The two singers Phil Collins had to hide his love of from his Genesis bandmates: “That door has always been locked”
Unlike a lot of people, I’m not afraid to hold my hand up and admit when I’m a fan of something that others might consider to be embarrassing. You’ll usually only ever get a die-hard fan of Genesis to admit they’re into the band, but beyond that, it’s kept a secret to save face.
Sure, it’s not going to earn you many cool points to admit that you like the English prog rockers, especially when you start talking about the Phil Collins era, which tends not to receive as much acclaim as the material recorded when Peter Gabriel was fronting the band. But, if you’re happy to admit that they were capable of writing adventurous material that pushed the boundaries of prog, then I’m not going to be the one to raise an eyebrow at this.
If you said you were into Collins’ solo material, maybe I’d think twice about my reaction. It would be considerably more embarrassing to be caught listening to his solo work when I’m out and about, and I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I think of myself as a fan of said work either. No judgement to anyone who does, but that’s not my bag personally.
But regardless of what you think of Genesis or Phil Collins, the fact remains that some people are always keen to cover up certain aspects of their taste as a way of keeping their carefully-curated taste profile in pristine condition, rather than tarnishing it with something that the rest of your peers will think less of you for admitting to liking.
Believe it or not, Collins has found himself having to do this at various points in his career, but none more so than when he first joined the lineup of Genesis as a teenager.
You’d think that being a progressive rock band, there would be a relatively open and accepting approach to judging the tastes of your bandmates, given how the very nature of prog rock takes from various different styles and genres in order to create this chimerical sonic palette.
However, during a 2010 interview with PBS News, he admitted that there were certain elements of his tastes that he had to keep quiet, largely due to how they appeared to be so far removed from the directions that the rest of the band wanted to take.
“When I was 19, I joined Genesis, and although everybody in the band were closet kind of Otis Redding, Nina Simone fans, it’s not what the band did,” Collins recalled. “I joined Genesis because it was a job and I wanted to play and I wanted to work. Eventually, I put some of my natural musical influences, like some of the soul things that I’d grown up with. Generally speaking it became something else. So since the age of 19, that door has always been locked in a way.”
While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of professing your love for Nina Simone or Otis Redding, the fact that Genesis took themselves so seriously as a rock band meant that there was limited space for Collins to express this deep-rooted infatuation with jazz and soul artists of this ilk. He evidently enjoyed his time with Genesis, nonetheless, but you can imagine the relief that came with having the freedom to openly revisit these influences in his solo career without any pushback.
