Phil Kaiser hails from Indianapolis, Indiana, where he began a love-affair with Rock 'n' Roll music at a very early age, teaching himself the drums after he saw Ringo Starr on the telly with The Beatles. By the time he was 20 he had already drummed and sang in several part-time cover bands in the Indy area (Crash Landing, Ice Age, Katch*), done six weeks in a Holiday Inn band called Cherry Pie and had formed a cover/original band called FM Pop. This band caught the eye of Mark Moran from The Late Show (one of the most popular Indy-based original/cover bands back in the day) who told him to learn to play the guitar and to sing better, both of which he did. The result was an offer in August of 1983 to be the Front-man with the band which he gladly accepted!
After touring the Midwest & South for two years with The Late Show Phil moved on and worked briefly with his old high school friends Steve Bunny and Phil Bunny in a cover band called The Kraze. Throughout the second half of the Eighties he worked with The Bob & Tom Show on three charity CDs*, did plenty of jingle work with several local studios, added background vocals to Henry Lee Summer's first CBS release and continued to perform live with a cover band called The Sandy Lee Band (all Country music; it's called "paying your dues") and cover/original bands The Blast, The Scene, The Amazon Boys and The Cavern Club, an all-Beatles cover band with Beatles-sounding originals that won the Beatlefest Battle of the Bands in Chicago in August of 1992.
He picked up and moved to Illinois in 1996 where he played drums and sang briefly with Sandbox Candy and then Four Of A Kind, both cover bands, while producing, writing and performing original comedy bits for a Sunday night radio show called The Church Of Rock 'n' Roll with Bloody Mess* on WWCT FM in Peoria, all while going to college and earning a Bachelor's Degree in History from Illinois State University, graduating in 1999.
Phil then moved to Maine in 2001, got a job with the Penobscot Marine Museum and continued to perform there with cover bands like Rockin' Ron & the New Society Band, Shameless, Beats Workin', Deja Blues (with whom he got to play the world-famous North Atlantic Blues Festival in Rockland, Maine in July of 2010) and The 220s, an original/cover band. He spent a year as Sound Engineer for Dakota, one of Maine's most popular cover bands and in the fall of 2006 landed a gig at Clear Channel radio as Producer of Maine In The Morning, a very popular morning drive political talk show on 103.9 WVOM FM, the "Voice of Maine." He also did more jingle work there and did a DJ stint at 101.7 The Fox, with both shows coming out of the same studios in Bangor.
Phil moved back to his beloved Indianapolis in 2011 and performed with old friends The Bunny Brothers and re-united with Mark Moran in Retrofix (both cover bands) where he returned to the drums for the first time in Indiana in 30 years! Phil also played drums in a '50s-'60s cover band called The Tune-O-Matics on the "Animal Circuit" (the Eagles, Elks and Moose clubs) for about a year. He was also guitarist, vocalist and songwriter in an original music band called Raized On Records that re-united him with his oldest friend Buddy Washmuth for four years, in the middle of which he took a year and a half off to have, and recover from open-heart surgery. After another heart surgery in May of 2018 to implant a pacemaker/defibrillator, Phil teamed up with Mark Moran again to form The Beepline, a Pop-Rock combo that played mostly ‘60s and early ‘70s music. Phil taught himself to play keys for this band, and it became the best tribute band in the area!
March 17, 2019 marked the 40th anniversary of the night Phil met the guys who would form his first band, Crash Landing, and a year later everything stopped. Unfortunately The Beepline became a casualty, and it was a crying shame.
Nowadays Phil lives peacefully (but not quietly) with his fabulous wife and old Ludwig drums writing and recording new and old songs, visiting Civil War battlefields, watching IndyCar racing (while going to dirt tracks all around the Midwest) and learning how to do husbandly things like power washing the driveway, painting the house, breaking up drywall and planting grass. But he sincerely wants to thank each and every one of you for all of your support over the past 45 years! It has been a blast!
*= Audio of these bands or this show is available in the Songs sections. There are photos of every band mentioned above save one (Sandbox Candy) in the Photos section.
