PHANTOM PLANET FRONTMAN ALEX GREENWALD SHARES THE BIZARRE TALE OF HOW HE RECONNECTED WITH HIS LONG-LOST EPIPHONE
By Joe Matera
FAMED FOR HAVING Rushmore and Shopgirl actor Jason Schwartzman in their ranks, five-piece Phantom Planet were one of the standout indie pop-rock bands of the early 2000s. Together with Schwartzman’s Keith Moon-esque drumming and the group’s anthemic “California” — taken from their breakthrough 2002 album, The Guest — which became the theme song to popular TV teen drama The O.C., the band were poised for the big time. But just as they began to lift off, Schwartzman departed to take up acting full time.
“Jason leaving to pursue acting really made us have to restructure,” says Alex Greenwald, the band’s vocalist and rhythm guitarist. “Also, the music I was making after he left wasn’t as commercial as The Guest.”
The band soldiered on with a new drummer through two more albums before calling an indefinite hiatus in 2008. Despite undertaking a handful of low-key reunion shows in the early 2010s, it wasn’t until 2020 that the newly re-formed group — albeit without Schwartzman and original rhythm guitarist Jacques Brautbar — released 2020’s Devastator. The album showcased the band owning their past while simultaneously moving forward. With the recently re-issued and re-recorded 2023 version of “California,” the band is back to full-time duty.
“Two years ago, we started the process of re-recording the songs from The Guest,” Greenwald says. “I wanted to re-record the album in the same exact way we recorded the original, so we recorded at the same studio and used the same guitars.”
Now streamlined to just a two-guitar format with fellow six-stringer Darren Robinson, Greenwald’s plans to recapture the original’s sonic spirit almost got derailed when his $100 1998 Epiphone SG Junior (which was used on the original album) went missing in action for more than a decade.
“In 2005 I loaned the guitar to a musician friend,” he sa
