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 mid 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 an hilarious 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.

Pitching his original songs began in the early noughties where Philip obtained single song publishing deals with Kite Music, Cringe Music Publishing/Red Admiral Records, Digimix Music and KWS Blank Canvas Music. 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. 

Currently he is working on producing music videos for his growing youtube channel. His inventive music video for the song “Meemee’s Mother”, starring a tongue in cheek lego character as the notorious Meemee, narrowly missed out making the finals of the Music Video category in the 2021 UK Songwriters contest whilst his signature video, “White Smoke”, a hybrid of his song writing and instrumental composing, recently passed 65,000 views and 1,369 ‘likes’ after being featured on SongDoor TV.  

Current featured tracks

Featured Instrumentals

Press photos

Featured music video

Recent Awards

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