Interview by Rachel Jablonski
Future Leaders of the World have earned recognition in the world of rock radio with their single "Let Me Out" and debut album LVL IV. Having endured many struggles before his career was launched, vocalist Phil Taylor told me of his interesting journey and personal motivations.
Rachel: Hey Phil, how’s it going? Where are you guys at right now?
Phil: Kansas City, Missouri.
Rachel: Cool. I’m in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Phil: Nice.
Rachel: Yeah, real nice. Well, let’s go! You have an interesting story to tell. Your band bio says it well, but I’d like to hear about your journey briefly in your own words if possible.
Phil: I moved to San Francisco after high school from Buffalo, NY. I thought that a lot of interesting things happened there now and also in American History, like the whole 60’s generation and the Civil Rights movement and the way people responded to it. So, I thought that that would be a good place to get some music together that would be socially aware. I ended up learning things about myself there as well.
Rachel: Where did you go to school there?
Phil: I went to a Community College.
Rachel: What were you planning to study?
Phil: I was studying music and art and English, I was all over the place though in Liberal Arts. I was planning on transferring to Berkley, but I ended up just deciding to go straight for music.
Rachel: So while were you in San Francisco what happened?
Phil: Well, that’s a complicated story. To summarize it I’ll say that I was planning to just do things real normal, like an AB = C blueprint plan. Go to school, get a degree in music, and then go find a band or have a band while I do that and keep things structured. And then after three weeks of working and getting enrolled in school my initial arrangements to stay with a relative fell through and I was homeless. I decided to stay in San Francisco because I was already enrolled in school; I wasn’t going to go back to Buffalo so I got a job working for California Public Interest Research Group and working on a campaign there…
Rachel: How did you get that job?
Phil: I saw an ad for it in the paper went to the interview and they hired me. So I started working there and I was sometimes staying at strangers places, but other times sleeping on rooftops and in parks. That was for maybe three months. One of my better friends from Buffalo’s older brothers was going to art school out there, he actually ended up being the person who did the artwork for the album cover, hooked me up with a room that he used to stay in down in the ocean district. I eventually moved in there with some art school students. I eventually moved in there. I continued to go to school until the end of that year. I really wasn’t getting together what I wanted to get together musically, although I did get a lot of other stuff going that was important for my development as an artist looking back now. But I didn’t really get together with a band so I decided to go to L.A. where I thought that a lot of people would be focused on success musically.
Rachel: How did you end up going back to Buffalo?
Phil: I was never really back there for very long. I was in L.A. for about half a year. I was in a relationship at the time and we had some weird discrepancies with rent as far the name on the lease and stuff like that. Once the relationship fell through I didn’t have a place to stay and I had to bum with friends, same thing again. I got another job working for a grassroots organization called Progressive Campaigns. I was there petitioning and I met somebody who was a legal representative for a label that was based out of downtown Los Angeles. I told him I was doing music and he said to go check out his studio. So one day I went down there and played a few songs. Sean Rivera the former singer of an R&B group from the early 90’s called Az Yet liked it a lot and said he wanted to work on a project. He was working with the label DreamWorks at the time. We started recording, I ran out of money, got evicted from my other place that I had for only like two months and Sean let me crash on his floor for about a month while I was recording some stuff. I went to a psychic about that time and was told that April 16th something would happen big for my career. Then I saw posters for Puddle of Mudd on April 16th and remembered that they got a deal from jumping backstage at a concert so I decided that I would record a demo that night and try to finagle it backstage and see what would happen. I ended up meeting someone that night that ended up being our future manger. I just went up to him and said if you like Puddle of Mudd stuff you’ll probably like our music. The next day I went to his house and he heard it and said it’s pretty good, get some money together and do a demo. So we got some money together, did a demo and then I had no more money and no options so I went back to Buffalo. I got a band together there. It’s pretty complicated.
Rachel: Definitely sounds like it. What were you looking for in a band when you saw that you might get signed?
Phil: Pretty much someone who liked the music and was capable of matching the intensity and also someone who was experimental and willing to branch out. That’s definitely what Carl offered as the drummer. He’s very traditionally trained as far as jazz and stuff like that goes which seems to come in handy. So I started playing with him and a bassist and we drove out to Los Angeles to record some new songs after hearing we got a demo deal with Epic.
Rachel: Had you written most of the songs ahead of time or did you do that collectively?
Phil: No, in fact I think only one of the songs that were written before recording ended up making the album.
Rachel: Most of the songs on the album are politically charged. What is your main motivation behind that? What motivates you politically?
Phil: Well I wouldn’t say that I have one main issue because then all of the songs would be about the same thing. I try to tackle a lot of different issues ranging from hypocrisy of drug policy to the environment which I learned a lot about working at the grassroots organization in California, foreign policy, and military spending are definitely issues to me. Pretty much economic motivations and how that relates to war and also, the media’s role in the manipulation of the general American view on those situations. I would say overall the main messages I’m trying to portray are that most people are unaware of what is really going on because of the corporate stranglehold on media outlets. Manipulation of religion and politics too are also issues for me.
Rachel: During the hard period prior to the release what influenced you the most to keep going?
Phil: A lot of different things I guess. I kind of just tried to, and I still do, learn new things every day – try to find new art, try to find new inspiration, try to educate myself as much as I can about what’s going on in the world and what’s happened in the past.
Rachel: How do you educate yourself?
Phil: I read, I buy new music, I go to shows, and I guess in San Francisco I was going to open mic poetry readings and rap battles and stuff like that just trying to expose myself to different parts of art in general to expand my awareness as an artist. Playing with different types of musicians as well, that’s when I started getting into jazz and rap and stuff like that. What got me through that period is one thing. The main thing was just that I felt like I had some music that I wanted to get out there and I was going to do whatever it took to get me in a situation where I felt like I could feasibly make something good. That was pretty much it. Everything is kind of like a stepping stone to get to a better spot to make something better. I’ll never get to a spot and declare myself done. If I did I wouldn’t be an artist I guess.
Rachel: Well you talked about participating in open mic opportunities and in the bio it says something about you experimenting with your voice to find what you wanted. It seems like there is a lot of different vocal styling on the album. Do you feel like you are still trying to find your voice or do you appreciate the diversity?
Phil: I think that continuity will develop over time with the group, but at the same time I appreciate diversity in the music. I try to draw a lot of influences from all different types of music. I’m pretty open-minded and I want to keep it that way. I don’t ever really want to be one thing.
Rachel: What would you hope for the listener to get out of the album most?
Phil: I would hope that they get that anything is possible and you can make anything happen if you really want to. I would hope that they get a sense of freedom out of it because that’s what it is for me. It’s a sense of trying to break away from all the things that I’ve been triggered to be before I decided to make my own life. So I hope it’s somehow liberating to people who have experienced some of the same things I have experienced. That’s on a personal level at least. As far as the objective of the album I hope it also spawns a sense of awareness politically. We are all affected by war for example economically, job wise, etc. So, personally I hope people relate to the album and also as far as a work of art I hope it acts as a catalyst to make the younger generation more aware of the world around them and see what’s really going on around them. To question their reality and make something better of what’s going on around them right now.
Rachel: Cool. Anything else you’d like to talk about?
Phil: Check out a couple of websites. blackboxvoting.org talks about all the public hearings that have been going on in Ohio and some other states in correlation to the public suing local board of elections for voter fraud in different districts, different states around the country. It basically exposes how there has been a lot of foul play in this election and how all the votes haven’t been counted yet. The other website is guerrillanews.com which is a really good non-profit non-corporate news media outlet that has a lot of good historical references as well as keeping up on current events too. I think it’s a great site that everybody should check out. There are a lot of good tidbits of information on that site.
Rachel: How about on tour? Where can we check you out?
Phil: Oh, right now we are on tour with Shinedown and Silvertide. We are all over the country. Check out our website http://futureleadersoftheworld.com for tour dates. Right now we have three weeks left.
Rachel: Alright anything else?
Phil: I’ll say that it’s hard to have faith in the voting system right now because I feel the election was not properly executed. I’ll say that.
Rachel: Did you vote?
Phil: I did, I voted for John Kerry. We did the Rock the Vote tour so among other reasons if I didn’t vote that would be pretty negative. [laugh] All right, well thank you very much!
Rachel: Thank you very much. Good luck!