The band Phil Collins said framed his life: “Those songs still baffle me”
No artist gets their inspiration all from one place. There might be some genres that they cater to more than others, but outside of artists like Greta Van Fleet being a carbon copy of Led Zeppelin, most musicians want to take all of their influences and incorporate them into some kind of musical stew until they actually start sounding like something original. Even though it was hard to mistake Genesis for anyone else, when Peter Gabriel was out front, Phil Collins admitted that he knew what he wanted to do the minute that he heard Ringo Starr playing drums.
But for every technical drummer, there are usually some eye-rolls when it comes to Starr’s playing. Regardless of how many classic Beatles tracks he played on, there are still some connoisseurs of progressive rock that frankly don’t get what made him so special as one of the Fab Four.
It’s not like they don’t have good reason to think that way, either. Starr was admittedly the least ambitious as a solo artist, and even when he was singing live during their early days, he was more than happy to talk himself up as the least talented member of the group and the one least likely to win any singing competitions.
What he may have lacked in singing prowess, though, he made up for in being the master translator of the group’s songs. Not every one of the Fab Four’s classics was necessarily easy to arrange, so by keeping his phrasing incredibly simple and never grandstanding, Starr found a way to inhabit the tune and play precisely what was needed whenever his bandmates counted everything off.
And as a kid, Collins had a front-row seat to all of the best moments of Starr’s playing. Before he had joined Genesis or even picked up a drum, he had been one of the extras in A Hard Day’s Night, and no matter how old you are, seeing The Beatles playing and watching an audience collectively lose their minds is going to stick with you.
Beyond just their knowledge of harmony, Collins found his life’s goal by watching Starr pound away on the drums, saying, “It’s difficult to explain to anybody what it was like back then. It framed my life, and those songs still baffle me and impress me to this day. I’ve been a staunch supporter of Ringo, while many other people don’t see the fuss. What Ringo did [was] he brought drums out from the back and made people listen to them.”
Despite Genesis’s drums going off the handle more than a few times, Collins also found a way to give himself a voice behind the kit. Anyone could just practice enough to put on a musical extravaganza, but hearing him dial things back and then come storming in on his solo hit ‘In the Air Tonight’ comes from listening to what Starr did on tracks like ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.
More than anything, Starr’s greatest lesson for drummers was being able to listen to the group around you. There are a lot of moving parts in any major rock band, so working off of one’s bandmates rather than just hearing what they’re playing is what separates the great artists from those still bashing away in bar bands.
