Philip B. Price

Philip B. Price is best known as the lead singer and polymath behind the New England-based melancholic folk/pop band Winterpills, but his CV stretches far back into the late 80s and draws on minimalist/jagged art-rock, lo-fi pop, power pop, dance-noise, post-punk, and flowery brit-folk.

Price’s early years in music were spent partly in collaboration with electronic musician Antony Widoff (who worked with David Bowie, U2, David Torn), a colleague from Bennington College. Price also performed live with Glenn Branca acolyte Jonathan Bepler (Music for Cremaster) while at Bennington and composed several instrumental pieces for dance performances.

Post-Bennington, with Widoff, he formed the upstate NY art-rock quartet Memorial Garage (1986-1989). After recording 2 albums for SF-based Top Records and an unreleased 22 song live album, the band broke up in 1989.

A short-lived collaboration with drummer Jerry Marotta (Elvis Costello, Peter Gabriel, Stevie Nicks), bassist Michael Nunziata and keyboardist Harvey Jones (Ellis Paul, Sara Lee) yielded the release of a 4-song EP titled Weatherless. Price then retreated into his home studio where over the next 6 years he self-released 8 albums of diverse and often devastatingly emotional and confessional rock.

Now relocated to New Hampshire, in 1992, bassist and fan Max Germer (The Fawns, Gentle Hen) approached Price about forming a band based largely on this raw pop material, and The Maggies were born. The band endured several line-up changes, but between 1993 and 2002 released 8 albums and 2 EPs of loud, harmony-based inspired power pop and became regional stalwarts, signing to Jerry Harrison’s short-lived label (GarageBand Records) though larger success eluded them.

After The Maggies ended, Price released two more solo albums (13 Songs For Right Now in 2002, and Honey In The Chemicals in 2003, both on Brooklyn-based Listen Here! Records) and toured extensively behind them (with John Wesley Harding and others) until the Winterpills came together in late 2003 with Flora Reed, Dennis Crommett and Dave Hower. The band signed to Signature Sounds in 2004, have released 7 critically lauded albums and toured extensively. The band has made it onto MOJOs Top Ten lists and songs have been featured on many TV shows, including Showtime’s Weeds, NBC’s Grey’s Anatomy as well as as several indie films.

In 2018, Philip released of a huge amount of this wide-ranging back-catalog material (12 albums total) in preparation for an all-new solo album in fall of 2019, his first solo outing since 2004.

Price also has collaborated with author Jonathan Lethem, indie rock
legend Walter Salas-Humara, and has been in two bands with Fountains of Wayne frontman Chris Collingwood (including his current project Look Park, on Yep Roc).

His spare, riveting live shows, with his quavering Irish tenor, spidery guitar work and dense wordplay, manage to make intimacy feel massively anthemic, and grinding rock seem like a close-whispered romantic inside joke. - Quynlyn Demitrus