The career decision Phil Collins described as the “nail in the coffin”
Even as a child, Phil Collins seemed destined for greatness. He made his first move towards showbusiness fame as a child actor, his notable role being that of the Artful Dodger on the West End. Intriguingly, he also had his first brush with The Beatles, his favourite band, in 1994, with an uncredited role in A Hard Day’s Night. When Collins’ voice broke, he became unsuitable for the Artful Dodger and made moves towards a career in rock music.
After playing with a few formative bands and ultimately contributing unused drum tracks to George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass sessions, Collins joined the prog-rock group Genesis. Working alongside creative dynamo Peter Gabriel, Collins provided beats to underpin the band’s colourful and complex material, which seemed to pick up where The Beatles left off in their psychedelic masterpiece album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Throughout the 1970s, Genesis gradually migrated from its roots in esoteric prog rock, especially after Gabriel’s departure in 1975 and guitarist Steve Hackett’s a couple of years later. As a trio, Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks maintained a reputation for complex composition but inched ever closer to radio-friendly soundscapes.
Collins became the bandleader and lead vocalist in the late 1970s and began to satiate his taste for soul and contemporary pop music. His prolific creativity soon boiled over into a highly successful solo career, which, after Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going!, buoyed him to stratospheric levels of fame and popularity. This new side of Collins pervaded the late Genesis albums Invisible Touch and We Can’t Dance.
Despite his popularity throughout the 1980s and beyond, Collins had mixed feelings. Speaking to The Guardian in 2016, Collins said he was never hugely self-assured and took any criticism to heart. As a radio-friendly pop artist, Collins began to receive flack from peers who accused him of selling out. David Bowie, who embraced a similar pop sound – but with much less commercial success – in the 1980s, retrospectively chided himself, calling the period his “Phil Collins years”.
Collins felt increasingly uncomfortable with his image as internal conflicts played out. “I felt like that was me. I wanted to be written out of my own script,” he said. “There were too many things stuck to me that I couldn’t get rid of.” Supposedly, the star yearned for the days when he was respected as the virtuosic drummer of Genesis rather than the pop star rivalling Michael Jackson’s chart success.
While Collins was sensible and strong-willed enough not to turn to drink and drugs, he laments that he never lived in the moment. “I never really stopped and smelled the roses,” he mused. “I’ve always been snowploughing my way forward while things happened behind me. People throwing money in a bucket.”
Following the success of his first two solo albums, Collins understood the risks of continuing in his new direction. “Surely this can’t go on. Isn’t there some mistake?” he recalled thinking. “But no, it kept going.” Though many of his fans would disagree, Collins felt his nadir came in 1985, the year of Bob Geldof’s Live Aid. At the suggestion of tour promoter Harvey Goldsmith, Collins performed at the Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia. “That was the nail in the coffin,” he said. “Not only do I play it once, but I play it twice. Fucking show-off.”
Collins has several regrets about Live Aid, among which was his disastrous performance with Led Zeppelin. The band decided to reform without their late drummer, John Bonham. Collins was elated to be able to take the seat of one of his heroes but failed to deliver on the day. Playing alongside co-drummer Tony Thompson, Collins recalled feeling like a spare part and wasn’t well versed in much of the material. Sadly, to this day, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant regret the lacklustre reunion and partly blame Collins for the outcome.
Speaking to The Guardian, Collins revealed that he is “riddled with insecurity” and took the criticism very hard. Although he continued to record with Genesis and as a solo artist into the 1990s, Collins became increasingly disillusioned with his music career. In 2000, Collins suffered a period of hearing damage due to a viral infection. Counterintuitively, he embraced the ailment as a chance to take a step back from his musical exploits. “In a way, I felt like I was a slave to the thing,” he said. “This was like: ‘Sorry man, I can’t do it.’ That’s God saying: ‘Time to stop’.”
Though Collins remained active until his retirement announcement in 2011, his reclusion exacerbated a long-harboured lack of self-esteem. “I just wanted to get off the roundabout,” he said regarding retirement. “I had had enough, frankly”.
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