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, Bob Marley, Tom Waits and David Bowie.
Betwixt 2004-2015 I played hundreds of shows with my old folk/rock/punk/misc band Zeptepi (now in an indefinite state of hibernation), and we released a bunch of albums, seven of which are still available online. That was lots of fun, and then it wasn’t.
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. I recorded an album between 2014-16, essentially as a solo project – but some fine musicians assisted me greatly, including CC Thornley (banjo), Paul Angas (keyboards, drums), Claire Johnstone (fiddle), Peter O’Shea (fiddle), Peter Donelly (piano, organ) and Darn Thorn (piano).
The album was released on September 1st 2016, and I followed it up with a two-track single for Christmas 2018. The pandemic gave me the opportunity to work on some more stuff, and a three-track EP was release in November 2020. You can stream or purchase them via the links on this site.
I moved to Aotearoa at the end of 2020 and did some other stuff – released a book, appeared in Rings of Power, and barely picked up a guitar for two 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!
You can also find on this here website an archive containing a little info on my previous bands over the last 30 years (30?! Fuck!!). Well you see I have all this stuff, and I don’t know where to put it… so this seemed as good a place as any…
And that’s all the weather.
