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“I just get a little high,” multi-talented singer-songwriter Phil Cook tells me over the phone on a drive back to his home base in Durham, North Carolina.
What follows won’t be another sordid rock ’n’ roll tale of drugs and wildness. No pipes or prostitutes, just a whole lot of positivity. See, Phil Cook is getting high off of the vibes provided by the people he surrounds himself with. Watching his friends and family be creative and just plain living, that’s what gets him off.
This brings us to Cook’s upcoming, jubilant sophomore solo record People Are My Drug. It’s full of joyous odes to the human condition. It basks in the tradition of old spirituals and New Orleans brass music while being one whole, free-flowing entity. It’s a wonderful surefire smile-inducer.
During our chat Cook — who many may know from being a member of Hiss Golden Messenger and Megafaun — touched on how the album came to be (beers with buds), how he finds the good in every person, and how he himself remains one happy dude.
You’re currently in Durham but where were you born in Wisconsin?
I was born and raised in Chippewa Falls. The home of Leinenkugel’s beer.
I know it well. My grandparents have been in Chetek for years.
Oh yeah up in the North Woods. (Slips into pitch perfect Northern Wisconsin accent) Log cabin lined bars everywhere man!
So you finally had enough of M.C. Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger) that it was time to put out another solo record?
It was more of a late night conversation with two of my bandmates who simply asked what we would be doing this year. Within 20 minutes we amped ourselves up and booked studio time. This was last July and we got in the studio this past January. It was a very productive round of beers.
The record’s title is People Are My Drug, where is that coming from? Why do “people” inspire you so much?
How much time do you have? I thought of this title when I was watching a friend play a show that they had organized as a benefit. It involved all these characters from this vibrant community in Durham. I looked up at my friend and I just felt a little high. I get a little high. Then I started to think about all the other people in my life and how I get a little high when I get to include their presence into my day and how grateful and how it lifts me up. It’s as simple as that.
Having all these people in your life lifting you up, how do you personally try and give them that same feeling?
I was raised by a social worker. She organized the Relay For Life and was Chairman of the United Way. My father was a nurse and coached Special Olympics. I have a lot to live up to.
I was trained to see people and I was trained to lift people up. I saw my mom every day, man. We’d be at the grocery store and I can’t count the number of times a young mother would throw her arms around my mom’s neck with tears in her eyes and how thankful she was for my mom helping her out of a situation. I saw what my parents did in our community and everyday situations.
I got to see what it looked like to live in a community like that. One that is built on giving and teamwork and love and a longing to understand other people. It’s really easy to overlook and discount people. My parents both showed me how to combat that and to find tools to push through. I’m lucky.
Having those tools from your parents to see the good in people every day, how do you use them in 2018 when you wake up and just get this onslaught of garbage tossed at you?
Well, I start every day the same. I used to be an avid public radio listener in the morning to set my day and get a little bit of a wrap around the world and context of where we’re at. I quickly started to realize my rising anxiety and threatening fear kind of coming up everywhere and that I was dealing with some anger and I was taking it out on the people I love most. I realized I need to create a safe space for myself and family in the mornings to start our day on the same page in a way that felt safe and freeing and emboldening.
So now I start the day by streaming New Orleans radio station WWOZ and the general atmosphere and mood is what I need to start my day. Then at a later point, I will take in the world and try and understand and wrap my mind around the complex issues facing humanity. I can’t do that right away in the morning. WWOZ is full of incredible brass bands and it’s New Orleans, the birthplace of American music and music that changed the world. It’s important to me.
So why Durham? Why live there right now?
Well, there are places to put that negative energy that I was feeling and in Durham, we have a really big chance to make big noise in the center of a state that is located in the American South, which a lot of people discount and overlook for various reasons. North Carolina has a lot of reasons that people could discount it right now because politically there is an abhorrent amount of injustice that is happening here that makes us a bit of laughing stock in the country. At the same time guess what else is happening here?
There is an incredible movement of young leaders, young leaders of color and young leaders that are queer that are standing up tall and speaking from their hearts with loud, shaking voices. They’re speaking truth to power and being able to witness that and get behind and amplify it however I can in my life with my platform as a musician and white dude with glasses… it’s very real and I have so much pride in what’s happening in Durham politically and culturally than I do embarrassment of what’s going on in the state capitol.
So there are ways to put that negative energy into things. I’m married to an active, organizing, smart, and incredible woman. She helps me understand the world and what I can change and what I can’t.
Talking about turning that negative energy into something positive through your platform of music, the music you make is so joyous, is that something you’re conscious of when writing? Is it natural for you to just create such soulful jams?
I think I’m not alone as an artist that isn’t very conscious of what they’re doing at all actually. I know that there is an opportunity to dialogue with a greater musician community where I live and where other scenes are happening. I’m conscious of exploring those communities and scenes and that only helps me understand what I love about North Carolina and what I love about music.
I have my process and I love the sentiment of any song that I listen to and absorb that sentiment over and over again and wash myself in and the very core of the sprit of a song and the emotional place that it lives in are important to me as a listener. This is why I’ve dove so deep into Black American Gospel music in my life. That’s as a listener. As an artist, the sentiment is important where I sing from, how I feel in the moment I have to sing and play. I can’t do the same thing over and over to achieve the desired result.
Mentioning that community in music, what exactly does that look like to you? Is it the people you’re playing with or the crowd each night? Both?
There’s an opportunity at any concert or performance where all the electrons in a room line up for a split second in every cell of everybody’s body and maybe there’s some moment of great expression or risk that people are recognizing and seeing. That strikes a resonating chord with everyone in the room at the same time. Everyone, in that fleeting moment, is one breathing organism. It’s an incredible opportunity to have. That feeling of being comfortable and supported and encouraged to be yourself in a situation is something I was raised to the max on.
How so?
All the chapters of my life that’s been a constant. Being surrounded by people who love me for who I am and encourage me to be who I am and keep going down this path. I know what that feels like on the inside. I know that’s not everyone’s case but I know that I have an opportunity every time I walk on stage or into a room to make people feel comfortable with themselves.
How do you express that when walking on stage night in and night out? That doesn’t get exhausting?
First of all, just being, remaining and keeping the flame that still burns in my soul to make music and create these pleasant vibrating tones and harmonies and rhythms and being able to be a part of this music is just a divine mystery to me. That wonderment has never left me. Being on the road and having sore shoulders and being away from my family and all these things that are mortal and human, one hour on stage is very sacred because I get to do this ancient act. I get to recreate the universe every night. The Big Bang is one big ass vibration that is still happening!
It’s not hard for me to play music. It’s hard for me to master music. That’s a hard path. But to play and express myself every night? I’m so lucky.
People Are My Drug is out today via Thirty Tigers. Get it here.
