Tell most people you're writing about Sam Phillips and they'll say any number of things.
Like "You mean the head of Sun Records who worked with Elvis Presley? Or "Sam who?"
Everything but, "Oh, you mean that really cool-sounding blonde singer-songwriter who began as a contemporary Christian artist (when she went by her real name, Leslie), wound up marrying her long-time producer, T Bone Burnett (she calls him by his given middle name, Henry), and appeared as the scary but sexy mute German terrorist girlfriend of Jeremy Irons in Die Hard With A Vengeance?"
Okay, so maybe knowing all of Phillips' biographical information is a stretch even for music aficiandos. Still, it's a good thing that Phillips -- whose latest album, Omnipop, hit record stores this week -- doesn't care if she ever crosses over into the mainstream.
"I'm not interested at all in celebrity," says the L.A.-born Phillips, 34, during a recent interview in Toronto.
SONG CO-WRITTEN WITH R.E.M. PALS
"I don't think being famous makes you interesting. If you're interesting, it doesn't matter what you do. I think if you're a writer, if you're a real artist, as opposed to a pop star, I think you can probably go on for a long, long time."
Attention is being paid to Omnipop's consumer-friendly track, Slapstick Heart, which Phillips co-wrote with her pals from supergroup R.E.M.
"They're great. I mean (guitarist) Peter Buck, for instance, when he came to play on (1994's) Martinis And Bikinis, he worked really hard on these parts, played for five or six hours, and then took us out for dinner. So I was like, 'You can play on my record any time.' "
Phillips actually wrote the lyrics and changed the melody to a soundtrack instrumental provided to her by R.E.M., while she was making the Die Hard sequel.
"They were so busy blowing things up and running around that they didn't really have time to develop my character, but that's okay," she says of her first film-making experience. "I just said, 'Hi. I don't know anything. I could use all the help you could give me.' And they were all so sweet and very, very generous."
The closet thing Phillips -- who doesn't want to pursue acting, despite offers -- has come to success as a singer was Martinis And Bikinis. And even then it sold only 100,000 copies.
Omnipop, which Phillips subtitled It's Only A Fleshwound Lampchop, might well destroy her cherished anonymity with its funny, intelligent, stylized pop songs, including the first single Zero! Zero! Zero! -- crisply produced by Burnett (Los Lobos, Counting Crows, Bruce Cockburn, Elvis Costello).
"This is my little model of what I'd like to see take over the music business," says Phillips. "A lot of diverse musical styles and weird little ideas and bits of information sort of all stuck together."
Phillips, who was named Rolling Stone's Best Female Artist of 1994, clearly has more in common with the moody cabaret stylings of British chaunteuse P.J. Harvey than the edgy, confessional pop of Alanis Morissette.
One is respected, the other sells millions, but you'd be surprised which category Phillips would rather be in.
"I'd like to just say I'm from Canada because it seems to be working for every female singer in the states," she says with a laugh, pointing to Morissette, Celine Dion and Shania Twain.
"I'm trying to get Bruce Cockburn to adopt me."