Philip Adrian Booth, the British-Canadian filmmaker and musician who, with his twin brother Christopher, unwittingly became the answer to one of the internet’s most enduring musical mysteries, has died at the age of 66. His brother announced his passing on Instagram on June 11, 2026, describing him as a beloved father, brother, uncle, partner, and true artist.
Born in Halifax, Yorkshire on February 19, 1960, Philip and his identical twin Christopher shared a creative life from the very beginning. The family moved to Canada in the 1970s, where the brothers first dipped into music alongside their older brother John. In a remarkable footnote to Canadian rock history, Christopher briefly replaced Bryan Adams as vocalist of the band Sweeney Todd, with Philip on guitar, though the brothers left before recording any music.
Relocating to Los Angeles in the 1980s, the twins formed the band Who’s Who?. Unable to land a record deal, they found an unconventional outlet for their songs, licensing their original recordings to adult films through an industry connection. One of those songs, written and recorded in the mid-1980s and featured in a 1986 film, would go on to live a strange and unexpected second life decades later.
That song became the heart of an internet phenomenon. In 2021, a 17-second clip surfaced on the song-identification site WatZatSong, and the online “lostwave” community, devoted to tracking down obscure and unidentified music, became consumed by the hunt. Known online as “Everyone Knows That,” the track baffled sleuths for years, its title and authorship a complete mystery. The search captivated thousands and drew coverage from The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and beyond. In April 2024, the mystery was finally solved: the song was “Ulterior Motives,” written by the Booth brothers. Suddenly, after nearly four decades, Philip and Christopher found themselves the subjects of viral fame, and they embraced it, releasing a wave of remastered “lost” albums and finally giving fans the full version of a song the world had only known in fragments.
Music was only half of the brothers’ creative output. Together they built a prolific career in independent horror and the paranormal through their company Spooked Productions. Philip directed and shaped numerous films, among them Droid, Death Tunnel, Dead Still, and their 2023 feature The Attached, working variously as director, cinematographer, editor, and writer. The pair specialized in ghost stories, haunted locations, and exorcism documentaries, including Spooked: The Ghosts of Waverly Hills Sanatorium and Children of the Grave, often collaborating closely as a creative unit.
In a poignant turn, the brothers had only recently brought their most famous story full circle. In 2026 they released Ulterior Motives: The Search Is Over, The Story Begins!, a documentary chronicling the very mystery that had made them, against all odds, internet legends late in life.
Philip Adrian Booth was 66.