Bio

It all started when Anne Phillips (session-singer at the time) went into labor at a Carole King session thirty-something years ago... Alec was born into a musical family in North Jersey. Son of the late Bill Phillips (Jazz upright bass/played 1st Newport Jazz Festival in 1959/ later pioneer of the jingle business, introducing the advertizing industry and Rock and Roll to each other) and Anne Phillips (pianist/singer/songwriter/arranger/playwright/producer--check out Anne Phillips.com). It seems that Alec had no choice but to pursue a life of music.Having been the 3rd child , he started singing as a 4th harmony at age 7, and soon began performing with his family at schools and churches. At age 9, Alec started singing on jingles for Burger King, Planters Peanuts, and Flintstones Vitamins (yaba-daba-do, baby!) among others. Alec’s first instrument was the violin at age 7 (the bow was more useful as a weapon on his older brother than anything else). He took up the trumpet and learned to read music in school while learning about Duke Ellington at home.

Alec and the guys play under the GW Bridge
in a WTC Disaster Fund Raiser.

The family business brought many musicians to the family’s home studio, which was built by Gordon Clark (designer of Electric Ladyland Studio). Alec recalls the rules during sessions: no running, jumping, or banging on the floor while musicians were downstairs. There were also many late-night jams which would draw the kids out of bed to check out the scene in the living room. Unfortunately this set-up did not last. The family split up and Alec moved to Connecticut, taking up the drums ( great therapy for children going through family trauma). Alec bought a $50 nine-piece psychedelic drum set and kept adding more and more pieces to it; overkill, but fun. Playing along with Sha Na Na, Alice Cooper,Bachman-Turner Overdrive,Deep Purple,Pink Floyd, among countless others, Alec dug in. Influences abounded. Alec’s mom was a National Trustee for the Grammy Awards at the time, so he was allowed to tag along for a couple of Grammy shows. Meeting all these Rock and Roll legends was the clincher. Alec snuck around to all the backstage rooms, acquiring autographs from John Lennon, Bowie, Paul Simon, Harry Chapin, the Pips, Anne Murray, the Hudson Brothers; you name’em. At the time Alec was still singing on some jingles and musicals while also playing trumpet and drums. His family moved a couple of more times during the next few years. At summer camp Alec got an early education in psychedelics. This was toward the end of the hippie movement, and proved to be all Alec needed to find the direction of his life. The first concert he attended was an Alice Cooper show from which he Alec was taken away on a stretcher.
After being removed from three Junior High Schools it was off to Military School where Alec got a crash course in snare drum rudiments. This lasted only a year. He then moved in with a friend and family in the Cornona section of Queens, N.Y. Where he was introuduced to the Latin scene.(‘Choice was mine’from over easy c.d.) He then moved back to his home town where he would play his drums and sing in new band situations which mainly played cover songs from Lynyrd Skynyrd, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Doors, CSN, Neil Young, Grateful Dead, and all of what is now known as "Classic Rock".

Soon Alec moved to a house in Montavale, NJ. The living room was the rehearsal room-- P.A, amps, and speakers piled high on all sides. Now, Alec knew, this was home. Since most of the band members eventually ended up renting out space at the "Phillips Inn" it was easy to get the guys together for rehearsals at least 4 nights per week and gigs on the weekends. The gigs were plenty. All house parites until the band members were old enough to get into the clubs, though some clubs did let them slide early on. This went on for a couple of years. Alec then moved to a non-operating chicken farm in Old Tappan, NJ. New bands were formed, and new clubs were found to play in. Trivia was a power-trio which gave a great musical workout for all three members: Steve Cirfo (guitar & vocals), Lief feckensher (bass), and Alec (drums & vocals). The cover songs consisted of Rush, Zeppelin, AC/DC, Judas Priest and other heavy rock sounds, but Trivia was mostly orignal and made many recordings. Alec and the bassist went on to form some other bands of various styles of Rock and Roll until Alec left Jersey and moved to the West Village in downtown Manhattan. He was twenty-one, and not exactly sure which musical path he should follow. He took classes for Audio Engineering, Video Editing, and the like at the New School downtown while playing drums in a 10-piece Motown band. Tending bar and working other assorted jobs was making ends meet, but still something was missing.

He had been writing lyrics for a few years and wanted to put it all to music but had no knowledge of any melodic chordal instrument as a writing tool, so he began studying music theory with Joe Cinderella (jazz guitar virtuoso) in Jersey, soon thereafter Alec heard about Berklee College of Music in Boston so he took a little trip to check it out. Within a couple of months he moved up. Having only a G.E.D. And no credits to transfer, Alec had to do a little begging, borrowing, and pleading to gain admission. It paid off, and Alec was admitted to Berklee as a Piano major. While supporting himself with his own start-up stone masonry business, Alec took in a two-year crash course of Music Theory, Composition,Pianoand Arranging. After those two years, Alec went back to New York and passed an audition as keyboardist for David Roche. Roche was to open up for Starship on their Europen tour, but Starship wound up cancelling the tour, and Alec was back in the New York Metro area writing songs and looking to put an original band togerher, Along the way he joined a couple of cover bands: 8th Grade Science out of Rockland County, NY; and Nobody’s Fault, playing the Jersey circuit. After a couple of years he had the option to play keys for Paul Young on a European promotional tour doing mostly videos and television. Soon he hookled up with another band, Bros, which needed keyboards for the same sort of tour through Europe. So Alec worked back and forth with both bands. Great food, Learjets, and limousines. Spoiled by the "red carpet treatment", Alec realized that he had to make a choice: keep on as a hired gun or get on with his own music. Needless to say, back in the States he started another original band and started playing solo shows on piano and guitar for a living. After a short while he was gigging five,sometimes 8 gigs a week do to lots of doubles on weekends. These gigs included a solo cover show, solo original show, cover band, and original band. The cover band was The Midnight Riders, an already-established Southeren Rock, blues-based band. Lots of good jams. Alec’s original band had management now, and he found himself doing interviews and live shows on W.B.G.O. and others radio and cable shows while also doing some Village shows. The original solo show has opened for such acts as Rick Danko (from The Band), the New Riders, Jorma Kaukonen (Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane), Robby Krieger (The Doors). And others.

After some years of this heavy schedule it was time to cool out and regroup. A move to South Florida seemed like a good plan; not a career move, just a good idea. Although playing the Florida resorts wasn’t all that fulfilling, it was fun in the sun and did pay the bills. Still, after about six months it was off to Atlanta, Georgia and playing his solo show while joining in a couple of band situations. Then, after a year, Alec moved to Savannah, GA. Where he built a recording studio and recorded his Overeasy CD (as well as most of his next CD, It’s a Jungle Out There). Supporting himself with his solo show again, he also took on a gig co-hosting a television show called CIMI- T.V. . Alec’s role was to interview and jam with the bands he interviewed. He also wrote commercials that were aired for some local Savannah businesses. After healing from a near fatal torpedo hit on his motorcycle, Alec moved back to New York at the beginning of 2001, and is now gigging regularly while completing his new CD It’s a Jungle Out There.