"I'm a very musical type of guy," he told Radio.com. "I'm not a singer. I'm a guitar player first." That's why on his sophomore album Behind the Light, Phillips lets his band take the lead.

In an interview with Radio.com, Phillips said that his latest album is a little more on the rock side. "It has a very band feel," he said, "which I like because I don't like being the center of attention�I let those guys shine and put their own personalities in the song."

Phillips wrote or co-wrote all of the 12 tracks on the record and says it shows a lot of growth on his and his band's part. The song "Thicket" began as a daily warmup exercise for Phillips, but ended up becoming the album's most haunting track thanks to his cellist Dave Egger. "He came up with a cool string part. I wanted to slap him because it's so good," Phillips explained. "That song, it's about how you can see something, but you're not really looking at the whole picture. You're just looking at the most obvious thing instead of looking at what's deeper in the painting."