Philip Hawkins is a songwriter and composer based in the Scottish Borders. He comes from a musical family with both his father and grandfather being accomplished violinists, his mother a pianist and his great uncle, Bill Wyman, one of the founder members of The Rolling Stones.

Philip began playing guitar in his early teens. He formed his first band with a couple of friends calling themselves “Free Beer” in the hope that their posters advertising “Free Beer at Walworth Castle 8pm Saturday” would generate a good crowd! Whilst primarily playing covers Philip also began writing original songs, too, which were well received at Free Beer gigs and would later encourage him to write on a commercial basis. 

Philip’s music is predominantly rock, pop, blues based although many of his instrumental tracks can be described as easy listening. As was the case with his great uncle Bill Wyman, one of Philip’s earliest influences was Buddy Holly who had a profound effect upon The Rolling Stones, Beatles and many others. He quickly became an admirer of Mark Knopfler, Dave Gilmour, Eric Clapton and other great guitarists who helped shape Philip’s own guitar tone. Philip also has a great sense of humour which often comes out in some of his songs (take a listen to “All the Crazy Loons” which made it through to the semi-finals of the UK Songwriting contest) which also gives him a well balanced and positive view of life.

Philip is happy to work on a single song publishing deal basis and has contracts for several songs with Kite Music, Cringe Music Publishing/Red Admiral Records, Digimix Music/Panama Music, Washington Street Publishing, KWS Blank Canvas Music and Big Hug Music Group. He regularly enters some of the worlds biggest songwriting competitions to gauge the standard of his current writing within the music industry (particularly if the prizes are good!) and is regularly achieving Highly Commended, Commended, and Honourable Mention awards. He writes both vocal tracks and composes guitar based instrumental music. As a composer, Philip’s instrumentals are relaxing, atmospheric, and with great ambience. His songwriting tracks range from moody ballads to up-tempo comedic rock. 

Together with his song writing Philip is filming and producing music videos for his growing youtube channel which is currently closing in on 100,000 subscribers! His evocative video for the song “Betrayed” narrowly missed out making the finals of this years BRITS Songwriters Contest Music Video category, whilst his signature video, “White Smoke”, a hybrid of his song writing and instrumental composing, recently passed 100,000 views and 2,000 ‘likes’ after being featured on SongDoor TV.  

Current featured tracks

Featured Instrumentals

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Featured music video

Philip Hawkins | 07850 969036 | Email: philiphawkins4@gmail.com