Though trained in classical piano throughout his childhood, Phoenix Reeves swears he never had a single aspiration to be a musician. "It's pretty much the only thing I never considered," he admits. "When I was a kid, I went through all those phases of wanting to be this and that. You know how the teachers would always ask the class what they wanted to be when they grew up? Well, they quit asking me, because every time they did, they'd get a different answer!"

By the time he became an adult, Phoenix found a path that interested him - numbers. "Math nerd," he smiles. "That was me. Total math nerd. That was the only thing in school I actually gave a damn about. So long story short, I decided I wanted to be an accountant. I think the whole allure of it for me was the fact that I knew I could do it and the fact that I knew I could make a hell of a whole lot of money doing it. I found out what you could pull in doing that and I was like one of those little cartoon characters with the dollar signs in their eyes. Seriously! We didn't grow up with a whole lot, so the chance to make something out of myself was something I was gonna take."

In the next few years, Phoenix met up with Andy Blackwood and the two become friends. Around that same time, Phoenix finally put his musical training to good use, writing his first ever song. "That's a funny story," he relates. "You know how people say, 'Oh, I never intended to write a song. It just kind of happened'? You think they're full of it, right? Well, I never intended to write a song. It just kind of happened. And no, I'm not full of it." Originally, "Raggedy Ann" was meant to be a poem, to get the attention of someone in Phoenix's life. However, "they weren't impressed. At all. I poured my soul into this poem and wrote it in a card and gave it to them and they took it and read it and said, 'Yeah, nice poem. But it would make an even better song.' And gave it back to me! I was so pissed. I said, 'It's not supposed to be a song!'"

Eventually, though, Phoenix took the advice to heart. "I started thinking about it and I said, 'Maybe they were right. Maybe this would make a good song.' And I was still pathetically in love with them, so I thought if I made it into a song, I'd be all set. Oh, the things we do for love." After working all night long, Phoenix was able to set his poem to a basic piano melody. "They still didn't like it," he notes, with a laugh.

One person did, however, Phoenix's then roommate Kristen (Nicole) Clark (yes, that "Kristen Nicole.") "She heard it and she just wouldn't shut up about how good it was. I could have strangled her, because my ego had taken such a serious beating when the person I wrote it for hated it. I didn't even want to think about it anymore. I wanted to burn the piano. Seriously." Still, Kristen refused to let it go, even spreading the news to friends...namely, Andy Blackwood.

"How it happened is he was over at our place for dinner and he was talking about his friend Joel, who was starting up this label in L.A. and all of the sudden, Kristen says, 'Wow, how's that for coincidences? He just wrote a song. Play him your song, Donnie (Phoenix's given name).' I swear, I kicked her so hard under that table she was limping for a week! And Andy looked at me like, 'You wrote a song? You?' The look on his face was, 'Oh, now, this I've gotta see! Nothing like a singing accountant!'"

Through more coaxing from Kristen, Phoenix did sit down at his piano and play "Raggedy Ann" for Andy. Afterwards, the silence had been excruciating. "He just stared at me, with his mouth wide open. I thought, 'Oh, God, he thinks I stink. I am never gonna live this one down!' And finally, he said to me, 'Do you have a tape?' And Kristen was staring at me and everyone was staring at me and I just remember telling him, 'No. But I'll make one.'"

The rest, as they say, is history. The homemade tape landed in the hands of Joel Gibson, who called to offer Phoenix a deal...eventually. "At least two months passed from the time I gave that tape to Andy to the time Joel called me. I really had forgotten all about it. I never wanted to be a singer, anyway, so I wasn't worried about it. And then, Joel called." Figuring it would be fun and a good way to make some extra money, Phoenix agreed to release an album on the fledgling JLN, but had no idea how grandiose such a decision would be. "I remember after I got done recording it, I asked my roommate, 'So do you think I'll sell about a thousand?' And I seriously thought that would be impressive if I did. And, well...I sold over a million."

Listeners loved the feel good keyboard pop Phoenix Reeves brought to the table - and loved the face behind it even more, something he calls "annoying. I started getting fan mail, okay? That was a totally foreign concept to me! I never thought anyone would wanna write me letters! And I really never thought they'd wanna write me and tell me, 'You're so cute I wanna marry you!'" Phoenix laughs at the memory. "So here I am, with this huge stack of marriage proposals - seriously, marriage proposals - and I'm thinking, 'Okay, how do I respond to this?' Like I seriously had to write them all back and say, 'Well, gee, thanks, but I think we should at least meet face to face before we get married.' It was insane."

While his first record put him on the map, it was his sophomore project, 1984's Solitude that catapulted him into the big time, thanks in large part to one infectious little number. "I was totally shocked by the 'Let Me Love You' craze!" Phoenix claims. "I really was! It took me totally by surprise. I wrote that song with my roommate and I never thought anyone would ever hear it but us. I thought it was the goofiest, stupidest, most senseless song ever. And my producer, Dan, God rest him, just loved it. He absolutely loved that song. He laughed so hard at it. And he made me play it for Joel and Joel loved it too and they forced me to put it on the album. I really didn’t think it would fly because it’s so strange. It doesn’t have any real point. It just sounds like the psychotic ramblings of a mental patient. I’m serious! But for some reason, everyone just went nuts over it."

Awards, accolades and more marriage proposals followed. Phoenix's third album, Through My Eyes continued in the power pop vein, producing audience favorites such as "For the Sake of My Love," "Shine" and the aforementioned "Kristen Nicole." Fans expected more of the same when 1987's Line of Love released and...well, they were in for a pretty big surprise. "'Line of Love' is so far removed from 'Through My Eyes' it even surprised me somewhat," Phoenix admits. "When I was writing the songs, I was going through a pretty depressing time and I think that really showed in the lyrics. This wasn't happy music. It wasn't a happy record. And I think a lot of people questioned my judgment with it."

Despite the blatant departure from the light and happy keyboard pop that had made Phoenix famous, Line of Love still scored favorably with audiences, just not with critics. "They weren't exactly thrilled with it," Phoenix recalls. "One even said it was a mistake. And you know, I'll be the first one to admit that maybe it was. But it was a mistake I sort of needed to make, ya know? Does that make sense? I needed to make this record, because..." He pauses. "I'm not really sure how to say this. Um, I needed to make Line of Love because it was real. It wasn't some label manufactured crap full of cutesy little lyrics and hooks. This was the real deal. Now, I'm not saying my previous records were label manufactured crap, but the higher ups had a pretty big influence over what ended up out there. With Line of Love, I had more freedom to just sing about what I wanted to sing about. It was a pretty big chance for them to take, when you think about it."

Still riding the wave of success from Line of Love, Phoenix is cagey about when a follow-up will be released. "I know it sounds terrible, but I'm not in a hurry. There will be another record, it just might not be for another ten years. Seriously, I can't tell you when it will be, but I can say this: it's coming."

In the meantime, you can catch Phoenix on the Solitude reunion tour, BLT, until February of 1990.