Early life

Philip David Charles Collins was born in London on January 30th 1951.
Hes one of three children. His love for drums started when he was 5 and
he was given a toy drum kit for his Christmas. When he was 12 his uncle
built him a temporary drum kit which he used regularly. He learned by
playing along to songs on the TV and radio by just listening to what was
being played, he never learned to read music until he was a teenager.
When he was 13 he was offered the opportunity to play the Artful
Dodger in the London production of Oliver! He also appeared in The
Beatles A Hard Days Night as an extra in the audience and he played
one of the kidnapped children in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. As a
drummer he was strongly influenced by Ringo Starr of The Beatles. His
first record deal came when played drums for a band called Hickory who
then changed their name to Flaming Youth. They only had one album
which was a concept album called Ark 2 based on the moon landing but
due to the lack of success the band split up.
Genesis
Phil attended an audition for a drummer for acoustic and 12-string guitar
music which happened at Peter Gabriels house. Phil got the part and
became the drummer for Genesis who have sold around 130 million
records worldwide, most of the Genesis songs of the 80s were written
by Phil including Follow You Follow Me, I Cant Dance, Illegal Alien,
Invisible Touch, In Too Deep, Jesus He Knows Me, Mama, No Son Of
Mine, Land of Confusion and many more. Although the first 5 years of
Genesis Phil only drummed and sang backing vocals until Gabriel left to
pursue a solo career Phil became the face of Genesis after many
auditions but none of them were as good as Phil who also sounded like
Gabriel. When Phil became the face of Genesis the whole elaborate
costumes and make up stopped and he defined the bands sound that

everyone associates with Genesis today. Invisible Touch became a

Number 1 hit, the only Genesis song ever to do so. With Phil as singer,
Genesis have released 6 albums including their worldwide bestseller
album Invisible Touch which reached Number 1 in the UK.
Solo Career
Phil began his solo career while still in Genesis and brought out his best
known album Face Value in 1981 and his most well known song In the
Air Tonight. He released his biggest selling album No Jacket Required
in 1985 which has won a Grammy and topped the American Charts for 7
weeks. The album has sold over 25 million copies worldwide and
features the hits Sussudio, One More Night, Dont Lose My Number and
more. He has released 4 more solo albums as well as these 2. His latest
album Testify is coming out soon and is set to be as good as No Jacket
Required. He also wrote Against All Odds which was also a Number 1
hit and got him a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Oscar for
Best Original Song. He writes all of his own songs and he has also done
a few covers which were True Colours (Cyndi Lauper), You Cant
Hurry Love (The Supremes), Cant Stop Loving You (Leo Sayer, which
features on his album Testify) and others. He has a very distinguishable
voice and is one of the best known voices from the 70s to the present.
Between 1984 to 1990 he has tallied 13 straight to the Top 10 hits in the
USA.
Film Career
Phil made his big screen debut in Buster in 1988 alongside Julie Walters
and he wrote the song Two Hearts written for the film and this also
earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song and a Golden
Globe award. He also appeared in an episode of Miami Vice after In the
Air Tonight was put in the soundtrack. He also wrote the songs for the

1999 Disney film Tarzan and the song Youll Be In My Heart won
Phil an Oscar for Best Original Song as well as a Golden Globe Award
for Best Original Song. He also won a Grammy for Best Soundtrack
Album.
Personal Life
Phil has been married 3 times and divorced 3 times and claims hes
never getting married again. He has 5 children, one of which he has
adopted when he was married to his first wife and who is his first wifes
daughter to a different man. His son Simon is also a drummer and has
his fathers drumming talent and skill and signature sound.