LONDON- Phil Collins embarked on a solitary exercise when he recorded the bulk of his sixth solo album, BOTH SIDES, at home. The release is due Nov. 9 from Atlantic Records, its affiliates worldwide, and Virgin Records in the U.K.
After the strikingly aggressive guitar attack of the opening song, "Both Sides of the Story," Collins remarks on the album, "You're in for a long, lonely ride." With its yearning, atmospheric arrangements and heartfelt lyrics, BOTH SIDES is he most reflective, personal album Collins has recorded since FACE VALUE, the 1981 release that launched a multi- platinum solo career for the Genesis drummer and front man.
In a studio tucked around the back of The Farm in rural Surrey, where the members of Genesis have recorded for the past decade, Collins talks of the winding emotional path that led to his sixth solo album, BOTH SIDES.
"It comes at a strange point," says Collins, 42. "I don't know that you feel any different when you reach your 40s. But I'm prepared to believe that, subconsciously, there are differences. You look back, and sometimes you encounter spectres from the past."
In the years since FACE VALUE, Collins has become a ubiquitous talent on the pop scene, fronting Genesis on its albums, videos and stadium tours; drumming behind the like of Eric Clapton in concert; dueting on hits with colleagues from Philip Bailey to David Crosby; acting in the film BUSTER; mounting his own recent tours; and charting a remarkable 18 top 40 hits in the past 12 years. The tally is likely to rise after "Both Sides of the Story," the first single from the new album, goes to radio in the U.S. on Friday (8).
"People have seen so many faces of Phil Collins, says Doug Morris, co- chairman/co-CEO of the Atlantic Group. "He's a musician's musician, a brilliant drummer, songwriter, actor. It's like watching a diamond kaleidoscope."
For all the success that followed FACE VALUE, that album also chronicled the painful breaking of Collins' first marriage, just as Genesis was reaching worldwide superstar status. The singer is quick "to clear up any misunderstandings that could arise" about his pensive new release. "One is that I'm very happily [re-]married, and the other is that it has nothing to do with my first wife."
Collins is wary now of true confessions that might only distract listeners from the themes of his new album, with its songs of longing, regret, love, and hope.
"It's difficult to know what to say. At the same time, I don't see any reason for making music if it's not music that reflects the person that's making it, or isn't an honest statement that moves you," he says. And the effort to record BOTH SIDES as an honest and intimate musical statement led Collins in an unexpected direction.
"I feel I could have had anybody on this record," he says. "I'm in a position now where a lot of people I want to work with want to work with me- people I'm big fans of, people I've either worked with before, or have never worked with." Clapton, Crosby and Bruce Hornsby were among the respected friends ready to offer their talents on the new album.
He declined them all.
HOME RECORDING
Working with a 12-track studio in an upstairs room at his house, Collins recorded every one of the instruments and lead vocals for BOTH SIDES himself, using a set-up he could manage without an engineer. He then took the basic masters to The Farm and, working with engineers Paul Gomersall and Mark Robinson, overdubbed live drums, guitar lines, and harmonies, and mixed the songs.
"The songs were becoming so personal. I just thought, 'I don't want anybody else's input. This is too private,'" recalls Collins of the home studio sessions. "I captured something there that I can't get anywhere else."
The feeling of solitude in songs such as "Can't Turn Back the Years" and "We Fly so Close" is undeniable. Inspired by a Harry Connick, Jr. performance in London this spring of Hoagy Carmichael's "I Get Along Without You Very Well," Collins wrote a lyric in t\a similar vein: "I've forgotten everything about you/'Til someone says your name." He recorded the song "I've Forgotten Everything" at home late at night, hours after it was written. It appears on the album exactly as cut that night.
"I only know two ways to write songs, really," says Collins. "One way is being able to put into words my feelings, hopefully in a sort of conversational way, and therefore hit exactly those nerves in other people.
"Or you write songs from an observation point of view, about social issues that bother you, and say, 'Is anyone else bothered by this? Because it bother me, you know.'"
Some of Collins' most affecting songs have been written in this fashion, such as the plea for the homeless in "Another Day in Paradise," for which he won the 1991 Grammy for record of the year.
"Both Sides of the Story," the opening track, is a crisply written cry for compassion and concern, climaxing in an encounter directly inspired by the Laurence Kasdan film GRAND CANYON. Another song in a similar vein, "We Wait We Wonder," decries those who destroy lives in the name of a cause, from Bosnia to Belfast, with the song's Irish pipes evoking the latter setting.
Working with longtime video collaborators Jim Yukich and Paul Flattery, Collins is filming videos in New York for "Both Sides of the Story" and the ballad "Everyday."
NO RAZZLE DAZZLE
Along with Collins' manager, Tony Smith of Hit & Run Music, Atlantic Records has been coordinating its marketing and promotion plans with Virgin Records in London- which will release the album in the U.K. and Ireland- and its affiliates at Warner Music Europe and Warner Music International. Each of the companies involved has serviced a promo-only CD of Collins' greatest hits to broadcasters and retailers to prompt awareness of the forthcoming release.
"We're not going to do this big razzle-dazzle campaign, because this is a very personal album and I think people will recognize that," says Val Azzoli, executive VP/GM of Atlantic Records. "What we're doing is more of an awareness campaign."
Atlantic plans television advertising on outlets such as Headline News, VH-1, Lifetime, USA, and the Fox Network. In an unusual move, Atlantic is arrangement to fly 45-by-45-foot banners over the stadiums of major league baseball and top college football games in the weeks ahead, announcing the album's arrival.
In Europe, Collins is due to make a promotional tour, including appearances on major television shows, to coincide with the album's release, says Reiner Focke, Warner Music marketing manager for Europe.
"I was very impressed by how focused he is on all aspects of what he's doing, whether it's the creative or promotional side," says Ann-Marie Nicol, director of artist development at Warner Music International in London. Nicol notes that Collins has already done advance press with journalists from Latin America, one of the international markets beyond North America and Europe in which he is expected to tour for the first time.
"Africa, South America, and the Far East are places we've had lots of interesting talks about," adds Collins, who says he is excited about bringing his live show first to audiences in Europe and North America beginning net year. "The set is going to be very theatrical in the way that it's lit and the way I have to work with it," he says. "I've already got the band sorted out. Everyone's keyed up."
When Collins addresses the inevitable question about his future with Genesis, he can only offer honest ambivalence. He expects his solo tour to last through mid-1995, and a film project may follow.
"I've opened all kinds of doors with the collaborations, and working on my own, and having a different band [on tour]. I'm sort of left to my own devices here, on my own. I mean, who knows, by the time this album does its thing and we go on tour, 100 shows later... It was just such a relief to get some of these songs written, and also to record them, and get them to sound just like I wanted them."