Day Wave is the solo project of Jackson Phillips. Hailing from Oakland, California, he attended Berklee College of Music, attempted to get into jazz drumming, electro-pop, and simply fitting into the mainstream music scene back in his hometown – all of which he says he gave up on. Overtime, he began to write music, with his inspiration ranging from New Order and Joy Division, and “a combination of that style of music with some of the more ‘60s pop like The Beach Boys.”

His music began to surface onto Soundcloud tagged as indie rock and pop, with “Drag” becoming a listener favorite. He received early radio love—Sirius XM playlisted “We Try But We Don’t Fit In,” and Zane Lowe spun it on Apple Music’s Beats 1 Radio, after which Blink-182’s Mark Hoppus sent approval of his own to Phillips through Twitter.

Phillips remained unsigned for several years because he wanted to “find the right label that will really get what I’m going for.” He was the first international artist signed to Australian Label I Oh You Forever in late 2015, through which he dropped two singles.

Day Wave dropped his second EP Hard to Read in March of 2016. Later that year, he was swept up by Harvest Records, a label belonging to Capitol Music Group. In 2017, his debut album The Days We Had dropped.