Phil Collins
Phil Collins
Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins LVO is an English singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, record producer and actor. He is known as the drummer and lead singer in the rock band Genesis and as a solo artist. Between 1983 and 1990, Collins scored three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. When his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, Collins had more US top 40 singles than any other...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth30 January 1951
CityLondon, England
The whole having records and selling records and being on TV, that was something that I didn't ever think would be for me. I thought that would be for other people. All I wanted to do was make a living playing the drums.
There's something perverse isn't there, if you're playing in front of 100,000 people and there's 2000 people down the front who don't like, you think: what is it that they don't like?
I never said I was at the Alamo. Someone else said I was at the Alamo. Now I'm a nutter. I don't think that's fair.
Many people think of me as a perfectionist, someone who polishes and shines each song and performance. I've always been bothered by that assumption.
I never stopped thinking about the Alamo from that day to this. I'm a huge collector of memorabilia. I've got Davy Crockett's bullet pouch. I've got Colonel Travis's belt.
I think I was the best drummer!
I don't really belong to that world and I don't think anyone's going to miss me. I'm much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely.
I do miss things about Britain. I think there was a misconception, there definitely was, that I left because of bad press, and being pilloried. I left Britain because I fell in love with someone who lived in Switzerland - that was the main thing.
Drummers get bored. You tell them to play something simple, and it gets more complicated as they do it. If they're not a composer, if they don't have any kind of investment in the music, they'll just add a bit there and another bit there, and you think no! Don't do that. So you end up using a drum machine.
Think twice; it's just another day for you and me in paradise.
I don't want to preach, but I really think the rudiments are very important to developing your drumming skills. Many of the patterns I've recorded came from things like paradiddles, flam paradiddles, flam triplets... They might be boring to sit down and practice, but not when you apply them to the drums.
I just don't think of myself as a star. This is what I do for a living; I'm fortunate that I make ends meet.
I wish it wasn't like this. I sit and watch stuff on the television, I think, 'Why, why, why.
We're all still good friends. We spent like 30 or 25 years of our life in the same office, ... Just because we don't play in the same band anymore doesn't mean we don't see each other and enjoy each other's company.