Project Spotlight #12: What is Pheonix?

Today we travel back in time to Harry and Jason's first band. . . Pheonix. There were a couple of incarnations of the band in the late 1980's, but the core members were Harry, Jason, and Brad. And yes, Pheonix was misspelled (except in the album cover concept art below drawn by Jason).


Pheonix originally began around the year 1986. It consisted of Harry on synthesizer, Mark on guitar, and Brad on drums. They got together a few times and played songs from Genesis, Black Sabbath, Boston, and other popular groups of the time. It wasn't long until Jason had his own keyboard and started jamming with them. The jam sessions were very unorganized, usually with more than one song being played at a time, and not much musical progress was made. Only a few recordings from this time exist.


Then Jim Bob joined them with his bass for a session or two. They created a track list of original titles for their first album but only two of the songs were ever pursued, "Princess" and "Changing Man." So their Wrath of Pheonix album and their 1989 Circus Tour were never fully realized. In fact, by 1988 the band had dissolved and the only members left were Harry, Jason, and Brad. After that they went on to create other musical projects.

Will Pheonix some day rise from the ashes to finally record their Wrath album? Don't hold your breath!


Next week: Who are the Two-Tones?