Solo artist Mike Phillips has been in the professional music industry for 20 years recording and performing with national and international acts such as Deliverance(Intense Records) and Fasedown (Rescue Records) Mike has also done various studio projects with several musicians and bands.
While attending high school Mike was fortunate to have one of the Fresno areas best known Jazz guitarists Mike Dana - student of Joe Pass as his guitar instructor for 2 years. As a junior in high school Mike thrived under Dana�s instruction, learning classical and reading music with overall theory and with Mike�s natural abilities on the guitar, his passion and desire for music, he took his training to the next level and spent the next 2 years as a music major in college, although not finishing his degree, Mike was able to greatly increase his knowledge of theory, composition, jazz theory and ear training. In 1988 Mike decided to try to make it in the music industry eventually landing in 1991 with Deliverance. At that time Deliverance had a highly successful video in rotation on MTV�s Headbangers Ball titled �Weapons of our Warfare.� Mike�s first show live with Deliverance was to a packed house in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Having the same passion as the others, He immediately fit in.
After 2 studio albums and several sold out shows with Deliverance, Mike decided to go in another direction blending several styles of music and trying to put together a technical progressive metal band but nothing much came of it and to his dismay he realized how hard it was to find other musicians in this incredibly difficult style of music. So from 94-97 during his hiatus, Mike spent his time writing, recording and honing in on his skills.
Mike got the itch to play live again so he decided to try something different and started writing more simplistic tuned down heavy stuff and with the help of drummer Jim Chaffin, thus started the seed growing of what would later blossom into Fasedown. After a few live shows Fasedown recorded a 4 song demo, sent it out and quickly realized that it was gaining a lot of interest.
Mike ended up landing an endorsement deal with Jackson guitars who then artist relations rep Kevin Easton wrote on the Jackson site �Fasedown has an incredible sound and with a little help, could be huge.� a few months later Fasedown decided to ink a deal with Rescue records - Noah Bernardo Sr (P.O.D. Manager and Wuv�s dad) at that time in early 2000 P.O.D. was on the brink of superstardom so Rescue records had the resources to promote Fasedown.
Fasedown hit the studio to record their debut self-titled album with engineer Steve Russell(P.O.D. As I lay dying) Fasedown ended up selling out all 5000 copies that were printed then started playing some big shows, including opening for P.O.D. and playing the Luis Palau Crusade, headlining the HM stage at cornerstone 01, headlining 2 shows with As I lay dying (before they blew up) and several Exodus festivals however problems with distributer diamante and work schedules took a toll on Fasedown�s momentum and the biggest blow had to be when Mike nearly cut off his thumb while building his studio and could not play for nearly 3 months and all of the sudden what seemed so promising was slipping away and after a couple more years playing live and recording on a self funded album, the band got burned out and decided to put it down in 2005.
Mike continued writing and recording his solo work and in 2006 Jimmy P. Brown of Deliverance contacted mike and asked him to do some reunion shows. So, in the summer of 2006 Deliverance played 2 shows in So. California. The first with now Oh Sleeper drummer Matt Davis the other with drummer Mike Reed because of the overwhelming positive response, Mike and Jimmy decided to do another studio record �So as above, So below� was released in spring 2007 with moderate success, considering not much live support on Retroactive records Deliverance did 2 more shows, 1 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Unfortunately with Jimmy in Vegas and Mike and the rest of the band in Fresno with jobs and families, it became increasingly difficult to keep it going. Mike decided in 2008 to focus strictly on solo material and put out something that he feels is somewhat unique and with the help of some very fine musicians and several months of writing and recording Mike feels that he has finally done something with no boundaries, zero limitations and without trying to follow some trend, so enjoy!
Source : http://michaelphillipsmusic.net/bio.html
