The group Phil Collins once called “a band of egos”
Every band has the danger of turning ugly from the minute they become famous. There might be room for people to flex their muscles when they are starting out, but once the money starts rolling in and people start knowing the words to the songs or the one iconic riff in the middle of a tune, it’s only a matter of time before people start thinking they are the most important member of the group. And while Phil Collins was dangerously close to becoming too omnipresent in people’s lives, he knew his limits when it came to jamming among friends.
Then again, anyone in Collins’s position could become more than a little bit arrogant. There are moments where he might have shown his tendency of being a touch goofy on his records, but no one in the rock industry who jammed with George Harrison, played with Led Zeppelin, had a stellar solo career, and played in Genesis is going to have the smallest head on their shoulders when being asked about their influence.
At the same time, Collins was known to be very unassuming about his role in his band. He was the one most hesitant to take the mic when Peter Gabriel left, and even when going through his long string of hits in the 1980s, there came a point where he was almost half-heartedly apologetic for being such a massive force in the pop industry half the time.
If he had his way, though, a lot of his pop songs would have been balanced out when working in his fusion acts. Brand X had already started him working in different time signatures, and when listening back to some of their greatest moments with Percy Jones guiding everything, Collins could always use this album to show audiences when they thought he was nothing but lightweight pop fluff.
Whereas Brand X brought different elements of fusion to the UK, Weather Report had already been doing the same thing across the Atlantic. Even though the band were far from the most functional outfit all the time, having someone like Jaco Pastorius in their ranks was always going to give them one notch above everyone else in terms of raw chops, with the bassist proving himself to be the equivalent of Jimi Hendrix on the four-string.
But even if Collins admitted to having a great time playing that style of music, he never saw a day where he would perform with Weather Report, saying, “I imagine it’s a band of egos now with Jaco Pastorius in it. I’m sure my illusions would be completely shattered by that, but it would be a great experience.”
If there was one person who had the right to toot their horn a little bit as a musician, though, it would probably be Pastorius. The most important thing might be for the drummer and bassist to lock in on any certain song, but listening to the way that Pastorius played songs like ‘Continuum’ in the past, there was no way that he was going to take orders from someone telling him how to play his instrument.
But no matter how much Collins may have liked to jam with Weather Report, time may have worked out exactly right for him. If anything, the fact that he managed to say no when offered up the chance to work in yet another band during the 1980s showed the audience that he at least understood what the word ‘restraint’ meant.
