Giving you The Chills

When The Chills’ songwriter and sole constant Martin Phillipps died in July 2024, he left behind a last testament. His band’s eighth and final album, Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs, comprises fresh takes on demo tapes from the ’80s and ’90s. “These were things that he was supposed to record back in the day, but never got around to because he had so much material,” explains Todd Knudson, The Chills’ drummer since 1999. “He was not very well and struggling a bit, but I think he knew that with all the damage he’d done to himself, he only had a certain amount of time and he wanted to complete things. He was a bit of a completist anyway. And this album brings him full circle.”

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Formed in 1980 in Dunedin, New Zealand, The Chills led a local scene that helped define indie-rock. Phillipps refreshed ‘60s verities by mixing melancholy sensitivity with dark lyrical twists, punk idiosyncrasy and aggression, his compatriot Neil Finn noting (in 2019 documentary The Chills: The Triumph & Tragedy of Martin Phillipps) “a sense of longing, a little alienation, but also an embrace of all those things”. The band’s influence extends far and wide. “The Chills have this outsider attractiveness,” Jane Weaver tells Uncut. “Martin Phillipps was such an enigmatic frontman, poetic and deep in his words but then melodic and poppy – a bittersweet mix.”

Phillipps’ personality could be equally knotty and rewarding. “He could seem like he’s on another planet, like an alien,” recalls Chills bassist Callum Hampton. “His sense of humour didn’t come out in the songs, but he was very dry, very quick.” Knudson concurs: “In another life he could have been a comedian – or a pirate!”

Phillipps nearly died in the 2010s from alcoholism and Hepatitis C, contracted as a consequence of earlier heroin addiction. Recovery from both gave him a new, urgent lease of life. “Did he have a sense of limited time? Definitely,” Knudson says. “He felt lucky to be given a second chance and he went for it.” The Chills released three albums since 2015 (having only managed four in the previous 35 years) and this momentum was maintained for Spring Board.“All of the songs needed various degrees of rewriting,” Phillipps said of the project. “A 60-year-old man couldn’t just stick to the lyrics of those formative years.” However, his chosen closing song, “I Don’t Want To Live Forever”, with its now-poignant line “There’s so much to do before I’m through”, was left largely intact. “I don’t think he changed it from the demo,” Hampton says. “That’s him in the ’90s.”

Phillipps had been anticipating a February 2025 live return to the UK and Europe. “The actual last show was in Galway,” Hampton says. “But the last New Zealand show was at Feastock [on April 22, 2023], a festival in the backyard of my house with a few hundred people. Martin was like, ‘Fuck yeah, we’ll play that.’ He loved it, and afterwards he watched all the other Dunedin bands and chatted away. It was a special moment.”

Jane Weaver recalls another moving scene. “After supporting The Chills in the US, I bought Martin a signed card from the band to say, ‘Thanks so much for having us on tour!’ Our bass player saw Martin open the card and read it – he said he was looking at it for ages like he was really touched by the simple gesture. It makes me cry a bit now, as Martin was such a sweet guy.”

“I still talk to Martin, and I miss him a lot,” Knudson says. “But then I remember the body of work he put out. My goodness!”

Spring Board: The Early Unrecorded Songs is available now from Fire