'Genesis of A Solo Career: Phil Collins Has It His Way'

From Creem, sometime in the years 1981-82.
by Chris Salewicz.

Hello Everyone,

Way back a long time ago I posted a few old articles I had collected over the years. I haven't posted one in a while and since I have nothing to do tonight, and feel a bit nostalgic, I thought I'd post another one. I'm trying to think of what CD to listen to while I type....let me see....I picked up Nursery Chryme, then Trespass, then Peter Gabriel's first album (which is still VERY tempting), then finally settled on Selling England by the Ounce!

Craig Libman

Set in the stockbroker belt 30 miles to the Southwest of London, the Genesis studio complex is exactly what you might expect: several thatched, suitably idyllic, wood-beamed 17th Century buildings that until recently comprised a farm, with the studio itself housed in a modern, factory-assembled former cow-shed hidden by the high barn.

At the end of a sunny, late summer day I sit in the garden by a Shakespearian-like leafy cloister on a set of elegantly worn stone steps with Phil Collins, the Genesis drumming and singing workaholic who this year has enjoyed a large worldwide success with his first solo album, Face Value.

Phil's slight physique and the cut of his thinning hair provide him with a profile at times disconcertingly similar to that of Brian Eno.

In fact, he says, it was working with Brian Eno on his "Another Green World" album that considerably loosened him up as a musician, altering his attitude towards Genesis: "It showed me that anything could work. We did three days of just blowing. I learnt that you could do something at home, and it didn't have to sound good - that it was the "IDEA" that counted. The logical extension of that was for ME to do something at home that DID sound good and feel good."

Ostensibly we are here to consider "Abacab," the latest LP by Genesis, a group that I cannot claim to considerably love, largely because the pleasant pop structures that lie at the heart of much of its material have for most of its career been buried in a pretentious, tumescent, musical overkill.

By contrast, "Face Value" is a loose, open work, strongly influenced by the drummer's love of black music. Obviously it is significant that "Abacab" appears more closely related to the Collins solo record than to previous Genesis work.

In answer to the obvious question as to whether he would consider quitting the group, Phil is ADAMANT in his denial.

"As far as I'm concerned," he insits, "what I do on my own is NOT a solo career - its just one part of me. I'm my own man, and I chose to do a LOT of different things. One of those things that I chose to do is still be in a group - Genesis.

"Also, I chose to do lots of different things with other musicians, because that keeps me Fresh.

"So I would NEVER leave the band. I see it as such a small part of what I do, anyway. It's not as though I'm suddenly getting a chance to jack off on my own. I'm on my own already, and I put my energies to Genesis when the time comes round.

"However, I do think that "Abacab" is a definite step forward in terms of Genesis. By saying that I guess I'm denouncing what we've done already, though without meaning to sound as though I'm saying that.

"I'm just proud, though, that we're thinking more...MODERN." Phil admits that keyboardsman Tony Banks and bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford are far more willing to accept his idea since the success of "Face Value."

However, he claims, the reason the Genesis sound significantly has shifted on this new record is down to their having produced it entirely themselves, in their own new studio - the first music they've so made. When he made his own album, which seems as much the cause for the shift in the Genesis sound, he rebelled very much against what he'd been taught was the grammar of studio recording, he explains. And such an attitude was sustained into the work on "Abacab."

"We did things like use limiting to excess so that it would really be noticed. We really exaggerated a lot of things. "I urge people," he insists, "to forget what they think of as Genesis. There is definitely much more immediacy on this record, which I think is us getting better at writing and not clouding it up with shit. We shied away from stock Genesis devices such as sustained keyboards, and just honed everything down to its barest essentials. A lot of the songs are very, very unlike Genesis.

"We had one track which had the working title, 'Fast Bass', which we went ahead and recorded. And on tracks we'd already done like "Abacab," and also for my own record, nothing flash and fast had been done, but just the right thing for the right song.

"But we started thundering along on this 'Fast Base' tune, and suddenly we all stopped. We said, "This is what people expect to hear from Genesis. So therefore none of us felt frustrated that no matter how hard you tried it always ended up approximately par for the course. But my reason for staying in the group was that I always believed that eventually we would get there. And as far as I'm concerned I want to keep the group going until we get it right. And we never have really done it right.

"But Abacab is the rightest we've ever been.

"In fact," he adds, "we're totally unlike all those bands that have synthesizers and lights. Recently I did a Radio One Pop Quiz with Dave Gilmour, and he was exactly what I hoped he wouldn't be. Also, though I really like Jon Anderson as a person, I completely HATE that Yes kind of music.

"So its a double insult to be compared with stuff that I really can't stand."

For long in England, much of the criticism of Genesis has been that the group is the perfect embodiment of "Public School Rock": the English public school system so-called because it is open to anyone - anyone whose parents have the means to pay for it, that is. The smug side of Genesis's music often has seemed derived on a direct conduit from the self-cherishing, uptight, elitism of that educational set-up.

Both Banks and Rutherford, as well as former members Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett, all attended the relatively exclusive Charterhouse School.

Suprisingly, Phil Collins goes all the way in endorsing these criticisms of the group's educational past at which at one time i recall Peter Gabriel bridling irritably.

"For a long time within the group," he says, "the main problem has been that public school thing. I think it creates an odd feeling within you where you DAREN'T let go: You DAREN't take off your clothes and live."

Though both the other to Genesis members recently have put out solo records, they met far less success than Face Value, Phil says he received no resentment from them, though.

"There was nothing like that at all. Though Mike said," he laughs, "'I'm jealous.'...They view it, I guess, from the point of view that people who liked my album but didn't like Genesis might give a Genesis album another listen now.

"Mind you," he continues, "though Tony and Mike have written more of the material, onstage it was me who linked that material to the audience. They had no personality onstage, and I had. So therefore who's to say what it is that makes it a success.

"But we've always been very equal in the band. Cliched and unfashionable as it may be, we are a democracy. We work very well as a three-piece band because we all know each other's strengths and weaknesses.

"Since the success of my thing, though, I know when I'm right and when I'm wrong. So I think it's happening at the right time."

Another landmark in Phil Collins' career has just occurred with the release of John Martyn's new album, Glorious Fool. The record, on which Phil also plays drums, is the first he ever has produced for another artist.

He became good friends with this exceptional Scotsman, says phil, some three years back when both their marriages suddenly disintegrated.

Indeed, it was Phil's split with his wife that inspired many of the Face Value songs.

"I came back from tour in 1978 to find my marriage gone," he shrugs his shoulders in an attempt at being philosophical. "We can talk to each other nowadays, which we nevr really did while we were married. Which was probably why we had to get divorced.

"That was a reason why Peter left the group, in fact: his marriage was in bad shape.

"You can't really expect someone to understand why you have to be responsible to the three other people. You can't say to them, 'Oh, I don't want to go on this tour because I've got to do this instead,' when they're going to have to do the same thing next year. And it depends in the lady you're mated with whether she can adjust to that. And my wife couldn't.

****CD JUST ENDED. WITH ONLY 2 PARAGRAPHS TO GO! DARN!***

"Now I'm with a lady who gives me as much space as I need.

"But its an odd situation to get into. We were too much alike, I guess, and we'd end up at each other's throats. Which was bad for our two kids, of course.

"But now we can always hang up on each other," he laughs sadly, "whereas before it was never like that."

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Kind of a strange way to end an article but so it was. Just so everyone knows, this article IS COMPLETE, with no additions or subtractions. My hands are hurting!! I hope some of you enjoyed it, well, maybe one person then!!

Just one thought on an excerpt of this article: Could we be seeing a step backward to those 'Fast Bass' songs in the new album?! In my opinion, I can't wait!!

Well, take care.
Craig