The prog-rock band Phil Collins always wanted to be like: “That’s something I could do”
The prog rock world was a virtual smorgasbord for artists like Phil Collins.
He had already been through the era of blues bands and had studied all the biggest names in jazz drumming when he first started playing with Genesis, but if they didn’t have to rely on radio-friendly tunes, the idea of expanding their songs into long jams with multiple sections was any professional musician’s dream. This was the genre where everyone could show their stuff, but Collins had a very specific vision for where he wanted to go.
When Collins first got the call to be in Genesis, though, it wasn’t exactly what he had expected, either. He had been used to playing in his own bands like Flaming Youth, but when he saw the possibilities that he had with Peter Gabriel at the helm, the next decade of his career was about to look a lot different.
Nursery Cryme may have been a breeding ground for them discovering their sound, but a lot of the twists and turns of their 1970s albums relied on them taking bold new choices whenever they walked into the studio. Selling England by the Pound was among the most savage records they had ever made at the time, and even if not every piece of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway made the most sense, it was home to Collins’s most electrifying performances on record.
Some of that may have come from him wanting to showcase his drumming, but there might have been a healthy sense of competition there as well. The ethos of prog is about showcasing the most advanced musicians of the time, and while they fit right at home with acts like Emerson, Lake and Palmer and King Crimson, Collins was chasing after the kind of sounds that he heard out of bands like Yes.
Although Bill Bruford played drums in a much different way than Collins did on records like Close to the Edge, the first version of the group was a much different beast. King Crimson may have been trying to actively melt people’s brains when they started making their classics, but from their first record onward, their mission to put large arrangements around pop tunes was a breath of fresh air, especially when their cover of The Beatles’ ‘Every Little Thing’ includes a subtle nod to ‘Day Tripper’.
And while Collins did eventually blend the worlds of prog rock and pop, he realised that there was a lot to learn from what Yes was doing, saying, “I was very into the first line-up of Yes – the one with [guitarist] Peter Banks. I remember listening to them and loving the way they took other people’s songs – ‘Something’s Coming’, ‘Every Little Thing’ – and did something different with them. I thought, ‘That’s something I could do,’ so I brought that influence into Genesis.”
Even if Collins acted as more of a technician compared to behind the kit, it’s not like he couldn’t find time to show a few of Bill Bruford’s chops when he wanted to. Genesis may not have been known to play a bunch of covers or anything, but once Gabriel left, hearing Collins take the reins on A Trick of the Tail led to a lot more detours to go down like Yes did on records like The Yes Album.
Granted, playing around with covers might have been what led to Collins doing his own version of ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ later down the line, but it’s hard to blame that all on Yes. Whereas Collins was an avid lover of all forms of pop music, Yes was never afraid to take a truly wild idea and run with it.
