The Arizona Daily Star
Interview with

Ricky Lee Phelps

Priorities change for former H

Southern rocker and country singer Ricky Lee Phelps has no designs on stardom.  Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.  

"You know what a star is, don'tcha?" he asks in a soft Southern hue. "A great big ball of hot gas. I done been that route. I got music to make. . . . I'm not looking to be a great big huge ball of gas."  

Phelps made a minor name for himself in the late 1980s and early '90s as lead singer of the Kentucky Headhunters, a countrified Southern rock outfit. But he bowed out of the band in 1992 to pursue music with his band mate and brother, Doug. It was a short-lived union that ended when his brother returned to the Headhunters in '96. 

Phelps could have returned as well. But he decided that it was time to take a break from music. He had been playing since he was a kid growing up in Kentucky and spent 10 years tooling around Tucson's nightclubs before joining the Headhunters.  

"I just kind of ducked out of the scene for a while. A little bit of simplicity is a wonderful thing," he said from home in Florida last month as he prepared to come

back to Arizona for next week's four-day Country Thunder USA country music festival in Florence.  

Phelps is on the final-day lineup, just after Arizona faves Mogollon and just before Texas crooner Pat Green.  

His return to music follows seven years of lying low in the shadows of his early successes.  

While his brother and the Headhunters continued building a devout following of country and rock fans, Phelps took up preaching. The son of a preacher man became a preacher himself, finding solace passing along his faith and watching his adopted son, Eli, grow up.  

Phelps adopted the boy soon after his birth seven years ago and decided he didn't want to watch him grow up in between grueling cross-country tours.

"I saw him and I thought, I want to be a big part of his life," the 49-year-old Phelps said.

"That business, it demands your worship. I realized I was not going to do that. I worship a Creator way bigger than it."  

Ricky Lee Phelps

Phelps has continued writing music and is signed to Tucson-based indy Crossfire Records. His music these days is flavored with contemporary Christian pop done in a subtle, non-preachy way, he quickly notes. "I think it's cool. That's about as objective as I can get," he says.

 His Country Thunder gig is one of a handful that is getting him back in front of an audience. I love being on stage," Phelps says. "I just love being up there, messing with the crowd, having a good time. I just like to play my music.

 "I've never been so at peace with what I'm doing."