My name is Phil Dean. I was born in greenest Albion in the year of Tolkien’s journey west, spent two decades in Batmania, a former convict colony, and I now live in Aoteoroa. I write songs and sing them, although not as much as I used to. Sometimes – if I’m feeling particularly energised – I’ll record them too. 

I look on in awe at songwriters such as Justin Sullivan (New Model Army), Mike Scott (The Waterboys), Peter Perrett, Kate Bush, Neil Young, Tom Waits and David Bowie. Some of my other favourites include Suede, Pulp, Lana Del Rey, Tindersticks and The Moody Blues. I’m also a huge fan of Tolkien and Pratchett.

Before I relocated to Australia I’d had several bands in England, most notably The Debutantes. Check out the History page to learn more.

Betwixt 2004-2015 I played hundreds of shows with my old folk/rock/punk/indie band Zeptepi, and we released a bunch of albums, most of which you can find on the usual streaming platforms. That was lots of fun, and then it wasn’t, so I stopped. We’ll do something again… eventually.

I wrote a whole bunch of songs in late 2013/early 2014 that I didn’t feel were right for Zeptepi, and decided I’d start a new project instead, which became The Gathering Tide. We recorded an album which came out in 2016 and was followed up with a couple of singles but after 25 years of this shit I needed a break. 

I moved to Aotearoa at the end of 2020 and did some other stuff – released a book, appeared in Amazon’s Rings of Power show, got killed by Jason Momoa in Aquaman 2 and barely picked up a guitar for years. 2023 saw me considering the possibility that perhaps I might, maybe, do some more writing and recording. Which I did end up doing, but not as The Gathering Tide – checkout The Snow Ponies and The Dawks!

I’m updating this in September 2024, and I’m feeling well rested and very much ready to throw myself back into music, which I’ve been doing for the last few months. Nine years feels like a long enough break from Zeptepi too, and I’ve started going through the archives and realising we have a lot of unfinished business. Expect a lot more Zeptepi happenings in 2024/25!

I’ve recently brought all the stuff from my various musical projects from over the last 30-odd years together on this website, so if I’ve done/am doing anything musical, you’ll find it here.