2019 Inductee: Phil X

When Bon Jovi brought its highly successful world tour to the CNE grandstand after the release of its New Jersey album in 1988, a young man from Mississauga was sitting in the audience — entranced.

Phil X had grown up immersing himself in the Bon Jovi albums Slippery When Wet and New Jersey and was blown away by the songs and the band. He was a budding guitarist who might have found a little fuel for his big musical ambitions that night in a couple of lines of one favourite song that the band played, a song that was the calling card of his own youth: “We’ll Make it I Swear – Livin’ on a Prayer.”

You might say his prayers began to be answered on April 14, 2011, when he got a call from an unknown New York number. “Hi, Phil. This is Jon Bon Jovi. Give me a call.” That’s what began the slow integration process that five years later saw the man they call Phil X officially succeed Richie Sambora in a band he’d idolized for many years.

Not bad for a kid who launched his career singing Elvis.

Phil grew up in a Mississauga household filled with music, mostly Greek music. After being given his first guitar (a copy of a Vox hollow-body teardrop model) which he could barely hold at age 5, he watched and learned as his musician father Peter played bouzouki and sang.

It was Phil’s father who, during his band’s intermission at a “big fat Greek wedding” convinced his son to play and sing Blue Suede Shoes and Teddy Bear. The audience was enthralled with the 8-year-old — and he was enthralled with their enthusiastic response.

At 17, he was bartending at his Dad’s pub. The Magnet in Westdale Mall. When Dad went on vacation, Phil booked his own band to play the small corner stage.

For six years Phil played in a band named Sidinex, which was his surname spelled backward. They played covers of metal bands and made an EP in 1985 that placed in the top 25 in Q107’s Homegrown contest.

After a soundman for Frozen Ghost heard him play he alerted producer Arnold Lanni who checked him out at The Gasworks, then rushed him into the studio to record with Frozen Ghost. After working with Aldo Nova, he succeeded Rik Emmett in Mississauga’s ultimate metal band Triumph.

Starting anew after moving to L.A. in 1997, Phil was painting producer Scott Humphrey’s garage when Tommy Lee needed a guitar player for Methods of Mayhem. The paint strokes were swapped for guitar strokes on a Les Paul. Phil’s work must have been impressive because it quickly led to additional sessions for Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper, with whom he recorded Brutal Planet.

A Chris Daughtry recording in 2005 cemented his growing reputation. Phil X has since marked the spot as “supreme session guitarist for hire” on records by Chris Cornell, Avril Lavigne, Kelly Clarkson, and Thousand Foot Crutch, to name just a few.

And he still finds time for his own band, Phil X and The Drills. What marks Phil’s work is total commitment — whether squeezing the last ounce of energy and sound from his instrument, straining for that last squeal out of his voice or searching for the exact pace and tone that best suits the material.

Phil’s a generous teacher – as a series of legendary YouTube videos attest. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, he should be flattered at the seemingly endless supply of copycat efforts. He’s also generous with his time, whether on GTA school visits or guesting at clinics, or on podcasts.

When a 25-year-old Mississauga woman and hobby musician died suddenly of congenital heart failure a beloved guitar she had designed was donated to a local guitar shop. Phil heard of it and played it in concert at a Bon Jovi show at Air Canada Centre to honour her memory and her creative flair. That brought immeasurable comfort to her grieving family.

Phil X and his irrepressible style epitomize the infectious energy that’s at the heart of the music he plays. He says he still gets goosebumps when he kicks in with the talk box on “Livin’ on a Prayer.” This may explain why so many of the rest of us also have that same reaction. He’s never lost the joy of performing that thrilled all those people at that long-ago wedding. And he’s able to convey that same sense of joy to his audience every time he picks up a guitar or sings.

An exemplary career that’s taken him from a childhood covering Elvis to electrifying Bon Jovi means Phil X marks the place on Mississauga’s Music Walk of Fame.