The Chills

The Chills were formed in Dunedin 1980 from the remains of a two year old High School "punk" band named The Same. Initially in The Same, Martin Phillipps was taken on as the guitarist but soon became lead vocalist and then started writing the songs.

Martin’s songs began to outstrip the very rudimentary capabilities of The Same and he formed a new group with Chills co-founder Peter Gutteridge (who had recently been fired from fellow-Dunedin band The Clean). Martin had then (and still does today) a single-minded determination to take quality, original N.Z.-sounding, melodic rock music to the world.

Peter Gutteridge soon left to follow his own musical path. His departure was to be the first of nearly forty other band members who in the last 24 years have played in The Chills. Martin’s requirement of band members over the years has been to meet a standard of musicianship which is necessary to deliver The Chills songs with essential consistent energy in the live arena.

Martin has maintained this difficult ideal through nearly all of the band's twenty incarnations and when it has been missing he has acted and changed the line-up. This determination to maintain a high-powered approach to The Chills live shows stems from the punk rock ethics of Martins musical awakening and from the subsequent proximity to charismatic persons like Chris Knox who drove home how crucial it was to deliver music always with intensity and conviction.

This live energy is the central reason why The Chills are remembered fondly in all of the thirty-nine countries that they have thus far visited on their promotional tours. It is the combination of this AND the consistent quality of their songs which have established The Chills as one of the most well-known New Zealand groups to date - particularly in the U.S.A., U.K. and Europe.

The Chills have had a string of hits over the years and have become a NZ institution with their songs being used on TV shows, commercials, and in movie soundtracks.

The Chills were one of New Zealand's best and most popular bands of the '80s, making a small but consistent series of chiming, hook-laden guitar pop. Both the songs and the arrangements were constructed with interweaving guitar hooks and vocal harmonies, creating a pretty, almost lush, sound that never fell into cloying sentimentality. Throughout their existence, the band's personnel changed frequently -- there were more than ten different lineups -- with the only constant member being guitarist Martin Phillipps, the band's founder.

Phillipps began playing music with the New Zealand punk band the Same in 1978. Following in the footsteps of the Clean and the Enemy, the Same played mostly covers, creating a raw fusion of British Invasion and garage rock. However, the group never recorded. Phillipps applied the same approach for the Chills, the band he formed in 1980 with his sister Rachel and Jane Dodd (bass) after the Same fell apart.

In 1982, the Chills signed with Flying Nun, the influential New Zealand independent record label, and released several singles that were never widely distributed in America and Europe. During this time, the group went through an enormous amount of members: future-Great Unwashed bassist Peter Gutteridge, the Clean's David Kilgour, keyboardist Faser Batts, bassist Terry Moore, guitarist Martin Kean, keyboardist Peter Allison, drummer Martyn Bull, and drummer Alan Haig. While these incarnations of the Chills recorded plenty of singles, they never made an album. Released on the U.K. record label Creation, the group's first album, Kaleidoscope World (1986), was a collection of their early singles; it was later released in the U.S. on Homestead.

With the lineup of Phillipps, bassist Justin Harwood, keyboardist Andrew Todd, and drummer Caroline Easther -- the group's tenth lineup -- the Chills recorded their first proper album, Brave Worlds, in 1987. Produced by Mayo Thompson, the leading figure of the cult band the Red Crayola and a former member of Pere Ubu, the band wasn't satisfied with the final result, claiming it was too loose and under-produced. The group, particularly Phillipps, was more satisfied with their second full-length album, 1990's Submarine Bells, their first record released on an American major label. Submarine Bells was recorded with yet another version of the band, with Jimmy Stephenson replacing Easther, who was suffering from tinnitus. The album was well received by critics and college radio, yet it failed to break the band into the mainstream in either America or Britain. Two years later, they released Soft Bomb, which suffered the same fate as Submarine Bells. The following year, Martin Phillipps broke up the Chills again, yet the group reconvened in 1996 to release Sunburnt. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide