Phillip Phillips found fame as the winner of the 11th series of American Idol in 2012. Phillip was born in Albany, Georgia in 1990 and moved to Leesburg when he was 12. Having started to play music at the age of 14, Phillip formed the Phillip Phillips band in 2009 with two brothers-in-law.
Phillips was working in his family’s pawn shop before entering American Idol. Auditioning for the singing competition in 2012, Phillips won the judges over in Savannah Georgia with his rendition of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’. Phillips cites Damien Rice, Dave Matthews and Mumford & Sons as musical influences describing his sound as “alternative”. During the competition, Phillips won over the judges and audiences with his versions of classics such as Ben E King’s ‘Stand By Me’.
Phillip suffers from a congenital kidney condition and soon after the programme finished he underwent reconstructive surgery on his kidney. He graduated from Albany Technical College in Industrial Systems Technology but missed the ceremony due to American Idol.
Phillips went on to win the competition, with a record-breaking 132 million votes cast during the finale. His winning single, ‘Home’ sold over four million copies with the highest digital sales of any American Idol winner’s single. The track was used by NBC during their coverage of the 2012 London Olympics.
‘Home’ also saw Phillips nominated for a Teen Choice Award for the 'Best Love Song'.
Follow up album, ‘The World from the Side of the Moon’ was released in October 2012 with the majority of the songs co-written by Phillips. The album went straight into the Billboard 200 chart at number four and the record went Gold in 2013.
In May 2014, Phillip Phillips released his second studio album ‘Behind the Lights’,
