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Philip David Charles Collins (born January 30, 1951 in Chiswick, London) is an English singer, songwriter, drummer and actor. He is best known as the lead singer and drummer of progressive rock group Genesis and as a Grammy and Academy Award-winning solo artist. He is also an accomplished actor, having starred in numerous films.
Collins sang the lead vocals on eight American chart-toppers between 1984 and 1989; seven as a solo artist and one with Genesis. His singles, often dealing with lost love, ranged from the drum-heavy "In the Air Tonight", to the dance pop of "Sussudio", to the political statements of his most successful song, "Another Day in Paradise". His international popularity transformed Genesis from a progressive rock group to a regular on the pop charts and an early MTV mainstay. Collins's professional career began as a drummer, first with obscure rock group Flaming Youth and then more famously with Genesis. In Genesis, Collins originally supplied backing vocals for front man Peter Gabriel, singing lead on only two songs; it was not until Gabriel's departure in 1975 that he became the group's lead singer. As the decade closed, Genesis's first international hit, "Follow You, Follow Me", demonstrated a drastic change from the band's early years. His concurrent solo career, heavily influenced by his personal life, brought both him and Genesis commercial success. According to Atlantic Records, Collins's total worldwide sales as a solo artist, as of 2002, were over 100 million.
Collins was given a toy drum kit for Christmas when he was five. Later, his uncle made him a makeshift one that he used regularly, and his drumming skills improved. As Collins grew they were followed by more complete sets bought by his parents.[2] He practised by playing alongside the television and radio, and never learned to read and write conventional musical notation; instead, he uses a system he devised himself.
Collins looked for every opportunity to perform. His professional training began at fourteen when he entered Barbara Speake Stage School. He began a career as a child actor and model, and won his first major role as The Artful Dodger in a London production of Oliver!. He appeared in The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night as one of hundreds of screaming teenagers during the climactic concert sequence. Although only an extra in this sequence, Collins receives a close-up all to himself: his mother was hired to cast the extras in this sequence, and she arranged for her son to receive a brief close-up in the film. He also auditioned for the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (1968).
Despite the beginnings of an acting career, Collins continued to gravitate towards music. While attending Chiswick Community School he formed a band called The Real Thing and later joined The Freehold. With the latter group, he wrote his first song titled "Lying Crying Dying".
Collins's first record deal came as drummer for Flaming Youth, who released a single album, Ark 2 (1969). A concept album inspired by the recent media attention surrounding the moon landing, Ark 2 failed to make much commercial success despite positive critical reviews. Melody Maker featured the album as "Pop Album of the Month", describing it as "adult music beautifully played with nice tight harmonies". The album's main single, "From Now On", failed on the radio. After a year of touring, band tensions and the lack of commercial success dissolved the group.
Collins was married to Andrea Bertorelli of Canada, whom he met at a drama class in London, in 1975. They had a son, Simon Collins, and Collins adopted Bertorelli's daughter Joely Collins, now a Canadian actress. They divorced in 1980.
Collins and his second wife, Jill Tavelman, were married from 1984 to 1996. They had one daughter, Lily. Collins openly admits that some of their divorce-related correspondence was by fax (one, about access to their daughter, was reproduced in The Sun), but denies that this took her by surprise.
Collins married his third wife, Orianne Cevey, in 1999. The couple had two sons, Nicholas and Matthew. They lived in Switzerland, overlooking Lake Geneva, before announcing their separation on March 16, 2006. Collins has said he will continue to reside in Switzerland to be near the children. He lives in Féchy.
Collins is a supporter of animal rights and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). In 2005, he donated autographed drumsticks in support of PETA's campaign against Kentucky Fried Chicken. Collins is a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club although has in the past admitted his fondness of West Bromwich Albion.
During the 2001 UK General Election, Collins declared his support for the Conservative.
The majority of Collins's film work has been through music. Four of his seven American number one songs came from film soundtracks, and his work on Disney's Tarzan earned him an Oscar. Collins's acting career has been brief. As a child, he appeared in three films, although two of the films were for brief moments as an extra. Besides the aforementioned A Hard Day's Night (1964), Collins's first lead role was in Calamity the Cow (1967).
Collins wrote and performed the title song to Against All Odds in 1984. The song became the first of his seven American number one songs and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Collins was famously not invited to perform the song at that year’s presentation, although he was in the audience and had arranged his tour around the telecast. It was believed that the Academy, despite nominating him, did not know who he was. A note to Collins's label from telecast co-producer Larry Gelbart explaining the lack of invitation stated, "Thank you for your note regarding Phil Cooper (emphasis added). I'm afraid the spots have already been filled". Collins instead watched Ann Reinking perform his song. For a long time afterward, he would inform audiences at concerts, "Miss Ann Reinking's not here tonight, so I guess I'll have to sing my own song," before performing "Against All Odds".
An early theme in Collins's music, although never specifically mentioned in his albums, involved his then recent divorce. Two songs he wrote on the Genesis album Duke (1980), "Please Don't Ask" and the Top 20 hit "Misunderstanding", dealt with failed relationships. One year earlier he'd produced and played drums on his friend John Martyn's Grace and Danger (1980), an album whose main theme is also marriage breakup. With the recording of his first solo album, Face Value (1981), Collins attributed his divorce as his main influence.
Collins’ marital frustrations formed the bulk of his first solo album as well as his second album, Hello, I Must Be Going! (1982). With songs such as "In The Air Tonight" and "I Don't Care Anymore", Collins's early albums had a dark presence, usually heavy on the drums. Regarding Face Value, he says, "I had a wife, two children, two dogs, and the next day I didn't have anything. So a lot of these songs were written because I was going through these emotional changes." There were occasional poppier influences – Face Value's "Behind the Lines", for example, was a jazzy remake of a Genesis song he co-wrote. Face Value was a critical and multi-platinum success, and saw Collins's profile increase further. However, despite a UK 1 cover of The Supremes' "You Can't Hurry Love", on Hello, I Must Be Going!, Face Value's follow-up was seen as overall disappointment by some critics but the album went triple-platinum in the States like its predecessor and the Supremes cover was Phil's first Top 10 US hit (it also hit the Top 10 of Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart). The album also reached 2 on the UK album chart, spending well over a year there.
A notable episode in Collins's career took place in 1982, when he produced Something's Going On, a solo album by Anni-Frid Lyngstad (Frida), of ABBA fame. Frida, who had just parted with bandmate and husband Benny Andersson, had been heavily impressed by Collins's solo efforts and the personal, emotional load they conveyed. Consequently, she approached Collins with her own solo project. The resulting album, featuring Collins himself on drums, spawned the 1982–83 international smash hit "I Know There's Something Going On" (Russ Ballard) and Collins's duet with Frida titled "Here We'll Stay." An edit featuring Frida on all vocals was released as a single. Also, two years previous, he contributed drums to Peter Gabriel's third self-titled record, which was the first record to feature Collins's signature "gated-reverb" sound, used on a song called "Intruder". As the story goes, Gabriel "didn't want any metal on the record" and asked him to leave his cymbals at home, to concentrate on the sound of his kit more heavily than usual. The result was the "gated reverb" sound which Collins invented, with the assistance of studio engineer, Hugh Padgham. This was the same 'big drum sound' used on such songs as "In The Air Tonight", and "Mama" by Genesis.
A turning point in Collins's musical style came when he was asked to compose the title track for the film Against All Odds, a song which he re-worked to become "Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" from an original Face Value session out-take entitled "How Can You Sit There?". The emotionally charged ballad was an instant classic and shot to 1 in the US but 2 in the UK, unable to get past Lionel Richie's "Hello". It is seen by many critics as the beginning of Collins's move away from his earlier darker and more dramatic material and towards a more pop-friendly, middle of the road, electronic-driven style.
