If you listened to last week’s debut episode of our new My First Band podcast, you heard prolific percussionist Jon Phillip talk about drumming in bands like Limbeck and The Benjamins, sharing a stage with the legendary likes of Tommy Stinson and Paul Collins, and playing in a number of other acts through the years. As long and thorough as Phillips’ interview was, we realized that we forgot to ask him about one especially intriguing band that nearly materialized, but ultimately never got off the ground.
In the early 2000s, Phillip seriously considered joining a band with Dustin Diamond. Apparently, the Saved By The Bell actor recruited the drummer to play in a project Diamond wanted to call “The Junky Muppets,” and he even made album art for the proposed project. Though we neglected to ask Phillip about this during the podcast recording, we remembered he told us about the ill-fated musical endeavor after an interview we did with him and Christopher Porterfield in early 2015. After a little digging, we found the previously-unreleased audio and decided to release the four-year-old interview as a bonus clip.
Listen to Phillip tell host Tyler Maas (and fellow guest Christopher Porterfield) about discussing The Junky Muppets with Diamond over drinks at Landmark Lanes, Diamond’s five-string bass guitar abilities, and how close he came to winding up in a band with the guy the world knows as “Screech.”
My First Band is sponsored by Boulevard Brewing and is edited by Jared Blohm. You can listen to My First Band on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever else you get podcasts. Music used in this show comes courtesy of Devils Teeth (“The Junction Street Eight Tigers”).