My friend Andrew Marlin came over and sang some harmonies with me one night, and we were like, “Woah, this actually sounds great.” Once that happened, it was about finishing these demos and making something. I also know one of the greatest fiddlers in North Carolina, my buddy Bobby Britt, so in the meantime, I had him one over and play. They all seemed to have this thread going through them that felt really, really good-like a Southern, gospel, soul and country music coming out every time I would write something. I realized I was making demos for a record. So, at that point, I just started to take it a little more seriously. There was something actually happening there. Ideas started to trickle down, as they do, and I found that it started to feel real when I started showing some things to my friends and family.Īfter that, I felt like this wasn’t just me screwing around. I was mostly just sitting down and mic-ing myself up and practicing. It took a long time for it to get to the point that it was really something. I bought a nice mic and a preamp and a bass-the first recording gear that I ever really bought – and with that I started to do some things on my own. He wanted us to do something musical with it.
My grandfather also passed away and left my brother and I a small amount of money, a couple thousand bucks each. I think I was holding them for some reason. Toward the end of Megafaun, in 2012-2013, I was starting to write some songs that I just wasn’t bringing to the group. When did you decide it was time to make your own record?īasically, a couple of things just happened. Let’s start by talking about your new solo album, Southland Mission, which is the first true full-length album to come out under your name. Shortly before hitting the road for swing through the club circuit, Cook reflected on his new recording, Megafaun’s impact on his music and his recent collaboration with Bruce Hornsby and DeYarmond Edison on The National’s Day of the Dead album. His proper full-length debut, Southern Mission, which follows 2011’s instrumental EP Hungry Mother Blues, is a love letter to his North Carolina home, using elements of blues, rock, folk, indie and Blind Boys’ approved gospel as a backdrop for his deeply personal lyrics. In a direct way, those Blind Boys sessions helped spark Cook’s solo career, giving him the Southern transplant confidence to truly lay claim to his surroundings. He also worked with Vernon on The Blind Boys Of Alabama’s 2015 release, I’ll Find a Way, which reconnected Cook with the gospel music that inspired him to play music in the first place. In 2012, Megafaun went on hiatus as the members of the trip focused on other projects and, though the trio has regrouped a few times, the project slowly faded into the background.Ĭook has remained busy during that time, blossoming into a noteworthy producer and sideman for the likes of Kathleen Edwards, Amy Ray, The Mountain Goats, Hiss Golden Messenger, Matthew E. The trio rode the psych-rock revival wave for several years-touring with The Mountain Goats, covering Phish’s “Icculus,” and even getting Prince to a show by their R&B side-project Gayngs-during what Cook describes as his “grad-school” years. Vernon eventually split with the band and the rest of DeYarmond Edison reorganized as the psychedelic indie-folk outfit Megafaun.
Blending woodsy Americana with more modern elements, the members of DeYarmond Edison collectively moved from Eau Claire, WI to Raleigh, NC in the mid-Aughts and built up a local following.
Eventually, the four musicians formed their first great project, DeYarmond Edison, in 2002. Along with his brother Brad, drummer Joe Westerlund, and future Bon Iver singer Justin Vernon, Cook spent his early years studying jazz and experimenting with jam in snowy Wisconsin. Phil Cook’s career arc was already long and windy before he stepped up to release a solo album.
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