Born in 1959 in Grey Lynn, Phil’s early career was as a saxophonist in Blues and R&B bands, none of which were ever especially famous, although Phil did form a long term on-and-off partnership with singer-songwriter Ralph Bennett at this time.

In 1980 he moved to Australia and worked a a wide variety of jobs, from labouring at a tannery to being the general manager of a Northsearch Marketing.  From the mid 1980s onwards Phil began an intensive study of martial arts, training with Master Kim Sung Do and Anthony Karasulas Sensei. You can read more about his martial arts background at http://www.seishinkan.info/instructors.html

For three years he worked as the assistant to Robert Klippel, Australia’s best known sculptor. While working for Klippel he was able to absorb much of the sculptors thinking on the nature of collage and montage. Phil did most of the construction work on the large scale works the Klippel produced in the period 1988 - 1990, including the large wooden piece in the Art Gallery of NSW.

In 1991 he spent most of his time teaching English and studying White Crane Kung Fu in the small town of Lukang in Taiwan. You can read about this time in White Cranes and Drunken Masters.

Returning to New Zealand in 1992 he once again performed with Ralph Bennett as ‘Out of the Blue’, before deciding to Study music at university. He eventually graduated from Auckland University with a Bachelor of Music (Honours) and a Master of Arts from Waikato University after studying composition and electronic music.

In 1998 he founded Primitive Digital, a cost efficient production house that made numerous TVCs and regional TV programmes in addition to feature films. In 2006 the name of the business was changed to Roza Media to reflect a greater diversity in business.

In addition to production work, he has also taught at Otago University, The Southern Institute of Technology, and Otago Polytechnic.

He currently lives and works in Dunedin, New Zealand, with his partner Pamela and their two daughters.