Phil Collins Is More Than You Think
A "Drummer First" Indeed!
Autumn 1976. I was 13 years old and really, really, really getting into music. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band had swept me away with The Roaring Silence. My 8-year-older brother, Blayne, was lead-guitar for a band that featured a lead-singer who played mandolin. Heady times, heady times. The lead singer saw that I got into Roaring Silence, and said, “Kid, if you like that, you’re gonna go nuts for a band called Genesis.”
Lo and behold, Pittsburgh FM station WDVE was having an in-depth special on Genesis, so I listened and was blown away. Funny, I didn’t rush right out to buy a Genesis album. Actually, I snatched up their lead-guitarist Steve Hackett’s first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, and played that till the grooves wore thin. There was this drummer on that record who also sang! I was more impressed with his drumming—he not only could kick out the jams but also had a playfulness that was matched by how he made the drums sound—not just to keep time, but their own expression.
That following spring 1977, I bought Genesis’ 8th studio offering, Wind and Wuthering. The first track, “Eleventh Earl of Mar,” stunned me. Mike Rutherford’s grinding, grunting bass line was outdone only by the sound of the drums. First of all, you could hear them. Second, what you heard was more captivating than anything I’d previously listened to. I later found out that, during the recording of it, Phil Collins told his mates that he wanted the band’s drum sound to be as expressive and song-changing as John Bonham’s on Zeppelin’s “Kashmir.”
Phil adored John Bonham. I grew up loving Zeppelin … only to find I loved Phil’s skinning even better. In swift succession, I scarfed up Seconds Out (Genesis’ legendary live album where Phil drum duels with the likes of Chester Thompson and Bill Bruford), Selling England by the Pound, Nursery Cryme, and Foxtrot. I soon found out that Genesis’ soul sprung from the inventive lyrics and vocal interpretations of Peter Gabriel, when Phil was “only” the drummer (and backing vocalist). Hell, it wasn’t till I bought Selling England that I knew that Phil and Pete were two different people! Oh, to be 13 again. (Not.)
As my album collection grew, I got to hear legends like Neil Peart, Simon Phillips, Keith Moon, and Carl Palmer. In the decades since, I’ve enjoyed Terry Bozzio, Meg White, and others. Still, I’ve always come back to Phil.
Yeah, I thought he was a good singer, who ably stepped into Peter Gabriel’s shoes and admirably fronted the band. I was intrigued when he recorded Face Value and bought it the day of its release. I’d already taken in the gated-reverb drum sound that Phil, Peter, and Hugh Padgham had revolutionized on Peter’s 1980 third-album lead-off song, “Intruder.” The drums were the heartbeat of that song. But the intro song to Face Value took it to a whole new level—the drums were more than making a statement. They burst the soul of the listener, influencing every aural experience for the next 40+ years, from music to movies to sound bites to samples to any and every mood we could construct in our imaginings.
After that, Phil’s career took off, till he was ubiquitous as, well, the gated reverb. I followed his solo career with a self-satisfied smirk. I bought none of his other solo albums, nor did I take in any of his live solo shows, though I continued to flock to Genesis performances, the highlight for me being the Abacab tour when it stopped for two sold-out nights in Rome and was the last time the band did its iconic album-side-length magnum opus, “Supper’s Ready.” Times were swiftly changing. Phil was no longer a prog-rock session man with the most influential prog band of all time. Hell, he was as big as Sinatra, Michael Jackson, and any other era-defining pop performer one can think of. He acted in movies, TV shows (remember Hook and the “Phil the Shill” episode of Miami Vice?) He produced numerous chart-topping works of other artists. Wrote musicals, for Crissakes. Became derisively known as “the Cabbage-Patch Rocker.” Me? I didn’t go emo, but I did say the hackneyed, “Pfft! I liked him when he was obscure and cool!”
This is a long-winded way of describing what I felt watching Drumeo’s Phil Collins: Drummer First. It’s a joyful and bittersweet homage to this multi-talented performer, who, all along, simply considered himself an incredibly fortunate drummer.
Sorry, that shit doesn’t happen by accident or fortune. You can watch Drummer First and cringe at what’s become of Phil—decrepit enough to have trouble even sitting down at a drum kit. In fact, his son, Nic, who played drums for Genesis’ 2021-22 Last Domino farewell tour, steals the show with his winsome charm and loving regard for his much older dad. The producers obviously couldn’t pay for the rights to play actual Genesis and Phil Collins music (Sony now owns all Phil’s solo work and Genesis’ Phil-era playlist). So, faithful to the legion of stick-wielders who don the tools of ignorance and slam away at the skins, the documentary’s score is mostly Nic playing all the riffs, which he does more than capably.
Through it all, Phil seems bemused, if befuddled, at the attention. Sadly, though the youngest member of the Genesis core, he’s aged much, much faster than Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Steve Hackett, Anthony Phillips, and Peter Gabriel (whom I believe is still touring his latest album as of this writing). It’s hard to match up all the younger images of Phil with the crouching, cane-styling old man who looks incredibly like my late Italian grandfather.
How did he do all this? the less-informed, young viewer might ask. I saw him live with Genesis a half-dozen times. He didn’t just fill Gabriel’s frontman duties, he also drummed, developed his own performance persona, and did a tambourine dance that many Olympic gymnasts would be hard-pressed to replicate. All that ceaseless live work covered his body in tambourine bruises. The very un-ergonomic drum kits of the 70s and 80s kept him crouching and reaching and pounding the fuck out of his wrists, ankles, knees, and back.
Off stage, the man was a tireless workhorse long before he became a pop superstar, doing session work with the likes of Brand X, Mike Oldfield, Brian Eno, Argent, and Thin Lizzy. Long before he was a vocal sensation, Phil Collins was the drummer that musicians’ musicians had to have on their records. They were looking for a sound. Needed a guy who could just lay it down in one or two takes, with no bullshit. A bloke who could crack up the nastiest of producers in midnight recording sessions, then tipple a pint with the lot of you afterwards.
The endless work, touring, and bodily demands demolished three marriages. See, if you married Phil, you didn’t just gain a husband; you were snagging a ride with an artistic phenomenon. I think they all loved him. I suppose, also, that he was no picnic to be married to.
A little of that comes across in this two-hour tour. Musician interviews are topped in underwhelment factor only by hockey interviews. You can read Phil’s bio, Not Dead Yet, and get more of that in print. He’s no Lizard King. Really, he’s just a bloke who loved to drum and was obsessed with making drum sounds that would be, well, cool.
Fuck if he didn’t do that, in spades! So they ask him how he did this and that, what was the inspiration, where does your genius come from? And the little old bloke who doesn’t look like he could hoist a feather, let alone drumsticks, says something like, “Well, I wasn’t there when the boys laid down the Apocalypse 9/8 section of ‘Supper’s Ready.’ So, next day, I went into the studio, listened to it a few times, got an idea of what I wanted to do, and added the drums.”
Phil hasn’t thought about this shit for 50 years. The reality is, if we could’ve asked him 50 years ago (and believe me, I’ve read the contemporaneous accounts of his exploits), he’d say the same thing: “It’s drumming, mates. It’s what I did in that take. Lucky they recorded it.”
This documentary adds a coda to that. Phil doesn’t put it in so many words, but it’s what makes watching Phil Collins: Drummer First more than worth the time. “Yeah, guys, I used to drum, but I can’t no more. I can sit down to sing. That’s alright. I like most of what I did with Genesis. Some of it, not. It’s a gig.”
You see, genius doesn’t come from a master plan. It flies with passion, like sparks off a wheel. And when the sparkler guts out, we’re left with a warm memory. Not to regret that we can’t have it anymore. After all, we’ve got his discography available at a click to entertain us.
Rather, we know that more is coming. There’s another little bloke or two out there, some spitfire girl who’s shunned at school, or a go-at-you little boy who just wants to thrash away, come what may. And in 50 years, we’re gonna wonder how these tykes spun off fireworks of genius.
And what we find in the watching—and more importantly, in the joy of listening to the soundtrack of our lives—is that genius comes out of nowhere. And that’s damn, fucking incredible. Like a little man who lit up our lives and who doesn’t give it a second thought.
Keep thrashing, Phil, in spirit, if not in body. Love ya!