TV Review- Phil Collins: Drummer First

 

Phil Collins’ prowess as a drummer is less discussed these days than his incredible Eighties ubiquity, his ever turbulent private life and, more recently, health issues. So it is refreshing to find that as the name suggests  Phil Collins: Drummer First aims to place that side of him foremost in his long career. He has always described himself as a drummer who sings rather than vice versa and over two hours the breadth of his musical endeavours is explored.

 

The film says a lot about Phil Collins the person in that it is presented without the bells and whistles that have accompanied other recent music documentaries or biopics. It is free to view on the Drumeo channel on YouTube and mostly consists of him chatting about his career answering queries from his son Nic and Drumeo’s Jared Falk. The questions are specifically about the musical side so if you’re looking for gossipy scandal then this is not the place. Curiously though  considering this agenda, its a little surprising there is actually none of his recorded music featured either in the background or in the form of clips from his career. Instead, when specific examples of his well-known playing are heard it is Nic performing them. As this is an official film you would have thought some more supporting action would have been available as it was on stage that Collins really showed how good he was. Maybe there’s a copyright issue?

Interspersed with the chats there are some photos from Collins’ career and sequences of Nic and Jared setting up one of his old kits, being perplexed by the old kick drum and also the tiny size of the drum stool. Just watching this set up makes you realise the strain playing such a kit must have put on him over the years. There are also snippets of numerous drummers from different eras and genres playing tribute to Collins’ skills. The interviews were shot over three days in October 2022. To be honest Phil does seem older than someone in their early seventies due to the wear and tear of decades of drumming and early on his answers are foggy as he delves back to the late Sixties and early Seventies. 

Yet with sympathetic interviewers he soon warms to the topics and discusses some of his best known moments in detail notably the famous gated reverb drums that became his trademark. These originated, not on `In The Air Tonight` but on the Peter Gabriel’s `Intruder`, a brooding, tense song anchored by the drums which were recorded in a hallway. He talks through alternating between being singer and drummer on stage with Genesis and how his contributions from the kit were sometimes so complex it proved impossible for the band to re-create onstage- `Down and Out` is the example cited here.  He also recalls some of both the band’s and his own album’s keynote songs, notably `Supper’s Ready`, `Los Endos`, `Invisible Touch` and `In The Air Tonight`.

When it came to stepping forward to take the mic with Genesis after Peter Gabriel’s departure he credits his on stage confidence with a juvenile background at stage school. Also covered are how he developed the famed double drum solos which he and Chester Thompson (and initially Bill Bruford) would perform at the apex of the Genesis live set. As some of the other drummers testify, there was a quality to Collins’ drum work that made it more memorable than his peers and fans could remember these solos like they were part of the band’s catalogue. Most of them were improvised on drum stools to begin with.  Phil stresses that his work was always to support or drive the music, not showing off for its own sake.

His answers mention the musical camaraderie he had with Genesis though he seems to only like some of their output and he doesn’t seem to have a lot to say about his mega successful solo albums either though their personal content might be difficult to revisit. Later he talks more enthusiastically about projects such as the Tarzan soundtrack and also the Big Band tours. The interviews also illuminate some less well known career stops, such as his work with jazz rock group Brand X and producing Abba’s Frida.

Any revelations may seem slight. There's some home movie footage of him tutoring young Nic at home, he mentions the fact that his daughter had a horse called Sussudio (named after the song) or that Collins was good mates with Bill Bruford. He does mention how he once worked with Buddy Rich, a drumming idol of his. The only real surprise is that Phil says he has never been able to read music relying on instinct and feel to produce his music.

We also see him sit behind one of his old kits for the first time in fifteen years and cautiously tap the drums with a pair of sticks he can hardly hold. This was used to promote the film suggesting a melancholy portrait which the programme certainly isn’t. In fact there is something bold about his willingness to even try this however tentatively.  He admits that if one day he finds himself able to hold sticks properly, "I'll have a crack at it" and you see a spark of the drive that fuelled his busy career. Though it is sad to see him in such physical discomfort Collins himself  concludes that , despite his struggles of recent years, he has ultimately been lucky and he definitely filled a career with twice as many things as most people of similar vintage have. Perhaps the absence of clips of him playing is his own choice; he does seem to suggest that looking back is not something he does often. 

There is still a definitive documentary to be made about that remarkable career but if you want to avoid all the peripheral stuff, this film gets to the heart of what made Phil Collins a great musician and one of the best drummers of any era. And it may not yet be a career that is quite over; two years after these interviews its recently been reported he is working on new songs.