learning only the most essential chords and guitar riffs straight out of his favorite grunge band's tablature books, Phil talked his way into joining his high school jazz-rock band and jammed with anyone who owned a drum kit or a bass guitar in whatever town he lived in more than a few months. Inevitably landing in college in the late 90s to study music and filmmaking, it wasn't until the early 2000s that Phil finally put his first official band together with a fellow art student and later dropped out of school to focus on making music. The Operative, a hard rock duo with Phil at the helm on electric guitar/vox and Adam Tollufsrud on drums, drew heavily on Phil's alternative rock roots and performed around the Midwestern region for a number of years before permanently disbanding in 2010, as Phil took time off from his music career to focus on family.

Over the next decade, Phil gradually began to write, record, and locally perform his own solo music at open mics, coffee houses, and smaller intimate venues armed with just his voice and an acoustic guitar. Since then, Phil has released a variety of collaborative and self produced original music that showcases his later influences, both rock oriented and cinematic in style. Inspired by the likes of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, David Bowie, Morphine, Marilyn Manson, Nine Inch Nails, Danzig, Portishead, Barry Adamson, PJ Harvey, Chris Isaak, Massive Attack, The Rolling Stones, Tricky, Lenny Kravitz, Radiohead, among many others, Phil has persistently attempted to create something unique in his songwriting while still paying homage to his rock heritage.

On the compositional side of his music, noirish action thrillers like Casino Royale, Sin City, Lost Highway, The Matrix, Inception, The Dark Knight, Skyfall, Mission Impossible, and the more recent John Wick films have greatly informed Phil's approach to writing. Hollywood film composers Danny Elfman, Angelo Badalamenti, Elliot Goldenthall, Don Davis, David Arnold, as well as contemporary composers Hans Zimmer, Harry Gregson-Williams, Thomas Newman, Steve Jablonsky, Tyler Bates, Junkie XL, and Lorne Balfe have all made a lasting impact on Phil's style of producing his own cinematic instrumental works.