It is one of the great opening lines, by anyone: “Each evening the sun sets in five billion places, seen by 10 billion eyes, set in five billion faces.” The words are from Heavenly Pop Hit by the Chills, a band from Dunedin, New Zealand. There’s a good chance you know it, but there’s also a fair chance you don’t – in which case, stay with me.
The author was Martin Phillipps, who has died suddenly at the age of 61. It is far too young, although there are some who will think he did well to make it into a seventh decade. Others, who saw the resurrection of Phillipps’ stop-start career and his improved health, will feel the terrible curse that dogged his band has struck again.
Next to the Clean, the Chills were the most prominent New Zealand musical export via that country’s storied indie label Flying Nun, founded in Christchurch in 1981. And their music was indeed heavenly. Light as a feather, it seemed to float skywards. But their more melancholy songs – and there were many – hung in the air like wraiths.
The Chills were well-named; they could change the temperature of any room their music was played in. Their 1984 single Pink Frost was the most unsettling: beginning with a sprightly, high guitar figure, it quickly settled into a dark throb as Phillipps told a nightmarish story of being unable to intervene in a lover’s death.
Mortality and bad luck stalked the Chills. Proceeds from Pink Frost were diverted to cancer research following the death of drummer Martyn Bull, who succumbed to leukaemia in 1983 just as the band was gaining an international foothold. He bequeathed Phillipps his leather jacket, which became the subject of one of his best-loved songs:
I wear my leather jacket like a great big hug
Radiating charm, a living cloak of luck
It’s the only concrete link to an absent friend
A symbol I can wear, until we meet again
But it’s a weight around my neck while the owner’s free
Both protector and reminder of mortality
It’s a curse – I cannot shirk responsibility
From the teacher to the pupil, it’s a gift to me
But Phillipps couldn’t keep the Chills together. A 2019 documentary by Julia Parnell and Rob Curry, The Chills: The Triumph and Tragedy of Martin Phillipps, counted more than 20 line-ups, many members turned away by Phillipps’ perfectionism and self-absorption. “I’m not going to sacrifice the quality for just a bit of team spirit,” he said at one point.
Often the band would splinter while apparently on the verge of a major breakthrough. The biggest was their 1990 classic Submarine Bells, an indie-rock album with stunning orchestral flourishes. It was led off by Heavenly Pop Hit, which was the closest they came to the real thing.
Later, on the uneven 1993 album Soft Bomb (Submarine Bells kickstarted a tradition whereby Chills album titles rested on the letters “S” and “B”, perhaps for good luck), Phillipps named a few of his heroes: Brian Wilson, Syd Barrett, Scott Walker and Nick Drake. All were pioneering outsider artists whose human frailties were intrinsic to their appeal.
So it was with Phillipps, who recognised that his single-mindedness alienated those around him: “Your all-consuming passion will leave you craving love,” he sang (on Song For Randy Newman, Etc). At this time, the Chills’ American label Slash was demanding a hit; the song was Phillipps’ declaration of independence. They were promptly dropped.
From there, Phillipps fell into a deadly spiral of alcoholism, heroin addiction and a battle with hepatitis C; but that is a rock-star cliche that should never be allowed to define him. The real story, told sensitively in Parnell and Curry’s fine documentary, is how he pulled himself out. It’s a graceful, uplifting story of redemption and self-acceptance.
It speaks volumes for Phillipps’ growth that the final lineup of the Chills remained almost entirely intact for more than 20 years. Beginning with 2015’s Silver Bullets (one of rock’s most rewarding, and least likely comebacks from oblivion) they toured the world to great acclaim, releasing two more studio albums, Snow Bound and Scatterbrain.
What will always be remembered is that Phillipps, and the many versions of the Chills he led, made captivating, literate, exquisite music. It was full of natural imagery (especially aquatic life) and fear for the future: Don’t Be – Memory, from Submarine Bells, features a notably early mention of the threat of global heating; Aurora Corona updated the theme.
For me, the defining quality of Phillipps’ songs was their sense of wonder, and Heavenly Pop Hit was the greatest example. If you’ve never heard it, it remains a song “for those who still want it” – from whichever part of the globe you might be watching the sun set.
