Phil Collins

Biography

Philip David Charles Collins (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer, drummer, songwriter, record producer, and actor. He is best known as the drummer and later lead vocalist of the rock band Genesis, and for his highly successful career as a solo artist. Between 1982 and 1990, Collins achieved three UK and seven US number-one singles as a solo performer. His work with Genesis, his solo material, and collaborations with other prominent musicians resulted in more US top-40 singles than any other artist during the 1980s. Born and raised in West London, Collins began playing drums at age five and completed training at a professional drama school. As a child actor, he secured stage and film roles, most notably playing the Artful Dodger in the West End production of the musical Oliver!. He transitioned fully to a professional music career in 1970 upon joining Genesis as their drummer. Following the departure of original frontman Peter Gabriel in 1975, Collins assumed lead vocal duties for their most commercially successful era, spanning progressive rock into mainstream pop rock until his departure in 1996 to pursue solo projects. He returned for their reunion tours in 2007 and in 2021–2022, their final as a band. Concurrently, he performed as the drummer for the jazz fusion band Brand X (1975–1979) and formed the Phil Collins Big Band in 1996. Collins launched his solo career with the release of Face Value (1981), an album heavily influenced by his first marital breakdown and a deep affinity for soul music. This was followed by the multi-platinum albums Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982), No Jacket Required (1985), and ...But Seriously (1989), as well as international hit singles such as "In the Air Tonight", "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)", "Sussudio", and "Another Day in Paradise". He also became widely recognised for his distinctive "gated reverb" drum sound, which became part of 1980s pop and rock production. Following a five-year hiatus to focus on his family life, Collins returned in 2016 to release his memoir and completed the Not Dead Yet Tour. One of the world's best-selling music artists, Collins has sold an estimated 150 million records worldwide across his solo and group career. He is one of only three recording artists, along with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, to have sold over 100 million albums both as a solo entity and separately as a principal member of a band. His extensive accolades include eight Grammy Awards, six Brit Awards and Ivor Novello Awards, two Golden Globes, and an Academy Award for the music of Disney's Tarzan (1999). Ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time, he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2012. Collins was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010 and will be inducted as a solo artist in November 2026.

== Early life == Philip David Charles Collins was born on 30 January 1951 at Putney Hospital in the Metropolitan Borough of Wandsworth, County of London, England. His mother, June Winifred (née Strange, 1913–2011), worked in a toy shop and later as a theatrical agent at the Barbara Speake Stage School, an independent performing arts school, while his father, Greville Philip Austin Collins (1907–1972), was an insurance agent for London Assurance. Collins is the youngest of three children; his sister, Carole, competed as a professional ice skater and followed June's footsteps as a theatrical agent, while his brother, Clive, was a cartoonist. The family had moved twice by the time Collins reached the age of three, settling at 453 Hanworth Road in the Municipal Borough of Brentford and Chiswick. Collins was given a toy drum kit for Christmas at the age of five, and later, his two uncles made him a makeshift set with triangles and tambourines that fitted into a suitcase. These were followed by more complete sets bought by June and Greville as Collins grew older. Collins practised by playing along to music on the television and radio. During a family holiday at Butlin's, a seven-year-old Collins entered a talent contest, singing "The Ballad of Davy Crockett"; he stopped the orchestra halfway through to tell them they were in the wrong key. The Beatles were a major early influence on him, including their drummer Ringo Starr. Collins followed the lesser-known London band the Action, whose drummer, Roger Powell, he would copy and whose work introduced him to the soul music of Motown and Stax Records. Collins was also influenced by the jazz and big band drummer Buddy Rich, whose opinion on the importance of the hi-hat prompted him to stop using a second bass drum and start using the hi-hat. Collins received basic piano and music tuition from Greville's aunt at around the age of 12. Collins studied drum rudiments under Lloyd Ryan and later under Frank King, and considered this training "more helpful than anything else because they're used all the time. In any kind of funk or jazz drumming, the rudiments are always there." Collins never learned to read or write musical notation and devised his own system, which he regretted in later life. "I've always felt that if I could hum it, I could play it. For me, that was good enough, but that attitude is bad." Collins attended Nelson Primary School in Twickenham, Middlesex, until 1962, when he was accepted into Chiswick County Grammar School. There, Collins took to football and formed the Real Thing, a school band that had his future wife Andrea Bertorelli and friend Lavinia Lang as backup singers; both women would have an impact on Collins's personal life in later years. Collins's next group was the Freehold, with whom he wrote his first song, "Lying, Crying, Dying", and played in a group named the Charge. Collins was childhood friends with Jack Wild, who would become famous for playing the Artful Dodger in the musical drama film Oliver! (1968). June spotted Wild when he and Collins were playing football together in the park, and the boys both attended the Barbara Speake Stage School.

== Career ==

=== 1963–1970: Early acting roles and bands ===

Collins quit school at the age of 14 to become a full-time pupil at Barbara Speake. He had an uncredited part as an extra in the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night (1964), where he is among the screaming teenagers during the television concert sequence. Later in 1964, Collins was cast as the Artful Dodger in two West End runs of the musical Oliver! He was paid £15 a week, and called the role "the best part for a kid in all London". His days as the Dodger were numbered when his voice broke during a performance and had to speak his lines for the rest of the show. Collins starred in Calamity the Cow (1967), a film produced by the Children's Film Foundation. After a falling out with the director, Collins decided to quit acting to pursue music. He was to appear in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) as one of the children who storm the castle, but his scene was cut. Collins auditioned for the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (1968), but the role went to Leonard Whiting. In 1967, he travelled the UK teaching people the "crunch" dance made popular by a Smith's crisps advertising campaign. Collins's enthusiasm for music grew during his acting years. He frequented the Marquee Club on Wardour Street so often that eventually the managers asked him to set out the chairs, sweep the floors, and assist in the cloakroom. It was here where Collins saw the Action and newcomers Yes perform, which greatly influenced him. When auditions for Vinegar Joe and Manfred Mann Chapter Three were unsuccessful, Collins secured a position in the Cliff Charles Blues Band and toured the country. This was followed by a stint in the Gladiators, a backing band for a black vocal quartet, which included Collins's schoolmate Ronnie Caryl on guitar. Around this time, Collins learned that Yes were looking for a new drummer and spoke to frontman Jon Anderson, who invited him to an audition the following week. Collins failed to turn up. In 1969, Collins and Caryl joined John Walker's backing band for a European tour, which included guitarist Gordon Smith and keyboardist Brian Chatton. The tour finished, and the quartet formed a rock band, Hickory, which recorded one single ("Green Light"/"The Key"). Still in 1969, they were renamed Flaming Youth. They signed to Fontana Records and recorded Ark 2 (1969), a concept album written and produced by Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley that tells the story of man's evacuation from a burning Earth and its voyage into space. Each member sings a lead vocal. In May 1970, after Flaming Youth split, Collins played congas on George Harrison's song "Art of Dying", but his contribution was omitted. Years later, Collins asked Harrison about the omission. Harrison sent Collins a recording allegedly containing Collins's performance; Collins was embarrassed to hear that the performance was poor. When Collins apologised, Harrison confessed that the recording was a prank, which Collins accepted in good humour.

=== 1970–1980: Genesis, later role as lead singer, and Brand X === In July 1970, the rock band Genesis had signed with Charisma Records and recorded their second album Trespass (1970), but suffered a setback following the departure of guitarist Anthony Phillips. They decided that their drummer John Mayhew, though talented, was not of the high calibre they wanted, and placed an advert in the Melody Maker for a drummer "sensitive to acoustic music" and a 12-string acoustic guitarist. Collins recognised Charisma owner Tony Stratton Smith's name on it, who he had been acquainted with for years, and he and Caryl went for the auditions. The group, who had been a full-time working band for less than a year, consisted of school friends from Charterhouse School, a private boarding school: singer Peter Gabriel, keyboardist Tony Banks, and bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford. Collins and Caryl arrived early, so Collins took a swim in the pool at Gabriel's parents' house and memorised the pieces the drummers before him were playing. He recalled: "They put on Trespass, and my initial impression was of a very soft and round music, not edgy, with vocal harmonies, and I came away thinking Crosby, Stills and Nash." Gabriel, a former drummer, said he could tell just by the way Collins sat in front of the drum kit that he knew what he was doing, and was also impressed when Collins mentioned the session with George Harrison. On 8 August 1970, Collins became their fourth drummer. Genesis then took a two-week holiday, during which Collins earned money as an exterior decorator. Rutherford thought Caryl was not a good fit, and for over a month Genesis wrote songs, rehearsed, and toured as a four-piece. In January 1971, the band enlisted Steve Hackett.

From 1970 to 1975, Collins played drums, percussion, and backing vocals on Genesis albums and concerts. Rutherford commented that "on drums Phil was immediately a huge lift. We had never had that kind of energy from the engine room before; it was just a whole different level." Rutherford and Banks continued to contribute vocal harmonies to songs like "Harlequin", but before long Collins became the group's primary backing vocalist, since they found multi-tracking Collins and Gabriel's vocals was faster and produced better results than all four of them singing. They also discovered that Collins and Gabriel's singing voices were so similar that when they sang a part together, it sounded like one exceptionally strong voice rather than two voices. This technique was employed on the band's first hit single, "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)". During this period Collins participated in the songwriting jams which produced much of Genesis's material, but did little independent songwriting compared to the other four members. Collins's more notable songwriting contributions during 1970-75 include composing the staccato rhythm which acts as the main theme of the live favourite "Watcher of the Skies". His first album as a member, Nursery Cryme, features the acoustic song "For Absent Friends" that has Collins singing lead vocal. He sang "More Fool Me" on their 1973 album Selling England by the Pound and on the subsequent tour, marking the first time he assumed the role of Genesis lead vocalist in a live setting. In 1974, Collins played drums on "Mother Whale Eyeless", the 4th song of Eno's second album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) after Eno had contributed electronic effects to two songs on The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. In August 1975, Gabriel's departure from the band was publicly announced. Genesis advertised for a replacement in Melody Maker and received around 400 replies. After a lengthy auditioning process, during which he sang backup vocals for applicants, Collins became the band's lead vocalist during the recording of their album A Trick of the Tail. The album was a commercial and critical success, reaching number three in the UK Albums Chart and 31 in the US. Rolling Stone wrote that Genesis "has managed to turn the possible catastrophe of Gabriel's departure into their first broad-based American success." For the tour, former Yes and King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford played drums on sections where Collins sang. In 1976, Collins brought in American drummer Chester Thompson, formerly of Frank Zappa and Weather Report, who became a mainstay of Genesis's and Collins's backing bands until 2010. When Collins, Banks, and Rutherford decided to continue Genesis as a trio in 1977, they recorded ...And Then There Were Three.... This included the band's first UK Top 10 and US Top 40 single, "Follow You Follow Me". The level of commercial success that Genesis had reached by this time allowed Collins and his wife to move into Old Croft, a home in Shalford, Surrey, in the spring of 1978. Collins pursued various guest spots and solo projects from his time as Genesis's drummer. In 1973, he and Hackett performed on the solo debut of ex-Yes guitarist Peter Banks. In 1975, Collins sang and played drums, vibraphone, and percussion on Hackett's first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte; performed on Eno's albums Another Green World, Before and After Science, and Music for Films; and replaced drummer Phil Spinelli of the jazz fusion group Brand X before recording their first two albums, Unorthodox Behaviour and Moroccan Roll. Collins played percussion on Johnny the Fox by Thin Lizzy, and sang on Anthony Phillips' debut solo album, The Geese & the Ghost. In 1978, he played drums and percussion on Andrew Lloyd Webber's album Variations. After Genesis finished touring in December 1978, the group went on hiatus after Collins went to Vancouver, Canada, to try to save his troubled marriage. The attempt failed, leaving his wife to return to England with their children while living apart from Collins, who returned to their home in Surrey. Their divorce was finalised in 1981. Banks and Rutherford were recording their first solo albums during this time, so Collins rejoined Brand X for their album Product and its accompanying tour. He also played on John Martyn's album Grace and Danger and started writing demos of his own at home. This was followed by Genesis resuming activity, recording and touring with their album Duke (1980). Collins was becoming more involved as a songwriter, with Banks saying that he was "coming up much more to be a kind of equal" in the band on Duke. Collins wrote "Please Don't Ask" and "Misunderstanding" for the album. It became their first album to reach number one in the UK and was their most successful to date in the US, reaching number 11.

=== 1981–1984: Solo debut with Face Value and Hello, I Must Be Going! ===