Not Dead Yet

by Phil Collins

  Credit 12

  With Orianne on our wedding day in 1999. I was so in love with her. It’s a lovely story that we’re back together now. We have two wonderful sons, and I don’t want to be with anyone else.

  Baby Nic on my lap, playing my drums. Nic had a small kit when he was about two. He would stand at it and play.

  Credit 13

  Oscar night, 2000. I’d seen Elton at a MusiCares event the week before. He’d told me where his Oscar party was going to be, and that if I got lucky, as he believed I would, I was to come and show off. I did get lucky and I went to his party, Oscar firmly in hand.

  The dynamic trio: Steve “Pud” Jones, Matt and Danny Gillen. As I’m writing this, Pud has been with me for forty-one years, and Danny since Buster in 1987. I can’t imagine doing things without them.

  At the Alamo with Nic and Matt, looking for traces of enemy bombardment on the church columns. You can see where the Mexican cannons hit the church, and that was a great education for the boys to see how the battle actually happened.

  The lovely Lily finally getting her dad to dance at the Crillon Debs’ Ball, 2007. By this time, Lily had made quite a mark for herself with modeling and was about to become an actress with similarly impressive results.

  Joely, Dana and Lily at Twickenham rugby ground on the Genesis reunion tour, 2007. Genesis is a long-serving band with plenty of history. Children have been born and have grown into adulthood in the band’s lifetime.

  Credit 14

  The only photo in recent times of the original Genesis. I’m the young, good-looking one at the top of the stairs. It’s quite extraordinary to think that these five people were together in some shape or form for forty-six years, and we’re still great friends.

  My idea of heaven: playing drums with The Action, my favorite band of all time, Beatles excluded. We posed for this photo outside the back of the legendary 100 Club in London in June 2000. My biggest drum hero was Roger Powell (on far left). Sadly, since this photo was taken, bassist Mick Evans (second left) and singer Reg King (far right) have died. These guys formed my musical taste with their versions of Motown and soul classics.

  PG with PC, his stooge till the end. I think this photo says a lot: Peter the serious thinker, me with the funny hat and goofy smile. I consider him a great friend, and I would like to think he feels the same.

  My sixtieth birthday in London, 2011, with all my children at the Tower of London. Dana and Lindsey had arranged a weekend of fun with the entire Collins family involved: Clive and Carole and partners, Mum, all the nieces and nephews—everyone.

  The adorable Zoe and Grandpa in Vancouver on her fourth birthday. I love reading to children and helping to build their confidence.

  Sister Carole’s husband Bob, Nic, Carole, me, Clive’s wife Lynne, Matt and Clive in London for a family weekend. All my kids have a great sense of family, and we all get together whenever we can.

  Credit 15

  Taken in Geneva after landing from Miami, en route to Lausanne for the Little Dreams Foundation show in June 2016. I am so happy to be back with my sons and their mum. I think it shows.

  Credit 16

  This was taken on June 2, 2016, at a concert for the Little Dreams Foundation in Lausanne, Switzerland. It could be viewed as me putting my foot back in the water to see if I liked it. Well, I loved it, and I’m sure more will follow. What I’m most proud of, though, is the guy in the background behind me. Nic has played three shows with me now, and if I do more, he’ll be there. He was magnificent, stepping up to the plate and filling big shoes.

  Or: still hard at it

  Let’s go back twelve months, to the period after the end of the Mama tour in February 1984, and after I’ve finished promoting “Against All Odds.”

  Simon and Joely are growing up into great kids. That said, I’m all for hard graft, so I’m a bit of a taskmaster with Simon and his maths homework throughout the school holidays. Just to encourage him I’ve bought an old-fashioned, Victorian-era school desk and chair for his bedroom. He sits there, his back to the window, laboriously working through his algebra while the sun shines outside. Sorry, mate, I thought I was being a responsible dad. And for sure that algebra will come in useful later in life.

  As for Jill and me, we’re settling into a lovely home life together, and she’s wholly supportive of my overlapping working commitments. Even though these are becoming, I have to concede, a bit much.

  Between May and the end of ’84 I produce Philip Bailey’s Chinese Wall album at Townhouse in London; produce Eric Clapton’s Behind the Sun in Montserrat; write and record most of my third album, No Jacket Required; and take part in the recording of Do They Know It’s Christmas? by Band Aid.

  Why does Philip Bailey want me to produce his album? It seems I’m deemed to be the hot guy. Plus, the Earth, Wind & Fire horn players have told him about working with me. Philip and I have met a few times, although thankfully we’ve got over the inauspicious occasion when EWF’s management mistook me for the band’s drug dealer.

  I was in New York, and EWF were playing Madison Square Garden. Face Value wasn’t out, so I wasn’t “Phil Collins” yet. I’ve worked with The Phenix Horns on the album though, and they invite me to the show. I arrange to meet them beforehand in the lobby of Le Parker Meridien Hotel on 56th Street.

  First to appear is tour manager Monte White, brother of band leader Maurice White. Soon all the band members arrive, then take off in their limos. Finally the Phenix guys appear, looking for their allotted car. Monte, meanwhile, has assumed that this shifty, loitering Englishman is the Horns’ drug dealer. He informs Don Myrick, the sax player and leader of the section, that under no circumstances is anyone other than the horn players to be in the car. But after he leaves, Don insists I jump in with them, which I do, albeit a little uneasily—the White brothers run a notoriously tight ship.

  We arrive at MSG, drive up the inner ramp, and Monte is waiting with a checklist. He gives me the death stare: I don’t have a pass, and I certainly shouldn’t be getting out of the Horns’ limo. Abandoned at the backstage entrance, I suddenly feel very alone. Mercifully the union crew and the local security recognize me from Genesis, and they welcome me into the cafeteria. To this day the respect and affection goes both ways.

  Back to business: in early summer 1984 Philip Bailey flies over from Los Angeles. He checks into Bramley Grange, a small country hotel in the sleepy Surrey village of Bramley, very close to my home. English country living is a new experience for Philip, quite a paradise, although we don’t seem able to accomplish what we set out to do, which is to co-write songs—there are too many other cooks involved.

  In the end we only manage to write one song together, and that comes right at the end of the sessions. We set about this mission, and start improvising. Philip starts directing us, I sing something about a “choosy lover,” which becomes the working title. We record a rough and energetic take last thing at night, just so we remember it the next day. The following morning we like what we hear and that, pretty much, is the finished version. I’ll write the lyrics and it’s eventually retitled “Easy Lover,” and released as a duet between two Philips. The single reaches number 2 in America, kept off the top by Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is.” It hits number 1 in the U.K. just about the same time I’m grimacing my way through Ms. Reinking’s interpretation of “Against All Odds” at the 1985 Oscars ceremony.

  Before Chinese Wall is released, I’m already otherwise engaged: Eric asks me to produce his new album. It seems that legendary producer Tom Dowd had mentioned to him that he should get a bit of “that Phil Collins thing” on his next album, not realizing that we were buddies. So Eric decided to cut out the middle man and come straight to me. Frankly I had no idea that he respected me that much and would trust me with his new album. Even before learning that we’d be recording in Montserrat, I’m firmly on board. To quote the old sixties graffiti, Clapton is God, even if he is your country neighbor and drinking buddy. If I’d ha
d a crystal ball and foreseen the troubles ahead, I’d still have said yes.

  Eric’s previous album, Money and Cigarettes (1983), hadn’t done much for me. His music was just starting to sit there. It didn’t have much fire in it, to my ears. So I start extolling to Eric the virtues of having a little home studio, a place to write. Inspired, he installs a set-up like mine at Hurtwood Edge. I don’t think he ever uses it. I think the idea is a little alien for Eric at this point, a little too complicated to run on his own. He just wants to play, whereas I want him to express himself, and not just cover other people’s songs.

  AIR Studios in Montserrat is, as one would imagine, idyllic. Opened by George Martin in 1979, it’s a beautiful place, perched on a hilltop with views of the ocean and the sleeping volcano—which stops sleeping in 1997, when it erupts and destroys much of the island, including the studio. It’s a great feeling being here in this paradise as producer for my mate and his band of legends.

  We have the lovely Jamie Oldaker on drums and, on piano, Chris Stainton, longtime server with Joe Cocker’s Grease Band. Stax bass player Donald “Duck” Dunn is part of the group, and his playing and character add to the sense of both fun and occasion. This guy is a true legend, part of the original Booker T. & the MG’s that backed Otis Redding at Monterey, Sam & Dave, Eddie Floyd and so many more. I had got used to bass players traveling with multiple basses, and assumed it was the bass player’s version of penis envy. I ask him why he only has the one. “I used to have two,” he replies in his Southern drawl, “but one went down with Otis,” he says, referring to the 1967 plane crash in which Redding died. He also tells me that he’s never changed the strings. Ah, the good old days.

  Before we jet off to the island, Eric tells us the rules. Firstly: no women, so Jill’s left at home. However, during the course of the recording, he has a relationship with the studio manager, Yvonne, with whom he will have a baby girl, Ruth.

  Secondly: no drugs. Which is fine by me, but then, a few days in, Eric thinks (wrongly) that I’m holding out on him, and artist gets a bit grumpy with producer. There’s a bit of an angry confrontation, Eric and I discuss the matter, and I am cleared of all narco charges against me.

  I follow Eric’s lead, producing in a manner sympathetic to the songs he’s written—songs that are not full of endless guitar solos. We had long chats at Hurtwood Edge about writing, and I was urging him to write more. But it transpires that endless guitar solos is exactly what his new label—burned by the low sales of Money and Cigarettes—have been holding out for. Neither artist nor producer got that memo. Well, perhaps artist did, but he didn’t pass it on to producer.

  The “finished” album is delivered to the label…and then rejected by the label. They put a rope around Eric’s neck and drag him to LA, where he records some new songs written by Texan singer-songwriter Jerry Lynn Williams. Lenny Waronker (president of Eric’s American label) keeps close guard and does additional production.

  It’s my first taste of record company interference, and I still have the bruises. Only later that year, when I’m still smarting from the accusation that Eric and I have dropped the ball, do I understand why he might have been distracted enough to let the label dictate the creative terms so forcefully. As close a friend as I am to them both, I don’t know that he and Pattie are splitting up. To me, they’re the perfect couple.

  Before the album is finally delivered, Eric rings me one day: “I’ve written a song that has to be on the record. It’s called ‘Behind the Sun.’ ”

  He comes round to Old Croft with his guitar and sings it to me. I’m floored. It’s fantastic, and clearly deeply personal and pained. I say, “How are we going to record this? The sessions are over; the album’s done, everyone’s gone home.”

  Eric says, “We’ll do it now.”

  Suddenly I’m not his producer, not the singer with Genesis, not a solo star. I’m not even his mate. I’m a kid again, the straggly fifteen-year-old who, in 1966, stood waiting for a bus outside The Attic in Hounslow and heard Cream shake the walls. Now, here’s Eric Clapton wanting to record in my pretty basic home studio. It’s a great song, and he wants it to be the album’s title track, so I’d better not fuck this up.

  He plays it once or twice, no more, and I record it. The meters are moving: that’s good. Then I have to record his vocal. Again I see the meters moving: that’s a relief. At least it’s recording. You have to understand that usually I do this on my own, for me, and a little bit of messing up doesn’t matter. But here I am with Eric, clearly in an emotional maelstrom, and I, as his friend/producer, want to help him make the best album possible.

  Now we have to mix it. It’s only him and the guitar, but for mood I put a little synth on it, nothing more than sustained strings. Old Croft is definitely not a good mixing studio, but Eric likes what he hears. It’s put at the end of the album, and it’s a coda, a meditation on the end of his and Pattie’s marriage: “My love has gone behind the sun…”

  It’s a sweet way to end the record, a nice turnaround. All this happens after the LA intrusion, so I feel a little vindicated. Then, years later, Eric tells Mojo that “Just Like a Prisoner,” one of our Montserrat tracks, was his best guitar-playing in as long as he can remember. I’m proud I was there.

  After finally finishing Behind the Sun I start thinking about my third solo album. Over the course of 1984, I’ll work through ideas and record my little demos. I have a notion of what I want to do: break out of this “love song” box that I’ve found myself in. I’ll make a dance album. Or, at least, an album with a couple of up-tempo tracks.

  I program a drum-machine track and improvise some syllables over the top. The rhythmic word “sussudio” comes out of nowhere. If I could have a pound for every time I’ve been asked what the word means, I’d have a lot of pounds. I can’t think of a better word that scans as well as “sussudio,” so I keep it and work around it. I ask David Frank of The System, a New York electro/synthpop duo that I like, to take my demo of “Sussudio” and make it into a dance track.

  But old habits die hard: I’ve also written a bunch of emotional songs—“Inside Out,” “One More Night,” “Doesn’t Anybody Stay Together Any More,” the latter a response to the demise of Eric and Pattie’s relationship, and the splits being endured by, it seems, quite a few of my friends. At least Jill and I are happily entwined; I never want to go through that trauma again.

  The new album’s title, No Jacket Required, is inspired by a couple of incidents. Jill and I are on holiday at Caneel Bay on St. John in the American Virgin Islands. We go to eat at the hotel’s open-air restaurant. When I get to the front of the queue, the maître d’ gravely informs sir that sir needs a jacket.

  “I haven’t got a jacket, mate. I’m on holiday. In the Caribbean.”

  There are a couple of fellow vacationers in front of us, and the husband turns round and gives me the raised eyebrow. “Jacket required,” jokes Reuben Addams, a doctor from Dallas. I don’t forget the phrase, and I don’t forget Reuben or his equally lovely wife Lindalyn.

  In the same period, on Robert’s Principle of Moments tour, we stay at the Ambassador East in Chicago. He’s wearing this very loud, check Williwear suit, and I’m wearing a brand-new leather jacket and jeans. We go to have a drink at the hotel bar, and the barman gravely informs sir that sir needs a jacket.

  “I am wearing a jacket.”

  “A proper jacket, sir…Not leather.”

  Percy Plant’s dressed like Coco the Clown, but he’s all right. I’m in designer leather jacket (very modish, I’ll have you know) and I’m lowering the tone.

  So this idea of “jackets required” seemed to be turning up everywhere. I’ve always hated stuffiness and snobbery, so No Jacket Required becomes my album title and, yes, why not, ethos.

  Doing the rounds of American chat shows to promote the album, the story about the Chicago hotel is the one I trot out for David Letterman and Johnny Carson. Eventually the manager of the Ambassador East writes me a le
tter, requesting that I stop talking about their daft dress codes. I can come in anytime, wearing anything I like, just please stop talking about them. They send me a jacket, too, garishly patterned to look like it’s splashed with multicolored paints, just so I know they’re not being 100 percent serious. I wonder if Robert might like it.

  —

  I’m in the middle of recording No Jacket Required at Townhouse when Bob Geldof calls. I’ve never met him, but he’s straight to the point: “Did you see the news?”

  “No, I’ve been here working.” When you’re in the studio, you’re cocooned away from the outside world; you’re “in the woods,” as Quincy Jones would say. Geldof tells me about Michael Buerk’s BBC news report on the famine in Ethiopia. Then he explains his idea for an all-star charity single. “We have to do something, and I need a famous drummer, and you’re the only one I can think of.”

  He mentions Midge Ure and George Michael and that’s about it. A few quick days later, on Sunday November 25, 1984, I go down to SARM Studios—formerly Island Studios in Basing Street, Notting Hill, where Genesis recorded Foxtrot and Selling England, and mixed The Lamb—to join the good and the great of the mid-eighties British pop scene.

  It’s nerve-racking. Everyone and their Top 40 dog is there, from Spandau Ballet to Bananarama to Status Quo to U2 to Sting to Culture Club. Most of the track has already been recorded, so it’s just my drums that are being laid down today, followed by all the vocals. I have to come up with a drum part on the spot, while the cream of Smash Hits features pages hover, watching and/or applying make-up (and that’s just the men). But sometimes fright can make you lift your game. I’m looking around and there’s a warm feeling of admiration from the musos in the room. This is gratifying, but also scary, as I’ve not been told what’s required of me. Geldof just says, “Start here and play what you want.” I do my drum track, and there’s applause. I go into the control room and Midge says, “That was great.” I say, “Let me do it one more time.” “No, we don’t need to do it again.” “Oh, OK…”