Phil Collins officially retired on 26 March 2022, following a 50-year career of touring and recording both solo and with Genesis. And in October 2022, Phil shared his story to his son Nic Collins, with a full camera crew in attendance.
New documentary Phil Collins: Drummer First is a fascinating and highly illuminating take on Collin’s life and career, put together with Nic Collins and released by Drumeo on their YouTube channel.
Collins Junior proves to be the perfect conduit for Collins senior’s story, being sufficiently trusted and familiar with his dad’s foibles to coax out all the details from a man who – frankly – as rock royalty and who has more than earned his accolades, could just say no.
Instead he – and countless musical contemporaries – tell a great story, packed with highlights and insight.
We learn about Collins’ career as a young actor and his first steps into music. “My dad particularly was very proud of me being in the West End in Oliver, which was a huge show, and I was the Artful Dodger,” he explains. “So he had bragging rights on that. And suddenly I was going to join a pop band. I decided that's what I wanted to do, and I became a ‘professional auditioner’. I just answered the back page of Melody Maker and when I went for auditions, the auditions were good, but I never seemed to get anything.
“Peter Gabriel said, as soon as he saw me sit down on a drum stool, he knew that I was the drummer, and I got a call to say I got the job. But all went slowly downhill from there,” he jokes.
We learn the secrets of his kick drumming as Nic sets up an old kit and has trouble even understanding its kick pedal. “I used to play two bass drums. But then I just use the Speed King pedal as well. They were pretty basic,” Collins explains.
“I remember I got a new DW 9000 double pedal and I was so excited about it,” says Nic. “I brought it to my dad, and he was like ‘Well, it's not a Speed King is it?’ It was my Dad, [John] Bonham. All those guys swear by it. “And you can tell if it’s an old one or a new one, because it gets played in, you know,” Collins explains. “And I love them.”
But what about the distinctive sound of Collins' concert toms? There are more secrets to be learned…
“My dad hated changing heads,” Nic explains. “That's part of the sound – when they were played in you get that sound. When it's a new head, you gotta break it in. [He hits a tom with a worn head] Yeah, that sounds like they're supposed to. Brad Marsh, the drum tech. would sit there before he would show up for sound check, and be stepping on them and hitting them for two hours to make sure they were played in for him.”
Likewise Collins reveals an aversion for tuning drums: “That's the In The Air sound. The top two concert toms were Pearl. I remember that the rest were Premiere.” “You didn't have to tune them. You just hit him harder?” asks Nic. “Yeah, I beat them into submission,” confesses Collins.
Solo superstardom
But before solo success there was the small matter of taking the step from behind the kit to the front of the stage – a journey Collins didn’t plan on making. But when Peter Gabriel unexpectedly quit Genesis they were forced to make big changes.
“We were halfway through a tour of America, [Gabriel] told our manager, and I think Tony Banks got wind of it. From then on, we knew that Pete could leave at any time, but we had a 150-show tour to do.”
And that – incredibly – could have meant continuing without a vocalist: “I was the one that said, when Peter left, ‘Right, let's do it instrumentally,” says Collins. “And everybody jeered and told me to shut up and get back in my box. But, you know, I can see they were right.
“It was not in my mind to become the singer. But nobody else wanted the job. We had a long search for a singer that didn't amount to much. I used to sing all the songs at the auditions, to the guys that were coming to audition. And I started to, in general, sound a bit better than they did…”
“From the first show, the fans loved him because he was part of the band already. It wasn't like a new guy had to come in and had to win over the crowd,” explains Nic.
“Yeah, my excuse was my voice has always been there in the background, whether it's backing vocals or the odd lead vocal here and there,” admits Collins.
“The first gig I did as a singer was in London, Ontario, and I went on, and I didn't let go of the mic stand. That became my drum kit. It's kind of very eerie. I always missed being behind the drums, you know? I thought I was better at that than I was singing, so I missed it.”
Collins was soon writing and demoing his own songs with his lead vocals at the forefront, but still needed one more confidence boost. “I remember very distinctly that Ahmet Ertegun [co-founder and president of Atlantic Records] was in London, and he and I always got along great,” Collins explains.
“So I went up to his house and we had a couple of drinks, and I said, ‘I got a cassette here, if you want to hear it.’ He said, ‘I'd love to hear it’. So I put it on, and they were just my demos, you know. And he said, ‘Whatever you do with this, I want to be involved’, which gave me the kind of confidence I needed. So I went home quite full of myself.”
But what about the origin of Collin’s unique drum sound and – gulp – that drum fill?
“We were at the Townhouse which had this live room. I'd done three or four tracks with Peter [Gabriel] and realized that if you put the microphones in the corners and compressed them, it sounded fantastic. And he said, ‘What is that?’ I said, ‘Nothing. I'm just playing with the sound’. And he said, ‘Give me that for 10 minutes’. So I played that, no deviations, no fills, and that became The Intruder. And I said to him, ‘Can I have a copy of that drum loop?’ He wasn't too happy. But I just wanted to remember the sound.
“So by the time me and [producer] Hugh Padgham had gone in to do my tracks, In The Air, came up on the list and there was no drum fill,” Collins explains. “The fallacy about the In The Air fill is that it was all carefully thought out. But that's just the fill that I did on that particular take on that particular day.
“I mean, I must have done four or five different fills while Hugh did his finesseing. And that was that. I went in to listen to it. We all agreed we didn't have to do it again. Yeah, it changed my life.”
In The Air Tonight was to become Collins’ signature song and a key component of his live performances, always given a special presentation.
One such elaborate tour trick involved a solo Collins on stage beginning the song alone, emoting to an audience whose attention is piqued by the complete absence of a kit on stage. Then, with that fill looming large, a drum kit would magically rise up out of the stage and Phil would batter the hell out of them with seconds to spare. “And the place would go insane.”
However things didn’t always go to plan. “It was the ‘96, ‘97 Dance Into The Light tour,” Collins says. “I used to walk around the stage, but I was walking around, and didn't see the usual lights coming up. And I thought that's weird… And there was no drum kit…
“It was on a lift, but it was still on the floor inside this hole in the middle of the stage, and I didn't know what to do… So I jumped into the hole and I played the fill, and sang… And none of the audience could see me!
“At the end, I came out of the hole, and explained to the audience what had happened.”
Collins today is, of course, in retirement and it’s apparent that ill health has drawn his musical career to a close prematurely.
“It’s still kind of sinking in a bit,” he admits. “You know, I'm 71. I've spent all my life playing drums, to suddenly not be able to do that is a shock. The drumming has taken its toll on my hands, legs.
“If I can't do what I did as well as I did it, I'd rather relax and not do anything. If I wake up one day and I can hold a pair of drumsticks then I will have a crack at it. But just, you know, I just feel like I've used up my air miles.”
Perhaps, bassist and regular band member Leland Sklar sums up the end to this story best: “If you were walking down the street and met Phil, and he had no idea who he is, and you got into a conversation and you said to him, so what do you do? He would say, ‘I'm a drummer’ before anything else.
“Man, he is a happy camper sitting back there. And that's also one of the real heartbreaks, the fact that he lost that.”
Phil Collins: Drummer First is available to watch on YouTube now.
