Forty-year-old John Phillips, of West Pittston, runs several businesses and is laser focused on consistantly evolving.
Tony Callaio | For Sunday Dispatch
Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Shown seated at his office desk, John Phillips, has remained busy during the pandemic. He and his partners will be launching a root beer soda product this spring.
Tony Callaio | For Sunday Dispatch
John Phillips, owner of 900 Management and MCR Design Group, stands in his huge wearhouse filled with hundreds of chairs, tables, and bins of items ready to be rented out for any special event.
Tony Callaio | For Sunday Dispatch
MCR Design Group is prepared with any design accessory for any special event. Owner John Phillips is shown placing one of many dozens of lanterns for rent.
Tony Callaio | For Sunday Dispatch
MCR has an large variety of linens for rent to customize any party or special event.
Tony Callaio | For Sunday Dispatch
WEST PITTSTON – John Phillips, at the age of 40, has led a very interesting life.
He’s been an entertainer, a tour manager, an event planner and other ventures; to top it off, he is about to launch a soft drink.
Phillips, who lives in West Pittston with his fiancé Janelle and two young sons, has always been involved in the entertainment world starting when he was a 19-year-old musician with the local popular cover band UUU, which he performed with for 13 years, and other bands along the way.
By the time he was 31, he decided he was no longer interested in standing on a stage to perform, but soon after, he made his way from center stage to back stage.
“I was playing 250 shows a year and I got tired of it,” Phillips said. “I woke up one day and I said, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’ I wanted to do something else; I think that was the ultimate driving force behind it.”
Eventually his career morphed from a front man of a successful band to the main man managing touring bands. It all started when Wilkes-Barre’s Breaking Benjamin was looking to promote a one-off show after a six-year layoff. With the success of that show, he was asked to do a national tour with the band.
Phillips admitted that making things happen behind the stage as a tour manager was a lot more fun than being on a stage.
“Creation exists in both on the stage and being off the stage,” Phillips explained. “Bands just don’t show up to an area. There’s a lot of work that goes into creating the experience of a band. The production managers that go in and have a vision on what they want on the stage. It’s a process.”
The birth of 900 Management
After hanging up his guitar and acting as tour manager, 900 Management was born.
“I like change, change is good because change helps you grow,” Phillips explained. “I’m a big risk taker too and I always have been. I’ve taken my lumps and I’ve taken my wins and the thing about change is that it brought me knowledge and it brought me experience, and all of those things combined together has helped me move forward.”
Phillips’ company will handle a band’s marketing, music marketing, tour logistics, as well as artist development through branding, radio, video, digital strategies and networking.
In addition, Phillips’ company will take care of financing and accounting, equipment, crew and personnel, shipping and storage, transportation and travel. It is very detailed and at times, complex work.
900 Management has been involved managing band tours from clubs to theaters to stadiums and festivals.
Just before the COVID-19, Phillips traveled the USA as a tour manager for Snoop Dogg, which included a stop at the Mohegan Pocono Arena at the Casey Plaza.
He’s managed tours for artists like Public Enemy, Ice-T and Body Count and Breaking Benjamin.
As a tour manager, he’s traveled the world with stops in Europe, Russia, Japan, Canada and just about every major city in the USA.
“During one tour, I was bouncing in between counties and time zones for a week, I was losing my mind,” Phillips said. “When you get into time zones like that, you’re just sitting there thinking, where the hell am I, it’s just crazy.”
In addition, Phillips manages two music acts, Another Day Dawns and Eternal Frequency.
Phillips feels Another Day Dawn, based out of Leighton is on the verge of going national while Eternal Frequency, from Lititz, is ready to breakout.
MCR Design Group
“MCR has been my main business now for 10 years which specializes in being a hybrid production, rental and event design company,” Phillips said. “It’s technically a multitude of businesses inside of it that acts like an enterprise.”
MCR is pipe and draping company, linen supplier, floral company, production company and a rental company, making Phillips feel MCR is a unique and self-contained company allowing it to be diversified.
They specialize in event production, rentals, design, wedding and event coordination.
If you need a photo booth, furniture, photography, linens and lighting for an event, MCR is your one-stop shopping center.
“Normally in the industry you would have to go and source a variety of different people to get all of those things,” Phillips said. “I’m not aware of any other businesses that operate the way that we do.”
When he isn’t available, Phillips relies heavily on his Vice President Brian Daubert.
“He runs the company, and I made him more the face of the company,” Phillips said. “I want it to be that way because I did not want to be the face of the company. It’s good for me to be the representative and the owner of the company, but I didn’t want to be in the trenches all the time.”
Next venture
Always looking to branch out and diversify, Phillips did an about face and is about to embark on producing a soft drink, and he’s very excited about the future.
“I’ve started my own root beer brand, and I’ve partnered up with Aaron Bruch (Breaking Benjamin) and Josh Balz (The Strange and Unusual Oddities Parlor),” Phillips said. “We’ve been meeting with Susquehanna Brewing Company that’s going to white label product for us.”
The non-alcoholic soda will have three flavors: root beer, birch beer, and butterscotch root beer. Phillips is targeting March for the release.
“I want it to be versatile. I want this product to appeal to the kids, to adults, to the senior generation, to the tattoo artist, the musicians – it’s a great product,” Phillips said. “It’s one of those products that you can almost attach a memory to it and that is really important to me.”
Why root beer?
“I wanted to do these products, and we wanted to use this product for events like a root beer float party or a root beer float mobile,” Phillips explained. “We are selling a great experience and product that I feel will build memories and great customer relations with the brand.”
Phillips is excited to be working with Susquehanna Brewing Company.
“Susquehanna Brewing has never done a soda, so they are pumped that they are doing it and they just weren’t pumped with the fact they were doing it, they were pumped with the fact with who was involved and the reach it has,” Phillips said. “They are excited about doing great target marketing.”
Typical day
With all that goes on in Phillips life, he puts in a long day.
“I work until 12:30 – 1 (a.m.) most of the time and wake up at 6:30 (a.m.), get up and sip on my coffee, watch CNBC and see what’s going on with the market, then work out in my living room,” Phillips explained. “I get to work and figure out what I’m going to do for the day.”
Phillips admits he’s not one that can stop, always with a million things going on inside his head.
“I can’t relax, I don’t know that lifestyle and when I’m on vacation, I still work,” Phillips said. “I feel like I have so much time and I don’t want to miss out on stuff.”
Family time is very important since the birth of his two sons and finds every spare moment to be with them.
“Having children has opened up my eyes to a lot of things,” Phillips said. “My kids are my biggest accomplishment of my life, my biggest creation I have and nothing will supersede them.”
When asked when he thinks he will slow down, “It will all come to stop at one point – maybe when I’m 80.”