What Phil Collins' Former Bandmates Have Said About Him

Everyone who loves Phil Collins and Genesis knows at least a few people who hate them as it's a weirdly polarizing thing. Some music, after all, is understandably love-or-hate: Smashmouth. Nickelback. Gwar. But Phil Collins? While the music isn't exactly the sort of thing that anyone's going to get offended by, Collins was so vilified in the 1990s that The Guardian described him as "a symbol of everything that was rotten about the 1980s."

That's pretty harsh, and when they talked to Collins in 2016, he confirmed that he sort of felt the same way. When he announced his retirement following illness-related hearing loss, he said "In a way, I felt like I was a slave to the thing. ... I wanted to be written out of my own script. There were too many things stuck to me that I couldn't get out of."

When he started dating again in the 2000s, he reportedly even requested he be called "Philip," instead of the usual Phil. He wanted to distance himself from the old him, and everything that he no longer wanted to be associated with. For a musician with a slew of awards and honors, that's pretty sad stuff. Collins has worked with and collaborated with a ton of big names over the course of his career, and that brings up the question of what they remember about him? Is he just as vilified by collaborators and band members as he was by the public? It's actually just as divisive.

When Peter Gabriel left Genesis — voluntarily and of his own accord, by the way — Phil Collins took over. Their relationship is at the center of one of the long-standing debates in music history, with some insisting that there was some bad blood there. There isn't. When Genesis staged their farewell tour in 2022, Gabriel was there. He told Mojo, "Phil wasn't in as great a shape as he used to be, but they did a great job. Me going was a rite of passage, really. I'd been part of the creation of Genesis, so I wanted to be there at the end."

In a conversation with the Daily Mail, Gabriel also spoke a bit about Collins and said: "He was the workaholics' workaholic." He also confirmed that the end of his time in Genesis didn't come because of any real dislike, but that everyone has sort of just agreed to go their own way.

This doesn't seem to be a modern-day, bygones-be-bygones, either. In 1988, Collins appeared on "This Is Your Life," and Gabriel sent in a recorded message (He was on tour with Amnesty International at the time of taping.) "We're very proud of you, Phil," he said (in part). "And I remember a lot of things. I remember the fiver that I lent you in 1972, and I remember that you could play the drums a lot better than I could. Anyway, I've been very pleased to see your meteoric success and how well you've done."

When Rolling Stone spoke with Bill Bruford about his time with Genesis, he acknowledged that it was a bit of a challenge — while he says he loves music with an emotional connection, he also loves to improvise a bit while performing. And that? Phil Collins just was not down with that. In "Genesis: Chapter and Verse," he recalled (via Musical Brick) being told that he needed to perform on stage and sound just like Collins did in the studio, and it caused a bit of a rift. Still, when he spoke with Rock History Music about his brief time with the band, he had nothing but good things to say about Collins — starting with his talent.

"Phil's a tremendously rhythmic guy," he explained, going on to say that not only could he write and perform, but he could mimic anything he heard, and could imitate pretty much any other drummer.

Bruford went on to say that decades later, he was sad about the way things had shaped up for him. "I'm disappointed, now, that he seems to be an unhappy guy." He added that there were, however, extenuating circumstances that he understood: "Some of that's physical, though, I think that he's had a lot of physical problems." Still, Bruford also lauded Collins for something that not all musicians can boast, and it went back to those emotionally vulnerable songs: "I can't help but admire such an amazingly direct connection between performer and audience... I think it's fantastic."

When Rolling Stone sat down to do a career retrospective with guitarist Daryl Stuermer, they started by mentioning a hilarious anecdote where he admits that the first time he saw Peter Gabriel perform, he was less than impressed. Fast forward a bit, though, and after joining a Phil Collins-led Genesis, Stuermer would become a key part of performances on stage and in the studio, both with Genesis and alongside Collins for his solo projects.

Adapting to their way of doing things was difficult, he said, and not only because Collins demanded things sound pretty much the same on stage as in the studio. Stuermer revealed that he learned by ear: "None of them really read music. I know that Phil and Mike don't," he explained. And even though he was never officially a member of Genesis, he doesn't seem to have any bitter feelings about that. In fact, he says he explained his role in the same way Collins once explained it to him: "They said to me, 'You're a touring member of the band.' My favorite line that Phil said about me in an interview was, 'Daryl is a permanent, part-time, temporary member.' I love that. I've actually used that line myself at times."

But Stuermer has had nothing but good things to say about working with Collins, and when he was asked about all the times Collins retired then un-retired, stopped touring, then came back for one more, he said he was always up for an encore: "I'm savoring it every time that we play."

Longtime Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett shared his interesting perspective on the band's evolution with Rock and Roll Garage in 2021 when he described the transition between Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. Gabriel, he said, was a David Bowie-esque actor, performing for an audience in a very visual way. Collins, however, was very different: "... he was very, very good. I think, to be able to hold the audience in the palm of his hand. It was something that Phil had, because he had the common touch."

In an interview with The Metal Voice, Hackett was pretty honest about the fact that he was ridiculously proud of what the band had done in their so-called Peter Gabriel era, saying that getting a shout-out from John Lennon remained one of the things that he was most flattered by. But that's not saying that he didn't have love for Phil Collins, because he absolutely did.

When he sat down for a chat with Ultimate Classic Rock, they asked him about something that Collins alleged in his memoir. He wrote that Hackett hadn't been incredibly straightforward with him when he was getting ready to leave the band, and Hackett acknowledged the truth of it. "I loved Phil and I didn't want him to talk me out of it, because I suspect that he and I would have continued working on for many years to come."

Of the three main members of Genesis, it's Tony Banks who hasn't had the solo career that could compare to either Phil Collins or Mike Rutherford. When Music without Borders Innerviews asked him about it, he said that of course Collins had been successful, but added, "The salt was kind of rubbed in the wound by the success of Mike + the Mechanics." He also admitted that he was always more than happy to just sort of go along with things: "Because Phil and Mike seemed to know what they were doing next. So, I went forward with that."

Banks stops well short of saying much of anything against the former Genesis frontman, but when he sat down with Vulture in 2023, he did say that there were a few things he wished Collins had done differently. Specifically? "In the Air Tonight." That was, of course, a massive hit for Collins, and according to Banks, Collins always claimed that he'd originally played it and pitched it as a Genesis song. Banks says that's not the case, but added, "If Genesis had done it, I'd have probably screwed it up. ... That's one of my favorite songs of his and always has been."

He also confirmed that yes, fans had definitely seen the end of Genesis, but it wasn't arguments or conflict that had put an end to the whole thing. "I don't think there's anything else left. The well is dry. We can't tour anymore because of Phil's state, so that's the end of that."

In 2019, Leland Sklar sat in on an interview with Phil Collins, and he reflected on seeing the younger generations in the crowd, singing the songs, and said that one of his proudest moments was seeing Nic Collins step up to play the drums in a way that was very, very similar to his father. "It's a real special group of people," he said, saying that they were way beyond just friends.

A few years prior, Sklar was interviewed by the German Genesis Fanclub, and by that time, he had already been touring and performing with Collins for about three decades. It hadn't always been easy, though, and he acknowledged the fact that there were about 10 years that contact with Collins had gotten iffy. There was no falling out, but it was only when Collins came out with his autobiography that he realized what he'd been struggling with. "It used to be with Phil, like if you sent him an email you would get a response within a few minutes. And now, you could send him emails and you might not get a response for six months. So he became very private and introverted through this period, and so none of us were really aware."

He continued, "I was writing to him on a pretty regular basis, just saying that I don't care if we ever play music again, I just care about you as a friend, and I hope you're ok. I mean, that's the ultimate thing. This transcends business, this is all friendships."