If Don Cherry was a music commentator instead of a bombastic purveyor of hockey wisdom, he’d be regularly extolling the virtues of ‘good Canadian boy’ Phil Xenidis, and how he’s parlayed his exceptional talents as a guitar player and songwriter to be part of one of the biggest bands on the planet, Bon Jovi, as well as a continually in-demand session player whose credits include a veritable who’s who of the music industry.
Oh and Phil X, as he is best known, also happens to have his own kick-ass band of merry musical miscreants called The Drills, who recently released a new single, Right On The Money, in anticipation of their forthcoming album, the group’s fifth overall, Stupid Good Lookings Vol. 2, following up on Stupid Good Lookings Vol. 1, which came out last year.
The song is a standalone single which will not be on the EP but is meant as a teaser to tide fans over. It features an all Canucklehead version of The Drills, with Xenidis joined by his regular bassist [also a member the band Silverthorne] Daniel Spree, a native of Sarnia, Ontario, and one of the most in-demand drummers in rock music, Brent Fitz, who also plays with Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators. For the full album, to be released on Golden Robot Records, Xenidis has actually enlisted a ream of legendary drummers – six in all, one for each track. They include the likes of Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee, Liberty Devitto (Billy Joel), Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp) and korn’s Ray Luzier.
“I think Fitzy and I met in Los Angeles about 25 or 26 years ago. Before that, he was in a band that opened up for Frozen Ghost when I was in Frozen Ghost at a show back in 1987 or 1988. When we met, we kept in touch, but we never played together for the 26 years that we knew each other until I needed a drummer and asked him if he wanted to do a Drills gig in Germany. We flew over there and did this gig and at one point during the show I walked over to Dan and said, ‘is it just me or do you feel like you’ve been playing with Brent for 25 years?’ And he thought it was just him. It was crazy. I don’t know if its because we all grew up with the same stuff or because we just grew up in Canada, but that’s what it felt like,” he said.
“I would like to get the album out this year. It’s all recorded it just needs to be mixed and [multiple Grammy winner] Chris Lord-Alge [Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Madonna etc.] He mixed Vol. 1 and I don’t want to break up the team, but he’s a busy guy though, so we’re waiting for him to mix it. It would be really sweet for it come out in the fall or right before Christmas because I want to make it this year,” said Xenidis from a vacation spot in Palm Springs, California, where he was taking a break with his family from the hurly burly, pandemic infused madness of Los Angeles.
“Obviously we can’t tour to support it, but we can definitely spread the love, man. And Right On the Money just seemed like a good message to give our fans as well as the public. For me, it just means keep your chin up no matter what happens. Stay up, stay positive, look at the bright side, roll with the punches, because there’s never been a crazy time like this. I have always been a positive person though, so I’ve always relayed that message, and now to do it in song form just seemed like the right thing to do. It was written in 2018 and we recorded it with Chris Lord-Alge and Capital Records for a master class he was doing.
“We did three songs in total and he picked that one for his class on how to record a band live off the floor, and he picked The Drills because we have a great relationship with him. I had started writing the song already, and I do my best work, I believe, when I am just driving around in my truck. When I am there, I don’t want to listen to music, I want to listen to what’s in my head. First, I had the riff, because I am not a formulaic writer, sometimes it’s a riff, sometimes it’s a lyric, sometimes it’s the melody. This time it was the riff and I realized that I could sing Right On The Money in a few cool spots and for the chorus. It wasn’t finished until Chris called and asked if we wanted to go into Capitol to record it. That put a fire under my butt so I would finish the song.”
The Drills have been a mainstay of Xenidis’s career for more than a decade, after his previous band, Powder ended in 2008. Essentially a good time rock and roll band, The Drills are all about catchy riffs, badass musicianship, somewhat wacky lyrical content, and a whole lotta fun, with Phil front and centre as the vocalist and guitar wizard in chief.
“I think it’s a really good marriage of classic rock and new rock in The Drills. There is no secret sauce to what we’re doing. I definitely wear my influences on my sleeve, so you will hear little dabs of my Zeppelin youth and my Van Halen youth and my AC/DC youth. And there are also a lot of anthemic choruses mixed in, which is great for the audience participation parts of the show. The songs are definitely singalong-able if I can use that as a word,” he explained.
“It’s mostly guitar driven. I am a guitar player, so there’s riffs and solos and crazy licks and there are catchy song titles and people laugh at that stuff. But when we play live, man, everybody is singing along, and I love that. Our audience is a pretty good mix of guitar players that want to see what I am doing and people that just love cool rock songs with quirky lyrics. The guitar nerds want to come up and ask exactly what gear I am using, or how when I start I Wish My Beer Was As Cold As Your Heart’s guitar solo; did I start on a downstroke or upstroke. Guitar players are the new geeks.
“We’re a live band. To experience The Drills in its full mayhem you need to see us live. I feel like danger is a part of rock and roll that has been mussing for quite a while. I am not saying I am bringing it back all by myself, but I think I am helping. The way we recorded these new songs is dangerous and on stage we take a lot of chances. We don’t play to tracks so there’s different arrangements sometimes. The funny thing about us is my comedy was seriously ‘on’ when we were in the UK in March just before Covid. People were like, ‘hey man, if this rock and roll thing doesn’t work out you can totally do stand up.’ I love poking fun at the audience, and I love it when they poke fun at me, because we all just have a blast. And what we’re always hearing from everybody is that it was just a great show. What I am seeing lately is because there are a lot of social media threads asking people what’s the last show you went to before Covid shut down everything, I am seeing a lot of people in the UK saying it was The Drills. So, I think we’re doing a good thing and I can’t wait to do it again.”
Xenidis said that he likes the many facets of his career, as it allows him to run the gamut of amazing musical experience and has earned him opportunities to work with artists he might never otherwise have collaborated with.
“Of course, being a musician and being creative, I am going to latch on to music that come out of my heart and my head, like with the Drills, more than somebody else’s music. But I feel fortunate and blessed to be able to do both. I do love playing in front of 82,000 people in Wembley Stadium like I did last June. That’s an incredible feeling. But then going back to the UK a little while later and playing these small clubs in front of 150 to 300 people max with The Drills, riding in a van, and sharing hotel rooms and stuff like that is cool too. I love looking into the audience and seeing people singing along to Air Hockey Champion of the World, or I Wish My Beet Was As Cold As Your Heart – my songs,” he said.
“Then when I go do Bon Jovi, and all these thousands of people are singing along to Born to Be My Baby or You Give Love A Bad Name, they fill different sections of my heart, although I am not going to say equally. I usually refer to Bon Jovi as my day job. No matter how deep I am into anything that’s Drills, being on Bon Jovi’s speed dial puts The Drills on the back burner. Listen man, when you’re young and you want to have a band with your friends, you want that to be Aerosmith, right? But what does that mean anyways. Joe Perry quit Aerosmith for a few years. Dave [David Lee Roth] quit Van Halen for a bunch of years.
“Of course, it would be ideal to be in the same band my whole career, you’re right. But I don’t think I would have become a session guy then, which means I never would have recorded with Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper and Chris Cornell, which are some of my favourite moments in my life. And I honestly don’t think that Triumph would have been my endgame even if it would have gone on more years. It was definitely an experience and I still have a coffee with Gil Moore every time I go see my mom in Mississauga, and I speak with Mike [Levine] periodically, but at the time I knew it wasn’t going to be my thing long-term.”
Triumph recruited the up-and-coming Toronto guitar wizard to replace band co-founder, lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist Rik Emmett, who left in 1988, with the band releasing its only non-Emmett album, Edge of Excess in 1992, and embarking on a peremptory tour that fall and winter. In some ways it was a similar scenario as what happened – on a much larger scale – when Xenidis was brought in to replace Richie Sambora permanently in Bon Jovi in 2016 after doing fill-in duty on three previous tours.
“I don’t know if one prepared me for the other because it was so far apart. It was almost like you reboot. I will say this, with the replacing of Rik Emmett, we only did 11 shows, including the one in Barrie that you were at. It was an interesting run, because we got on stage and we had a blast. I was like, ‘oh my God, I listened to Allied Forces a million times when I was a kid and now I am playing with these guys.’ So, it’s kind of a cool thing. When I started doing the Bon Jovi gig, I remembered being in a bar with my friends screaming Living On A Prayer at the top of my lungs, and I felt then, and I still feel now, that it’s one of the best rock songs ever written and I still get goosebumps when we play it, after playing it for, like 200 times,” he said.
“But to answer your question about replacing somebody, it’s always weird and it’s always going to be weird. Like, the first bunch of shows I did with Bon Jovi, people were holding up signs saying where’s Richie? And then some fans, they get into a battle, where you have one side of the coin threatening to sell their Bon Jovi tickets because its not Bon Jovi if Richie Sambora is not there. And the other side of the coin is saying, well, you’re not a real fan if you’re not supporting your band no matter what. And here I am in the middle, right on the edge of that coin saying, ‘hey, hey, hey, take it easy. Let’s all just get along.’”
For more information, visit https://philx.tv, or https://www.facebook.com/thedrills.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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