Phillip Phillips‘ first album in five years, Drift Back, has arrived. But if you heard the first single, “Dancing With Your Shadows,” and became convinced that Phillip and wife Hannah are having marital issues … they’re not.
“When ‘Dancing with Your Shadows’ came out, a friend texted me, like, ‘You and Hannah alright?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah man, why?’ ‘Just making sure,'” Phillip laughs. The song is about his wife, but not in that way.
“She went through a lot of health struggles when I wrote that song … I didn’t know how to help her,” he tells ABC Audio. “I’m not a doctor, couldn’t figure out what was going on, it was kind of a scary time. … I had to learn to just be there [for her].”
The rest of the album tackles Phillip’s experiences since winning American Idol in 2012.
“I’m a really quiet guy and keep my personal life out of things … but I think I would try to just avoid situations that happened in my life, and these songs represent me trying to deal with it,” he explains. “Music has always been my therapy.”
The songs tackle love, fatherhood, past relationships and, Phillip says, “learning more about myself and how I’m getting older.”
Speaking of Idol, Phillip was on the show in May as one of several alumni who returned as mentors.
“I went back during Hollywood Week and that just brought back so much stress … as soon as I walked in, I wanted to leave,” he laughs.
While he enjoyed meeting the “super-talented” contestants, mentoring is all he can handle.
“I’m not a good judging person,” he says. “If they asked me to come back and be a judge, I would probably do it — if it was a lot of money.”
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