Phil Cook plays music from 'Appalachia Borealis' in The Current studio
June 10, 2025
After growing up playing piano and studying piano in college, the last thing Phil Cook wanted to do was play piano. “I was just angry at piano,” he recalls.
Setting the “old 88” aside, Cook embraced other instruments, notably banjo and guitar, to get as far from piano as he could. But in the grip of the pandemic, Cook found himself rediscovering the sound of — and his love for — piano. Now five years on, Cook has released a solo piano album called Appalachia Borealis, produced by his lifelong friend, Justin Vernon (he of Bon Iver).
Phil Cook visited The Current studio to play selections from Appalachia Borealis. Afterwards, he caught up with host Bill DeVille. Watch the music performances in the video player above, and watch the interview below. Beneath the interview video, you’ll find a full transcript of the conversation.
Interview Transcript
Bill DeVille: Hey, I'm Bill DeVille. I'm here with Phil Cook!
Phil Cook: What's up, man?
Bill DeVille: Phil, it's so nice to see you.
Phil Cook: Nice to see you again, Bill.
Bill DeVille: Yeah, it's been years. Your résumé has gotten a lot bigger since the last we spoke.
Phil Cook: Time has moved on, and time is long and short.
Bill DeVille: Yeah, yeah. So you've taken on different roles, you've produced, and you've done side-man stuff, and now here you are and playing a piano.
Phil Cook: Yeah.
Bill DeVille: How did this whole thing begin for you?
Phil Cook: Oh, man, at the beginning.
Bill DeVille: Yeah?
Phil Cook: Just like every good story, it's at the beginning.
Bill DeVille: Yeah.
Phil Cook: Yeah. Like, anybody else, I grew up with the piano in my living room, like, an upright piano. Like, it's kind of a common occurrence. Like, you know, they're around. And my dad played growing up, and my dad played by ear. He would play, like, just fun, whatever, Motown stuff. So, I mean, I grew up with that context, but then when I was like, three or four, I just started playing and sitting at it and doing it. So that actually was, like, really, the first 25 years of my life where piano dominated. Lessons. I went to college for piano. And then by the time I left college, I was just angry at the piano. Too many rules. I just had gone too much pedagogy. I think I just had boxed myself in too hard.
Bill DeVille: Yeah.
Phil Cook: And I kind of, almost in reaction, just bought a banjo and decided to get something that had a completely different landscape. And that began another 20-some years of me playing every other instrument than piano, and learning how to like, use my intuition. And then the pandemic just brought me back home, back home to the original thing after all this other stuff, you know?
Bill DeVille: You live in North Carolina now. Did you have a piano there?
Phil Cook: Yeah, I had a thrift store piano, but I ended up buying — because it was pandemic, and we were quarantined together in a small house — I ended up, you know, buying a keyboard so that I could practice very early in the morning with headphones on. So it ended up becoming a very healing, spiritual process for me; like, meditative almost. Every morning, you know? And of course, one thing leads to another, and, down the road and it's like, I've just completely fallen in love with this instrument again, like, the first time. But even better, like, really.
Bill DeVille: Yeah.
Phil Cook: And having a daily relationship with it, in a kind of a communion, and, like, a way different purpose. Like, I needed to take all that time off to come back to it and really understand.
Bill DeVille: You know, I've asked so many people since the pandemic, "What did you learn about yourself during the pandemic?" And you learned how much you missed the piano, I take it.
Phil Cook: Yeah, I think. I mean, just to be real, I mean, everybody had like a big, pretty reflective, everyone was kind of forced to face themselves in some way during the pandemic. And, you know, for me, it was, there was, it was a pretty edifying time. You know, my wife and I split, and that was a long, my whole adult life relationship. We have two kids. So everybody in the household had to basically start over again and figure stuff out. It was pretty devastating. And so I say that to say, you know, a lot of people have experience with that that I know, and starting over with your life. Really, really self examining; picking up pieces that are of the fragments: What are the things you really know and what are the things that you really have to leave behind? Because it'll never go back. It's all new landscape. And the piano is one of those elements that just became something that I could really lean on every day. Could just be there every day, at least, to help me breathe through it and sit with the kinds of uncomfortability and change that I was going through, and like a metamorphosis, you know?
Bill DeVille: And since you've started playing the piano again, you've made two piano albums.
Phil Cook: Yes, I have.
Bill DeVille: Let's talk about the new batch called Appalachia Borealis.
Phil Cook: Yeah.
Bill DeVille: Tell us about the album.
Phil Cook: Yeah. Well, the title Appalachia Borealis, all my record titles kind of like occur to me at some point, and they need to make sense with my life, about where I'm at with everything. And there was a time last year where the conditions were such that the Aurora Borealis were actually visible in Appalachia. There was a short time, and people down there had never seen them before. And I come from living up here, my experiences at that were always very sacred. Like seeing when you had a chance to see it, you're like, "What a wondrous mystery," as a kid to see that growing up. And I also, you know, this area, this landscape up here, this is my home, as much as North Carolina is my home. So having a record that really — I love Appalachia, I love the Blue Ridge Mountains, I love where I live — and it's become my home. And then Borealis is up here. So when I think about that, it's like a conversation between my two homes: Appalachia Borealis. And I think wonder and mystery that is involved there, and just trying to live inside these places where I can really talk with the language that I know. This is how I sing, this is how I write. This is how I communicate. What makes sense to me now is this instrument, you know? And so these are all the pieces that I have been able to form together and make, and in the time, in the last three years where my life has changed so much, it's really, these have been some touchstones of, just like, really my inner-out journey.
Bill DeVille: Yeah. And you discovered field recording. Tell us about that.
Phil Cook: Yeah, field recordings was something, I've just been like — I love, I just love collecting moments. I do. You know, I collect rocks. Like, man, I got, like, yeah ...
Bill DeVille: Do you have one in your pocket?
Phil Cook: Yeah, I always have a rock in my pocket. But I was just up in — so, like, you know, I'm not, like, a, "Oh, it's an igneous," "It's a shale." I don't. That's great for people that are, like, scientific like that. I'm like, I have a category of rocks with holes. I have a category of rocks with stripes. I have agates. I have, like, all kinds of rocks from all over the country and world. And I don't know, I think it reminds me that I set my own value on things. I know what I value about something, and I get to choose my value. And so I think being able to have this record right here, and these piano records and this music right now, really is reintroducing myself to people when they have seen me out playing with the banjo, that have seen me as a gregarious guy. That was, I think, the older Phil that I have a lot more understanding of and why I needed so much of that external validation. But this is a different time of my life where it's a lot more inner motivated going out. So if I reintroduce myself to people as the guy I actually was all along. It is this guy.
Bill DeVille: Well, you described yourself as being an indoor kid, and now you've turned into the outdoor kind of kid.
Phil Cook: Well, you know, I mean, organized sport, man, my gross-motor skills are gross, dude, you know? Like I was not an asset to any sports team growing up, and God tried to give me a real slap in the face every time I tried to do anything involved with team sports. He was like, "Go inside to the living room. That's where your purpose is." You know, whatever. And so, yeah, that's been — yeah, it's been a real journey. But I mean, honestly, you know, I recorded this record in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with my buddy Justin, that I, like, grew up with.
Bill DeVille: I've heard of him, by the way.
Phil Cook: Yeah, I know. I could probably just say his name by his first name, but yes, Justin Vernon and I grew up together. We've known each other for 30 years now, and learned how to play music together. And you know, producing a piano record really involves just creating a space, because it's just me in there. I'm just out on the floor by myself. So having somebody who knows and knows all the places I come from, musically, knows my instincts and loves me as a person and a musician. That's enough of a space to hold for me to feel like I can just go there in front of him, and then I can just ask him to be like, "Hey, man, just tell me after we're done with all this, like, what do you feel like were the moments where you just saw me clearest as your friend and as the musician you love and know? What are the clearest moments for you?" And then that's what he helped me do, and that's why this record is these particular songs.
Bill DeVille: Have you listened to his new album, the new Bon Iver record [SABLE, fABLE] ?
Phil Cook: Yeah, it's great. Yeah.
Bill DeVille: There was a lot of talent in DeYarmond Edison. What would happen if you guys were to try to do something again? I'm not suggesting it should. But what would happen?
Phil Cook: Oh, you know, it is fun to think about how each person, individual person in that group's individual journeys have been very deep, and each of us have, like, really gone on our own journey musically. And I'm so inspired by Justin and my brother Brad and Joe Westerlund every day, of just like, how we've not given up, we fully committed to the paths that we're on and are still learning every day and still following the thing that we did since we were kids. I'm kind of blown away that we're still doing it.
Bill DeVille: Yeah, and Brad has produced, you know, the Waxahatchee records and some other records. And you've done a lot of side man stuff. Tell us about some of the things you've worked with, Nathaniel and the Night Sweats, and let's see, Plains. And you appear on both of the Waxahatchee records, right? The last two?
Phil Cook: Yeah. I've been able to — thanks to my long life of touring on the road — just build a community of people. You know, whether financial rewards may not be predictable, or the kind of thing that other people would necessarily understand, the human rewards and the collective riches of a community that are earned through touring are really where the investment in my life is. So it doesn't surprise me that after 20 years. You know, people like Nathaniel, I mean, I met him in 2007 in Indianapolis, in a real podunk bar, you know, where we were really scared for our lives in the load-out afterwards, and none of us knew what was in store for any of us. But that's also the kind of thing where it's like, years later, when somebody like Nathaniel has a lot of fame, they can look back to somebody who knew him way back then and was kind of on the same road with them, and they have some comfort and safety in that, to know, like, "I know why you're in this." I know he knows me and why I'm in this, and I'm still doing it. I'm not jumping on later because of things that have happened for him, or, you know, all the energy that happens around fame. It can be really isolating.
Bill DeVille: What's it like working with Katie Crutchfield?
Phil Cook: Oh, she's just brilliant.
Bill DeVille: It seems like writing songs is so easy for her, and they just are flying out of her all the time. I mean, she has songs that didn't make the cut for the album that are now singles that are still every bit as good as everything on the album.
Phil Cook: Yeah. Yeah, Katie's brilliant. She's a brilliant human being. She's a light to be around. She's very calming to be around. And making a record with her is so much fun. We just have a really good time. And making that record, Tiger's Blood, with Jake Lenderman and with Spencer Tweedy and my brother Brad, and Katie and I in Texas, was an incredible experience. We just had so much fun. The studio door was open to the air, Texas air, the whole time. We're just in there, and like, we were jamming and having fun in between the takes of sessions and late night, like just music was very just flowing the whole time, no matter what, even if it was her music, or all of us just, like, enjoying each other's company, you know? Or sitting around and watching, like, Best Week Ever reruns from wherever on the couch, and just like — I mean, it was a very comfortable, easy, inspiring hang. And you're in a summer camp, basically; you're in the middle of nowhere together.
Bill DeVille: Where was it at in Texas?
Phil Cook: It was at Sonic Ranch, in like, a thousands-acre pecan orchard, you know, where you walk out the studio door, and all you can see as far as the horizon is pecan trees. It's kind of like, "Whoa, we're really out here. It's just us," you know. It's pretty cool.
Bill DeVille: I saw you also worked with the Blind Boys of Alabama.
Phil Cook: Yeah.
Bill DeVille: What was that experience? And how did it happen?
Phil Cook: Well, working with the Blind Boys was another experience through Justin won the Grammy for Best New Artist, and then the Blind Boys, who are lifelong, serial collaborators, you know, tapped him to produce a record that was more based on contemporary music and what was happening, and trying to, like, match them and bring all their tradition to, like, a newer sonic landscape of what was happening. And so, yeah, that Blind Boys of Alabama was the most formative. I always look at that as that was the most life-changing session that I ever got to be a part. And that was mostly because where I grew up, in northern Wisconsin, is far away from all the music I came to love. Very far away. You know, there's not a lot of gospel music in Wisconsin. There's just not, you know? But I learned to love it from afar. And I think I developed a really deep sense of romanticism for music that came from the South. I'm not surprised I moved down there to be closer to that. You know, in North Carolina, it turns out, is a hotbed for gospel music still today, in a deep way. And so for me to actually be finally in a room with tradition bearers like the Blind Boys of Alabama, I found that they accepted me as a peer and as equal, and I was in complete imposter mode when I walked into that studio. I was young, but I didn't think I deserved to be amongst real practitioners there. But what they taught me was that, and what they encouraged me, was like, it's about love and it's about respect. So if you love that music, whatever the music you love is, when you come at it with love and you come at it with respect in the front door and that sense of openness and humility, dude, anything is possible when you have that at your core. And everything switched for me then. That's when I went home after that session with, and I still am friends with them, all of them today, and I won a Grammy with them a couple years ago, and we did the record Echoes of the South down in Muscle Shoals.
And like two weeks after that record, you know, my dear friend Ben Moore, one of the singers, passed away two weeks after the record was recorded. And then my dear friend Paul Beasley passed away about four months after the record was done. So the last time all those guys were in a room together in Muscle Shoals was 15 years after I met them in Wisconsin. And we all got to make this record together. But it was so amazing because, you know, they're all in their 70s, and then we made it like the old days, like we were on the floor and they were standing — not sitting, they were standing — and we were cutting live, and they were full of energy, like they were 20 again, and they were singing. We were all playing live, like the '60s in Muscle Shoals. You know, that kind of experience, what are you gonna do with that? Like that is the richest thing that I could possibly have in my mind that no one can take away from me. You know what I mean? So no matter what happens in my life, these are the things that I draw on that just give me so much strength and reminder of like, what's important and what I value. You know?
Bill DeVille: So nice chatting with you.
Phil Cook: Thanks, Bill.
Bill DeVille: It's Phil Cook, Appalachia Borealis is the name of the new album. Congratulations on the new direction of what you're up to.
Phil Cook: Yeah, man.
Bill DeVille: It sounds cool.
Phil Cook: It's feeling good.
Bill DeVille: Always a pleasure to see you, sir.
Phil Cook: Yeah, you too, Bill. Thanks, man.
Music Performed
00:00:00 Dawn Birds
00:03:07 Buffalo
00:05:36 Ambassador Cathedral
All music from Phil Cook’s 2025 album, Appalachia Borealis, available on Psychic Hotline.
Musician
Phil Cook – piano
Credits
Host – Bill DeVille
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Audio – Cameron Wiley
Video – Ruben Schneiderman, Will Keeler
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor
External Links
Phil Cook – official site
Phil Cook, Appalachia Borealis – Bandcamp