Phil Collins

• 1. Two Stages One Day

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  Phil Collins is the only artist who performed at both Live Aid concerts on the 13th of July 1985. He crossed between London and Philadelphia by helicopters and a Concorde to do it. Born Philip David Charles Collins, he went on to sell an estimated 150 million records worldwide as a solo artist. He did that while also fronting a rock band that had first hired him as its drummer. The career raises odd questions. What does a childhood spent on stage teach a future rock musician? Why did one drum sound, a gated reverb, become tied to his name? And why did one of the most successful pop singers of the 1980s attract such sharp criticism?

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• 2. Drums and Dodger

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  During a family holiday at Butlin's, seven-year-old Phil Collins entered a talent contest and sang "The Ballad of Davy Crockett". Halfway through, he stopped the orchestra to tell the players they had chosen the wrong key. That confidence grew in a busy household. He was born on the 30th of January 1951 at Putney Hospital in south-west London, the youngest of three children.

  His mother, June, worked in a toy shop and later as a theatrical agent at the Barbara Speake Stage School in East Acton. His father, Greville, sold insurance for London Assurance. His sister, Carole, competed as a professional ice skater, and his brother, Clive, became a cartoonist.

  At the age of five, Collins was given a toy drum kit for Christmas. Two of his uncles later built him a makeshift set from triangles and tambourines that packed into a suitcase. Better kits came from his parents as he grew, and he practised by playing along to the television and radio.

  The Beatles, and especially their drummer Ringo Starr, shaped him early. So did the Action, a lesser-known London band. Collins copied their drummer, Roger Powell, and the group introduced him to the soul of Motown and Stax Records. The jazz and big band drummer Buddy Rich left a mark too. Rich's views on the importance of the hi-hat led Collins to drop his second bass drum and rely on the hi-hat instead.

  Two teachers, Lloyd Ryan and later Frank King, taught Collins drum rudiments. He rated that schooling above everything else, because rudiments sit underneath all funk and jazz drumming. Yet he never learned to read or write musical notation, and he invented his own system instead. He later regretted it. In his words, "I've always felt that if I could hum it, I could play it." He added that this attitude was bad.

  In 1962, Collins moved from Nelson Primary School in Twickenham to Chiswick County Grammar School. He took to football there and formed a school band called the Real Thing. Its backing singers were his future wife Andrea Bertorelli and a friend, Lavinia Lang, and both women would shape his personal life in later years. His next group, the Freehold, gave him his first song, "Lying, Crying, Dying".

  His boyhood friend Jack Wild would become famous as the Artful Dodger in the 1968 film Oliver! June Collins spotted Wild while he and Phil were playing football in a park. Both boys ended up at Barbara Speake.

  At 14, Collins quit school to study full-time at Barbara Speake. In 1964 he appeared, uncredited, as one of the screaming teenagers in the television concert scene of the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night. Later that year he was cast as the Artful Dodger in two West End runs of the musical Oliver! The pay was £15 a week, and he called it "the best part for a kid in all London". His time as the Dodger was running out when his voice broke during one performance. He had to speak his lines for the rest of the show.

  Calamity the Cow (1967), a Children's Film Foundation production, gave him a starring part. After a falling out with its director, he decided to leave acting for music. Smaller disappointments piled up. His scene as one of the children storming the castle in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) was cut. He auditioned for Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (1968), but the part went to Leonard Whiting. Even so, in 1967 he had spent time travelling the UK to teach the crunch, a dance made popular by a Smith's crisps advertising campaign.

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• 3. From Drummer to Frontman

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  Collins haunted the Marquee Club on Wardour Street so often that its managers had him set out chairs, sweep floors and help in the cloakroom. There he watched the Action and the newcomers Yes, and both bands left a deep impression. Auditions for Vinegar Joe and Manfred Mann Chapter Three came to nothing. He then joined the Cliff Charles Blues Band and toured the country, followed by a stint in the Gladiators, who backed a vocal quartet. His schoolmate Ronnie Caryl played guitar in that band.

  Yes, meanwhile, needed a new drummer. Collins spoke to their frontman, Jon Anderson, who invited him to an audition the following week. Collins never turned up.

  In 1969, Collins and Caryl joined John Walker's backing band for a European tour, alongside guitarist Gordon Smith and keyboardist Brian Chatton. The four then formed Hickory, which released one single, "Green Light" backed with "The Key". Renamed Flaming Youth later in 1969, they signed to Fontana Records and made Ark 2. Ken Howard and Alan Blaikley wrote and produced this concept album about humanity fleeing a burning Earth for space, and every member sang a lead vocal.

  In May 1970, after Flaming Youth split, Collins played congas on George Harrison's song "Art of Dying". His part was left off the record. Years later he asked Harrison about it, and Harrison sent him a recording said to contain the performance. Collins was embarrassed at how poor it sounded and apologised. Harrison then confessed the recording was a prank, and Collins took it in good humour.

  In July 1970, Genesis had signed with Charisma Records and recorded Trespass, their second album, but lost guitarist Anthony Phillips. The band also judged their drummer, John Mayhew, talented but not up to the standard they wanted. They placed an advert in Melody Maker for a drummer "sensitive to acoustic music" and a 12-string acoustic guitarist. Collins noticed the name of Charisma owner Tony Stratton Smith, whom he had known for years. He and Caryl went to audition.

  The band consisted of school friends from Charterhouse, a private boarding school. Peter Gabriel sang, Tony Banks played keyboards, and Mike Rutherford played bass and guitar. They had been a full-time working band for less than a year. Collins and Caryl arrived early, so Collins swam in the pool at Gabriel's parents' house. He also memorised the pieces that the drummers before him were playing. When the band put on Trespass, he heard soft, round music with vocal harmonies, and he came away "thinking Crosby, Stills and Nash".

  Gabriel, himself a former drummer, could tell from the way Collins sat at the kit that he knew what he was doing. He was also impressed to hear about the George Harrison session. On the 8th of August 1970, Collins became the band's fourth drummer. Genesis then took a two-week holiday, and Collins earned money as an exterior decorator. Rutherford felt Caryl was not a good fit, so for over a month the group wrote, rehearsed and toured as a four-piece. Steve Hackett joined as guitarist in January 1971.

  Rutherford later said the band had never before had "that kind of energy from the engine room". Collins soon became the main backing vocalist, because multi-tracking his voice with Gabriel's was faster and gave better results than all four members singing. The two voices were so alike that together they sounded like one exceptionally strong voice. The band used that effect on their first hit single, "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)".

  From 1970 to 1975, Collins joined the writing jams that produced most of the band's material, but he wrote little alone. He did compose the staccato rhythm that forms the main theme of the live favourite "Watcher of the Skies". On Nursery Cryme, his first album as a member, he sang lead on the acoustic song "For Absent Friends". He sang "More Fool Me" on the 1973 album Selling England by the Pound. On the tour that followed, he led Genesis vocally on stage for the first time.

  Collins also played for others. In 1974 he drummed on "Mother Whale Eyeless" from Brian Eno's second album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). In 1975 he sang and played drums, vibraphone and percussion on Hackett's first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte. He drummed on Eno's Another Green World, Before and After Science and Music for Films. He replaced Phil Spinelli in the jazz fusion group Brand X, recording their first two albums, Unorthodox Behaviour and Moroccan Roll. He also played percussion on Thin Lizzy's Johnny the Fox and sang on Anthony Phillips's debut, The Geese & the Ghost.

  In August 1975, Gabriel's departure was publicly announced. Genesis advertised in Melody Maker for a replacement and received around 400 replies. During the lengthy auditions, Collins sang backup for the applicants. In the end, he became the lead vocalist while recording A Trick of the Tail. The album reached number three in the UK and 31 in the US. Rolling Stone said the band had turned the possible catastrophe of losing Gabriel into its first broad American success.

  For the tour, Bill Bruford, formerly of Yes and King Crimson, drummed on the sections where Collins sang. In 1976, Collins brought in the American drummer Chester Thompson, who had played with Frank Zappa and Weather Report. Thompson stayed in Genesis and Collins's backing bands until 2010. In 1977, Collins, Banks and Rutherford decided to continue as a trio and recorded ...And Then There Were Three... It included "Follow You Follow Me", the band's first UK Top 10 and US Top 40 single. That success let Collins and his wife move in the spring of 1978 to Old Croft, a home in Shalford, Surrey.

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• 4. Songs From a Breakup

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  In December 1978, after the last Genesis tour date, Collins went to Vancouver, Canada, hoping to save his marriage. The attempt failed. His wife returned to England with their children, and Collins went back to the family home in Surrey alone. The divorce was finalised in 1981.

  Banks and Rutherford were busy with solo albums, so Collins rejoined Brand X for their album Product and its tour. He played on John Martyn's album Grace and Danger and began writing demos at home. Genesis then resumed with Duke in 1980. Collins wrote "Please Don't Ask" and "Misunderstanding" for it, and Banks said he was becoming "a kind of equal" in the band. Duke became their first album to reach number one in the UK and climbed to number 11 in the US.

  In February 1981, Collins released his debut solo album, Face Value. He signed with Virgin Records and, for American distribution, WEA, to put distance between himself and the Charisma label. He oversaw every step of production and wrote the liner notes by hand. The divorce supplied the lyrical themes and the song titles. As he put it, "I had a wife, two children, two dogs, and the next day I didn't have anything."

  Hugh Padgham co-produced the album. Collins had worked with him on Peter Gabriel's self-titled 1980 album. Face Value reached number one in seven countries, including the UK, and number seven in the US, where it sold five million copies. Its lead single, "In the Air Tonight", reached number two in the UK. Collins used a vocoder on his voice for that song.

  The song is famous for the gated reverb on its drums. Padgham developed the technique as an engineer on Gabriel's song "Intruder", on which Collins played drums.

  In September 1981, record producer Martin Lewis invited Collins to play the Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. It was his first live appearance as a solo artist. He performed "In the Air Tonight" and "The Roof Is Leaking". That month, Genesis released Abacab, and Collins also produced John Martyn's album Glorious Fool.

  In early 1982, Collins produced and played on Something's Going On, the third solo album by Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA. He also performed most of the drum parts on Pictures at Eleven, the first solo album by Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant. In October 1982, he took part in the one-off Genesis reunion concert Six of the Best at the Milton Keynes Bowl, where Gabriel returned on lead vocals and Hackett on guitar.

  Hello, I Must Be Going! followed in November 1982, again fuelled by marital trouble in songs such as "I Don't Care Anymore". It reached number two in the UK and number eight in the US, where it sold three million copies. Its second single, a cover of the Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love", became his first UK number one and reached number ten in the US.

  In February 1984, Collins released "Against All Odds", the main theme for the American romantic film of the same name. Its sound was more pop-oriented and commercially accessible than his earlier work. It became his first solo number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number two in the UK. It won him the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.

  Collins arranged his 1985 tour around the chance of performing it at the awards ceremony. Show producer Larry Gelbart wrote to Atlantic Records that the spots had already been filled, and he even misnamed Collins as "Phil Cooper". Collins watched actress and dancer Ann Reinking perform the song instead. The Los Angeles Times said she did an incredible job of destroying a beautiful song. At later concerts, Collins would introduce it by saying he was sorry Miss Ann Reinking couldn't be there, so he would sing his own song.

  In 1984, Collins also co-produced Chinese Wall by Philip Bailey of Earth, Wind & Fire. Their duet "Easy Lover" spent four weeks at number one in the UK and peaked at number two in the US. He produced and drummed on several tracks of Eric Clapton's Behind the Sun. In November 1984, he played drums on the Band Aid charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?", which raised money for Ethiopian famine relief.

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• 5. Eighties Everywhere

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  Before recording No Jacket Required in 1984, Collins said he wanted to "break out of this 'love song' box" he had found himself in. He planned a dance album, or at least one with a couple of uptempo tracks. He left personal lyrics behind and wrote upbeat, dance-oriented songs with strong hooks. Sting, Peter Gabriel and Helen Terry sang backing vocals.

  Released in February 1985, No Jacket Required reached number one in several countries. "Sussudio" and "One More Night" topped the US singles chart, and the latter reached number four in the UK. "Don't Lose My Number" and "Take Me Home" both made the US top ten. The album sold over 12 million copies in the US, where it was certified diamond, and 1.9 million in the UK, where it was the second-best-selling album of 1985. It remains the most successful record of his career.

  David Fricke of Rolling Stone wrote that after years on the art-rock fringe, Collins now stood firmly in the middle of the road. "Sussudio" drew complaints that it sounded too much like Prince's "1999", a charge Collins did not deny. The album earned him the first two of his six Brit Awards, for Best British Male and Best British Album. It also won three Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. Collins had three US number ones in 1985, more than any other artist that year. The No Jacket Required World Tour ran to 85 shows between February and July 1985.

  In Philadelphia, the Led Zeppelin reunion that Collins joined on drums with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page was poorly received, and the band later disowned it. Page said Collins had not learned his parts. Collins replied that the band "weren't very good" and that a "dribbling" Page made him uncomfortable. He said he stayed on stage only to avoid negative attention. Earlier in London, he had played a set that Ultimate Classic Rock called especially crowd-pleasing, including "Against All Odds" and "In the Air Tonight".

  In November 1985, "Separate Lives", a duet with Marilyn Martin for the film White Nights, became a US number one. By the end of the year, the music press noted that Collins was now more popular than Genesis. He insisted he was not leaving the band. In October 1985 he reunited with Banks and Rutherford to record their thirteenth album, Invisible Touch.

  Invisible Touch came out in 1986 and became Genesis's biggest seller, with six million copies in the US and 1.2 million in the UK. Its title track reached number one in the US, the only Genesis song to do so. The video for "Land of Confusion" featured puppet caricatures from the satirical television programme Spitting Image. It won the group their only Grammy Award and earned a 1987 MTV Video Music Award nomination for Video of the Year. J. D. Considine of Rolling Stone praised the album's commercial appeal, saying each tune was pruned to deliver a solid hook.

  In March 1986, Howard Jones had a hit with "No One Is to Blame", on which Collins drummed, sang backing vocals and co-produced alongside Padgham. Collins also produced, sang backing vocals and drummed on most of Eric Clapton's 1986 album August. He toured parts of Europe with Clapton, and two concert videos came out of those shows. After touring with Genesis in 1987, Collins felt his music had gained too much exposure. He took a year off from writing and recording.

  He spent it on his first acting role since the late 1960s. In Buster (1988), he played Buster Edwards opposite Julie Walters, who played Edwards's wife, June. The romantic comedy drama centred on the Great Train Robbery of 1963. Reviews were mixed, and controversy followed. Prince Charles and Princess Diana declined an invitation to the premiere after the film was accused of glorifying crime. Roger Ebert said Collins played the part with surprising effectiveness.

  Collins contributed four songs to the soundtrack. His ballad version of "A Groovy Kind of Love", originally by the Mindbenders, reached number one in both the UK and the US. The film also spawned the US number one "Two Hearts", which he co-wrote with Lamont Dozier. It won the pair a Golden Globe for Best Original Song and an Oscar nomination in the same category.

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• 6. Hits and Heartbreak

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  From April to October 1989, Collins recorded his fourth album, ...But Seriously, in England and the United States. Its lyrics turned to social and political themes. Released in November 1989, it spent fifteen weeks at number one in the UK and three in the US. It became the UK's best-selling album of 1990. Its lead single, "Another Day in Paradise", was an anti-homelessness song with David Crosby on backing vocals. It reached number one in the US in October 1989, the final American number one of the 1980s.

  The song drew heavy criticism and became tied to accusations of hypocrisy. Collins answered that when he drives down the street he sees what everyone else sees. It is a misconception, he said, that having a lot of money leaves you out of touch with reality. In 1991 the song won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Three other singles from the album reached the US top five: "Something Happened on the Way to Heaven", "Do You Remember?" and "I Wish It Would Rain Down", which features Clapton on guitar.

  The Seriously, Live! World Tour covered 121 dates between February and October 1990. The live album Serious Hits... Live! sold 1.2 million copies in the UK and over four million in the US. In 1991, Collins reunited with Banks and Rutherford for We Can't Dance, the band's fifth consecutive number one album in the UK. It reached number four in the US and sold over four million copies there.

  In 1992 and 1993, Collins made his fifth solo album, Both Sides. He played every instrument and produced it himself, because the songs were becoming "so personal, so private" that he wanted no one else's input. The decline of his second marriage was its focal point. Released in November 1993, it reached number one in eight countries, including the UK, but only number 13 in the US. It earned a single platinum certification there by the end of the year. The Both Sides of the World Tour then played 165 shows between April 1994 and May 1995.

  Collins has been married three times. He met his first wife, Andrea Bertorelli, as an 11-year-old student in a London drama class. They reconnected in 1974 when Genesis played in Vancouver, and they married in England in 1975, when both were 24. Collins legally adopted her daughter Joely, born in 1972, who became an actress and film producer. Their son Simon, born in 1976, is the former vocalist and drummer of the progressive rock band Sound of Contact. In 2016, Bertorelli took legal action over Collins's account of their relationship in his autobiography.

  In 1984, Collins married the American Jill Tavelman. Their daughter Lily, born in 1989, became an actress. In 1992, while touring with Genesis, Collins twice had an affair with Lavinia Lang, a former drama school classmate to whom he had once been engaged. In 1994 he said he had filed for divorce, which was finalised in 1996. The settlement cost him £17 million.

  In 1999, Collins married Orianne Cevey, a Swiss national who had worked as his translator at the start of his 1994 tour. She was 22 and he was 43. They had two sons, Nicholas and Mathew. Nicholas became a professional drummer, and Mathew played youth football in Germany and Austria. The couple divorced in 2006, and Collins paid £25 million, the largest settlement in a British celebrity divorce. The Sunday Times Rich List of 2021 put his fortune at £145 million.

  Collins later spoke of going through bits of darkness, drinking too much and watching television until it almost killed him. He said in 2015 that he had been teetotal for three years. From 2007 to 2016 he was in a relationship with the American news anchor Dana Tyler. In January 2016, after moving to Miami Beach to be near his two youngest sons, he reunited with Cevey. In October 2020, he filed an eviction notice against her after she secretly married another man in August. He sold his Miami home in 2021 for $39 million. In 2016 he said he regretted cheating on his second wife. His three divorces, he said, showed a failure to co-exist happily and to understand his partners.

  In October 1996, Collins released his sixth solo album, Dance into the Light. It reached number four in the UK and number 23 in the US, but the music press received it badly and it sold less than his earlier records. Entertainment Weekly wrote that even Phil Collins must know that everyone had grown weary of Phil Collins. The album did earn a Gold certification in the US.

  On the 29th of March 2000, Collins launched a case against two former musicians from his band, Louis Satterfield and Rahmlee Davis, to recover £500,000 in overpaid royalties. They said their contract entitled them to 0.5 per cent of the royalties from Serious Hits... Live! Collins argued they should be paid only for the five tracks on which they played, including "Sussudio". On the 19th of April 2000, the High Court in London ruled they would receive no more royalty money. Collins's claim was halved, and the two men did not have to repay any of it.

  Collins released his seventh solo album, Testify, on the 11th of November 2002. Metacritic's roundup found it the worst-reviewed album at the time of its release. Its single "Can't Stop Loving You", a cover of a Leo Sayer song, was a number one Adult Contemporary hit. The album sold 140,000 copies in the US by the end of the year. In 2012, Collins went to Buckingham Palace to watch his brother Clive receive an MBE for services to art. He recalled sharing a bedroom with him as boys, when Clive was always drawing Christmas and birthday cards for the family.

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• 7. Leaving and Returning

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  On the 29th of March 1996, Collins's decision to leave Genesis and concentrate on his solo career was publicly announced. Around then he formed the Phil Collins Big Band and seated himself at the drums. He had wanted to do the project for years, and he drew inspiration from Neil Peart's Burning for Buddy project. After Collins moved to Switzerland, an invitation to the Montreux Jazz Festival brought the band together. Quincy Jones conducted and Tony Bennett sang.

  The band toured summer jazz festivals in July 1996 with jazz versions of Genesis songs and Collins's solo material. Their first date was at the Royal Albert Hall for a Prince's Trust concert, attended by Queen Elizabeth II and Nelson Mandela. To learn his parts, Collins devised his own notation on sheets of paper. The band paused until a US and European tour in the summer of 1998, which produced the live album A Hot Night in Paris.

  In the mid-1990s, Disney recruited Collins to write and perform songs for its adventure film Tarzan (1999), alongside a score by Mark Mancina. Collins wrote and performed "Two Worlds", "Son of Man", "Strangers Like Me" and "You'll Be in My Heart". He also sang the songs in French, Italian, German and Spanish for the dubbed soundtracks. "You'll Be in My Heart" came out in June 1999 and spent 19 weeks at number one on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, the longest run up to that point. In 2000, it won him an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. He performed "Two Worlds" at that ceremony and at the Disney-themed Super Bowl halftime show.

  In 2000, Collins suffered sudden hearing loss in his left ear after a recording session in Los Angeles. Three doctors reportedly told him nothing could be done and that a full recovery was unlikely. Two years later he had recovered most of his hearing. A viral infection turned out to be the cause, and treatment resolved it.

  In June 2002, Collins drummed for the house band at the Party at the Palace concert on the grounds of Buckingham Palace. It celebrated Queen Elizabeth II's Golden Jubilee. In 2003, Disney hired him to compose and perform on the soundtrack of its animated feature Brother Bear, which included "Look Through My Eyes". From June 2004 to November 2005, he played his First Final Farewell Tour, a wink at the repeated farewell tours of other stars. In 2006 he worked with Disney on a musical production of Tarzan.

  On the 7th of November 2006, Collins, Banks and Rutherford announced Turn It On Again: The Tour, nearly 40 years after the band first formed. It played twelve countries in Europe in summer 2007, then North America. Genesis also played the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium. In April 2009, Collins had surgery on his upper neck to correct a problem that began while he drummed on the 2007 tour. Afterwards he lost feeling in his fingers and could grip drumsticks only if they were taped to his hands.

  He still made the Motown covers album Going Back, released on the 13th of September 2010. It reached number one on the UK Albums Chart. In 2010, Collins also spoke of depression and low self-worth. He said he had contemplated suicide but resisted for the sake of his children.

  On the 4th of March 2011, citing health problems and other concerns, Collins announced he was taking time off, and reports of his retirement followed. His UK representative said he had no intention of retiring, but Collins confirmed on his own website that he would step back to focus on family life. In November 2013, he told German media that a return was possible and that Genesis might tour places such as Australia and South America. In January 2014 he said he was writing with Adele. He admitted he had not known who she was, saying he lives in a cave, and agreed after hearing her voice. By September, he called the collaboration a bit of a non-starter.

  By 2014, Collins said he still could not play the drums, and that the cause was an undiagnosed nerve problem rather than arthritis. In 2015 he had spine surgery, and in 2016 he said he still could not drum with his left hand. His doctor told him to take it step by step. In May 2015 he signed with Warner Music Group to have his solo albums remastered and reissued. In October 2015 he announced he was no longer retired. In 2016 he published his autobiography, Not Dead Yet, and wrote that he had struggled with alcoholism after his retirement and third divorce.

  In January 2017, Collins revealed he was a type 2 diabetic, and he had received hyperbaric chamber treatment for an infected abscess on his foot. In June 2017 he cancelled two shows after slipping in his hotel room and cutting his head near his eye. Foot drop from his back surgery caused the fall. He used a cane afterwards and sat in a chair on stage. Even so, the Not Dead Yet Tour ran from 2017 to October 2019 for 97 shows. Five nights at the Royal Albert Hall sold out in fifteen seconds, which led to a headline slot at the 2017 BST Hyde Park festival, his largest solo concert. His son Nicolas played drums in the band, and a Telegraph review found the voice largely unravaged by time.

  In March 2020, Collins, Banks and Rutherford announced The Last Domino? Tour, with Nic on drums so his father could handle lead vocals. The tour was rescheduled twice because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It began in September 2021 and ended at The O2 Arena in London on the 26th of March 2022, where Collins said from the stage that it was the last show for Genesis.

  In August 2024, music executive Simon Napier-Bell said Collins was updating his home studio by Lake Geneva. In February 2025, Collins said he was "not hungry" enough to make more music because of his ongoing health issues. In July 2025, rumours that he was in hospice were dismissed by his spokesperson, who said he was in hospital for knee surgery. In January 2026, he told the BBC's Zoe Ball that his condition had much improved and that he was considering new music.

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• 8. Drummer and Pop Icon

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  Rich Lackowski, in his book on the drummers who defined progressive rock, wrote that Collins's grooves on early Genesis recordings paved the way for many talented players. In 2014, readers of Rhythm voted Collins the fourth most influential progressive rock drummer for The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, the 1974 Genesis album. In 2015, MusicRadar named him one of six pioneers of progressive rock drumming. In 2005, listeners of Planet Rock voted him the fifth greatest rock drummer in history. Rolling Stone ranked him number 43 among the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time.

  Neil Peart of Rush praised his "beautiful drumming" on Selling England by the Pound, calling the album an enduring masterpiece of drumming. Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins listed Collins among his heroes. Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater praised his progressive drumming in the early and mid-1970s. Marco Minnemann said that Collins reminded him of John Bonham and called the drumming on "In the Air Tonight" ten notes that everybody knows. Jason Bonham said his father respected Collins's drumming and loved playing Genesis's "Turn It On Again" with him. In 1987, Collins himself said of his fast playing in Brand X and early Genesis, "I actually can't play like that anymore".

  Modern Drummer readers voted for Collins every year between 1987 and 1991 as Pop/Mainstream Rock drummer of the year, and in 2000 as Big Band drummer of the year. He entered the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Classic Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013. Besides Buddy Rich and Ringo Starr, he named Billy Cobham, Charlie Watts, Keith Moon, John Bonham, Tony Williams and Airto Moirea as influences.

  Collins is left-handed. He played Gretsch drums with Noble & Cooley solid snare drums, Remo heads, Sabian cymbals and his signature Promark sticks. His kits from earlier years came from Pearl and Premier. Roland drum machines, including the TR-808 and TR-909, and the LinnDrum shaped his sound after 1978. So did the Simmons SDSV electronic drum set and a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer.

  In American Psycho, the lead character Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale, is an obsessive fan of Genesis and Collins who reads deep meaning into the music. Collins told the New Musical Express that he did not think a psychopath liking his music was linked, because his music was simply omnipresent in that era. In the 2006 game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, set in 1984, a fictional Collins is hunted by hitmen because his manager refused to pay a $3 million debt. The final mission takes place at his concert while he plays "In the Air Tonight".

  In 2007, a Cadbury's Dairy Milk advert featuring a gorilla playing the drums to "In the Air Tonight" led many viewers to believe Collins himself was the drummer. Collins joked that the gorilla was a better drummer and also had more hair. The advert won Gold at the British Television Advertising Awards in 2008. It helped the song re-enter the New Zealand singles chart at number three in July 2008 and then reach number one, beating its original 1981 peak of number six.

  South Park lost the 1999 Oscar for Best Original Song to Collins's "You'll Be in My Heart", and the show's creators admitted resenting it. In the episode "Timmy 2000", a Collins character holds his Oscar throughout. The episode "Cartman's Silly Hate Crime 2000" features a landmark called Phil Collins Hill, with an impression of his face in the side. In 2001, he was one of several celebrities tricked into appearing in the British comedy series Brass Eye on Channel 4. In the episode, he endorsed a hoax anti-paedophile campaign in a T-shirt reading "Nonce Sense". He said he took part in good faith for the public benefit and accused the makers of serious taste problems.

  Collins also appeared in Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) and the AIDS docudrama And the Band Played On (1993). He starred in Frauds, which competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival. He voiced characters in Balto (1995) and The Jungle Book 2 (2003). In 1985 he played a cheating con-man in the Miami Vice episode "Phil the Shill". He twice hosted the Billboard Music Awards on television. A film called The Three Bears, which was meant to star Collins, Danny DeVito and Bob Hoskins, was never completed because a suitable script never appeared.

  Collins has won eight Grammy Awards, six Brit Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a Disney Legend Award. He won Best British Male Artist three times. The British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors gave him six Ivor Novello Awards, the last of them the International Achievement Award, presented on the 22nd of May 2008. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1999 and entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003. He holds honorary doctorates from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 1987 and the Berklee College of Music in 1991. In 2012, McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, honoured his research and collection of Texas Revolution artefacts. He entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010 as a member of Genesis. In 2026 he was elected again as a solo artist, sixteen years later.

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