Not Dead Yet

by Phil Collins

  That was it, one take.

  I meet Bono for the first time, and get talking to Sting. The former Police man and I click. Remembering that I have an album to finish, I ask Sting if he’ll help me out with a bit of singing. He ends up doing backing vocals on “Long Long Way to Go” and on “Take Me Home,” where he’s joined by Helen Terry and Peter Gabriel.

  No Jacket Required comes out on January 25, 1985, a week before my thirty-fourth birthday. Why the red face on the sleeve? Because it’s a hot album, club-friendly and pumped up. The beads of sweat on my forehead are part actual sweat, part glycerine. The songs and the sentiments are true, but the cover, I confess, needed just the slightest bit of fakery to make me look hot and bothered. Not sure why—I’ve barely stood still for three years.

  The album is an instant hit. When “Sussudio” is released, I top the singles and albums charts at the same time in the U.S., and I do the same in the U.K.—but in the U.K. it’s “Easy Lover” that’s the number 1 single; a song that’s not even on this album. No Jacket Required is at number 1 for seven weeks in the U.S., and sells over 12 million copies there. Worldwide to date it’s sold 25 million copies.

  I only know this because I looked on Wikipedia. In the eye of the tornado, and for years afterward, I couldn’t really care less about chart achievements or sales figures. I’m just running to stand still.

  These are the years when I’m everywhere, all the time, monopolizing the airwaves, MTV and the charts, even the bloody Oscars. Try as you might, when you turn on a TV or radio, you can’t escape me. If you take a charitable view, I simply write a lot of hits. If you take a pragmatic view, me and my music just won’t give it a rest.

  The No Jacket Required tour starts at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham, on February 11, 1985. Backed by a band I dub The Hot Tub Club, I play all over the world for five months and eighty-three shows. Multiple nights at London’s Royal Albert Hall and other venues in the U.K., then the rest of Europe, Australia, Japan, then a big run in America—including three nights at Universal Amphitheatre in LA, two nights at Madison Square Garden—all the way through to the summer.

  Not enough? Don’t worry, coming down the pipe is another project, another single, another inescapable Phil Collins hit.

  Stephen Bishop is a good friend and a great songwriter, and I recorded an acoustic version of his song “Separate Lives” for No Jacket Required, but it didn’t really fit on the album. But the song hangs around, and eventually Atlantic’s Doug Morris calls and says, “Would you be interested in recording ‘Separate Lives’ as a duet with Marilyn Martin?” I don’t know her, but Doug is president of Atlantic Records, and I trust his judgment. The plan is that the song will be featured in another Taylor Hackford movie, White Nights. Here at the height of the Cold War, the world badly needs a ballet/spy mash-up.

  “Separate Lives” is another American number 1, which means that in 1985 I have more American number 1 hits than anyone else, and Stephen receives an Academy Award nomination. That same so-called award season, No Jacket Required wins three Grammys and I win my first Brit Awards: Best British Album and Best British Male Artist. But even before those award shows take place in early 1986, by the end of ’85 I’m already back in Genesis world, making the album that will become Invisible Touch. And off we go again.

  —

  But first though, during my summer break in 1985, I get a call from the office. It seems that the popular American detective series Miami Vice wants me to appear in a cameo in one of their episodes. The show used “In the Air Tonight” in their pilot episode, and it worked brilliantly—so much so that many people started referring to it as the theme song. In fact Fred Lyle, the series’ music producer, has used my music quite a few times.

  A handful of music people have played cameos already—Glenn Frey and Frank Zappa to name two—and I think it might be a hoot. But when they send me the script, I come out in a cold sweat. Instead of being a cameo, I’m on every page, and in almost every scene. My character is called Phil the Shill. I don’t know what a shill is, but it’s clear that it’s been written with me in mind. I then find out that a “shill” is a spiv, someone who’ll do anything for a buck. I don’t know why they thought that was me.

  I call them and say that I haven’t acted in years; I don’t know if I can handle this. Director John Nicolella brushes away my concerns. “Just come over, it’ll be fine. We’ll have some fun.”

  So I do, and we do have fun. Don Johnson is particularly nice to me, and my female counterpart is Kyra Sedgwick, wife of Kevin Bacon. Even Jill gets a role in the party scene. It’s all over in ten days, and I’m back home for the summer.

  Thinking back: I can’t believe I managed to do all these things, that they were all successful, that I was busy across such a range of projects. If it’s tallied now, in simple numerical terms, I was one of the biggest pop stars in the world. But at the time, on the inside, it didn’t feel like that. No Jacket Required was number 1 for how long? Could have fooled me.

  The word that is constantly used to describe me is workaholic. I’ll deny it till I’m red in the face and have glycerine sweat running down my forehead. Simply, I’m asked to do things I can’t possibly turn down.

  I’m not producing Duran Duran, or duetting with Boy George, or touring with Cyndi Lauper. I’m not chasing another Top of the Pops slot or craving another zero on my bank balance. Robert, Eric, John, Philip, Frida—these are people I’ve grown up with, people I’m fans of, and/or people who look great in a fur coat. People I class as icons and true artists. Working with them is an honor. That’s the reason.

  Still, I understand that in some quarters I am an exemplar of the high eighties. But I’m not a yacht-going conspicuous consumer of Ferraris and penthouses. There are some dubious suits, but everyone has them in the eighties. So what if Brett Easton Ellis’s Patrick Bateman views me as all that is glorious about the music of that giddy, gaudy decade? He’s a psycho.

  One of the best things about this time is that Jill is able to travel with me, and enjoy the fun, so our relationship becomes stronger and stronger. She never once complains about the amount of work I undertake. Joely and Simon are ensconced in Vancouver with their mum for much of this time, and I check in on them as often as I can. They always seem happy, which makes me happy. But I miss so many important times with them. Looking back, I can’t quite believe it. If there’s a dark side to the success, that’s very much it.

  —

  Where were you on August 4, 1984, in the middle of the Los Angeles Summer Olympics, the games that were marred by the Eastern Bloc boycott, itself a tit-for-tat retaliation for the American-led boycott of the 1980 Moscow games?

  I certainly know where I was: I was getting married to Jill Tavelman. The lovely bride wore a beautiful white wedding dress, the groom a smart black suit. My best men were Eric and Tony Smith, and the bride’s maids-of-honor were her friend Megan Taylor and Pattie. The wedding was at Guildford Registry Office, and then there was a blessing at our local church. Simon and Joely were there as usher and bridesmaid.

  We had the reception in our garden at Old Croft, where an all-star band played into the night. Eric, Gary Brooker, Robert Plant, Stephen Bishop, Ronnie, Daryl, Chester—so many good mates chipped in. Even the unanticipated arrival of the man from Dyno-Rod—someone’s blocked the downstairs toilet—couldn’t spoil the atmosphere.

  We honeymooned on a yacht in the Aegean, cruising the Greek and Turkish coasts. My professional life was flying, and so was my personal life.

  And where were you when Live Aid happened on July 13, 1985? Well, I know that one, too…

  Or: the show-off must go on

  Robert Plant and I meet in the Mandalay Four Seasons in Dallas. I’m rehearsing for the No Jacket Required tour. We’re happily reminiscing about recording and touring his solo albums together, and about that time in Chicago when my expensive leather jacket fell foul of the hotel dress code but his multicolored monstrosity passed muster.

  Wor
d has started to circulate about a “global jukebox” event being put together by Bob Geldof, a follow-up to Band Aid that will apparently comprise huge, star-studded concerts on the same day in the U.K. and the U.S. I’ve been reading about it and thinking, “This is never gonna happen. Too fantastical.” It’s 1985, the early days of simulcast concert technology, and to produce a live concert on both sides of the Atlantic just seems too ambitious.

  I’ve heard nothing directly from the unstoppable Mr. Geldof—not a man to sit on his hands—so I’ve assumed it’s pie-in-the-sky stuff, or that I wouldn’t be involved. To be honest, though, I’m busy enough elsewhere. Frankly, No Jacket Required has been flying since its release at the start of the year.

  Then suddenly Geldof’s giving press conferences, declaring that so-and-so will be performing—without actually having spoken to so-and-so. Then he’s jumping on the phone: “Bono’s doing it, so will you do it?” Or, actually, because it’s Geldof: “Bono’s fucking doing it, so will you fucking do it?” Which, in the end, is pretty much how the offer to perform in some capacity at this global jukebox comes my way.

  In Dallas, Robert asks me, “Are you doing this show that Geldof’s putting together?”

  “Yeah, I think I am. Dunno what though.”

  “Oh,” says Robert. “Can you get me on it?”

  “You don’t need me to get you on it—you’re Robert Plant! Just call Bill Graham,” I say of the legendary American concert promoter. He’s booking Geldof’s U.S. show, which will take place in Philadelphia, while the equally legendary Harvey Goldsmith is booking the London show.

  “Oh no, I can’t call Bill. We don’t get on with Bill. Bill hates us.”

  Then I remember the “Oakland Incident”: the notorious backstage fight at a Led Zeppelin show in 1977 in which one of Graham’s team was assaulted by members of the Zeppelin crew. But that was the “dark cloud” world of Led Zeppelin, not the infinitely lighter world of Robert Plant.

  So I say, breezy as you like, “I’m sure it’ll be OK. Bill will be fine!”

  Then Robert says, “You, me and Jimmy could do something.”

  To me, this suggestion seems (a) casual and (b) reasonable. I’m busy all over the place; I’ve been performing with everybody, plugged into projects with Robert and Eric and even Adam Ant (I produced and drummed on his single “Puss ’n Boots,” from his 1983 album Strip). So, even if I am already playing under my own steam, I can do something else too. Why not?

  The syllables “Led” and “Zep” are never uttered. There is no talk at all of reviving Led Zeppelin, who haven’t fired a riff in anger since the death of John Bonham five years previously. No reunion. Nothing. So, no talk of making a big deal of this, and no talk of rehearsing. There’s no need. It’s just me and Planty, who have a history, and Jimmy Page coming in on guitar, to have a bit of a blow. What could possibly go wrong?

  And from such innocuous acorns are mighty oaks of global jukebox argy-bargy grown.

  Not long after Dallas I’m on tour somewhere in America, and I get a phone call in my hotel room. It’s Sting. “Are you doing this Geldof concert, Phil?”

  “Yeah, I am…”

  “Well,” says Sting, “do you want to do it together?”

  After connecting at the Band Aid recording, and me then asking him to sing backing vocals on No Jacket Required, I’d returned the favor by working on some demos for Sting’s first post-Police album, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, which will also come out this summer of ’85. Now that he’s broken with his past and is in the process of launching a solo career, Sting’s in no mind to immediately rejoin his old band mates, no matter how big or global this jukebox is. Equally, he doesn’t want to be up there all alone. I get that.

  “Sure, Sting, why not? We’ll do a couple of yours, couple of mine.” Again, this request seems reasonable and, just as importantly, doable.

  That spring and early summer we all go off on our individual journeys. My U.S. tour finishes a week before the date of Geldof’s event—now called Live Aid—and I go home to Jill. Sting and I talk on the phone and decide to rehearse at my house. Sting, wife Trudie Styler by his side, arrives ready to rock.

  Jill and I have a pool. It’s an outdoor English swimming pool, it’s July, so possibly the sun is out. But we’re not on the Riviera, and the water is barely heated. But to be hospitable, and remembering how nice Mrs. Gabriel was to me the day I auditioned for Genesis, I say, “If you want to have a swim…”

  Without batting an eyelid—or fetching a pair of trunks—Sting does just that. Off with the trousers, a slight rearranging of the underpants, and in he slides, smooth as an otter, making barely a splash. Jill tries to avert her eyes, but not entirely successfully.

  After a few easy lengths he pulls himself out, dries off, and instantly looks immaculate once more. Flash sod. I briefly consider taking up yoga but, mercifully, common sense prevails.

  We sit down at the piano in the front room. I refresh his memory about what we’re going to do together—“Long Long Way to Go,” which he sang on No Jacket Required—and I manage to throw together a passable solo piano version of “Against All Odds.” Then we do “Every Breath You Take.” I can’t remember the words, so Sting tells me what to sing, and I write it down.

  Meanwhile, over in Plant and Page world, one thing has led to another. Harvey Goldsmith and Bill Graham have got involved. “You, me and Jimmy maybe doing something together” has become The Second Coming of History’s Greatest Rock Band. This is a development of which I am blissfully ignorant. Robert hasn’t called, so I don’t know that John Paul Jones is coming too. And all of a sudden, it’s LED ZEPPELIN!

  Just to add to the drama, there has also been another parallel conversation. Someone asks, “It would be great if you could do something else at Live Aid, Phil—any thoughts?”

  “Well, really, I’d prefer to just play drums with someone” is my honest reply. I’m used to that. I can slip on to that stool, into that role, no problem. I don’t have to worry about my voice. “Where are Eric and Robert playing?” I ask Harvey Goldsmith.

  “Eric’s in America. So’s Robert.”

  So, I’m thinking, that’s that. I’m here and they’re there. That’s not going to work. “Well, I’m back in England after a long tour in America,” I say, “so I don’t fancy going back so soon. Plus, I’m committed to playing with Sting at Wembley.”

  Then the plotting begins. Goldsmith goes away, looks at the logistics and announces to Tony Smith, “It is possible, if Phil takes Concorde, that he can get to Philadelphia before the show ends. He can do his thing with Sting at Wembley, fly over to America, and finish the day onstage with Eric and with Robert.”

  Hearing this, I think, “Great, getting to play with all my mates—if it’s possible, I’ll do it.”

  With Eric, I have no worries. We’ve done Behind the Sun, I’ve played with him many times, and I know his drummer, Jamie Oldaker. Plain sailing.

  Then, another word comes down the pipe. I finally hear that Robert and Jimmy want to rehearse.

  Rehearsing is the last thing I want to do, especially as that would need to happen in America. I’ve just come off that two-month tour, and I want to spend some time this summer with my kids. Anyway, I know these songs. I saw Zep’s first gig. I’m a fan!

  I later find out that they’ve also asked former Chic drummer Tony Thompson to play, but Robert still wants me on board. I wonder if it’s because he doesn’t want to let me down as a mate. Or has Goldsmith sold him on the gimmick of me doing both shows? I don’t know; I never ask. But I do know I still don’t want to rehearse, even though I can totally understand why, with so much at stake, Robert might want to have a bit of a run-through. Perhaps I might have thought differently if I hadn’t underestimated the “Led Zeppelin reunion” juggernaut.

  Anyway, I tell Robert, “You rehearse it, tell me the songs, and on the plane over, I’ll woodshed it. I’ll listen to the songs on my Walkman.”

  —

 
; It’s July 13, 1985, the day of Live Aid. I wake up at Loxwood, our new house in West Sussex.

  It’s a beautiful day. The whole country, indeed the whole world, is anticipating this once-in-a-lifetime event. For months the preparations have been front-page news across the globe, but the start of that day is the same for us as it is for millions of others: we have childcare issues.

  Jill and I have decided to leave Joely and Simon at my mum’s. Over thirty years later, Joely still won’t have forgiven me. Simon is eight, but Joely is twelve-going-on-thirteen, and Live Aid and the line-up are right up her street. But I just anticipate a logistical nightmare—it’s going to be a long day, involving huge amounts of traveling and obligations, plus commitments by the Concorde-load, and it won’t end until I collapse in a hotel in New York at 5 a.m. U.K. time, almost twenty-four hours since setting off from Sussex. I’m not sure I can be a parent and the global juxebox’s ocean-hopping drummer.

  So, ducking Joely’s stadium-sized adolescent strop, we drop off her and Simon at Mum and Barbara Speake’s place in Ealing, and Jill and I head toward Wembley Stadium. Right across London everyone is out on the road, having street parties and building a fabulous carnival atmosphere.

  Backstage at Wembley, there is a dressing room–compound comprising lots of caravans parked in clusters. For some reason—is it the hair?—I’m lumped with representatives of the New Romantic mob—Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw—and with Sting. Before show time, the BBC’s world music champion Andy Kershaw comes back to interview us, clearly through gritted teeth. He tells the BBC Live Aid documentary years later that he would sooner have been talking to the cool guys like Paul McCartney or Queen or The Who. The ones who’d be a bit more fun, a bit more cred. Instead he has these wallies.