‘This is what he wants to do’: Phil Collins is touring Australia with his son in the band

When Phil Collins returns to Australia next month, there’ll be a familiar face in his band. The former Genesis frontman opens up about how his son, Nicholas, came to join his live band.

Phil Collins is returning to Australia … this time, with a member of his family. Picture: AFP

EXCLUSIVE

IT starts off as a joke but ends as a poignant, emotional moment between a father and son.

Phil Collins sits at the piano with his son Nicholas and tells the audience how the 17-year-old had dug out his old albums and happened to discover a song he actually likes called You Know What I Mean.

The truth is Nicholas had to learn his father’s extensive repertoire two years ago when his Against All Odds father invited him to join the band for his Not Dead Yet world tour.

But the father-and-son moment during the concert has become imbued with far more sentimentality than the 67-year-old singer, songwriter and actor could have predicted.

Phil Collins shares the stage with his son Nic Collins on the Not Dead Yet tour. Picture: Getty Images

“It’s just me and him, he’s playing piano and I’m singing. It’s an emotional moment sitting next to each other; he’s my son, he’s playing the song I wrote — I’m not particularly reliable on the piano any more with various war wounds. I’m sitting there thinking about it all … I’m really looking forward to doing that especially in Australia,” he says, quickly pulling himself back from getting too emo about it all.

Collins quit the music business in 2011. Health was an issue; he had dislocated vertebrae and subsequent surgeries affected nerves, hands and a foot. He couldn’t drum, play the piano or stand for long periods of time.

In his 2016 memoir Not Dead Yet, he also revealed he took to heavy drinking after his retirement and quit alcohol for three years.

While he would front up for a gig here and there, he had no plans to get back on the road until Nicholas and Matthew, his youngest children with third wife Orianne, and his longtime manager Tony Smith encouraged him to resume his day job.

Phil Collins and his wife Orianne are keen for their son to follow his musical ambitions. Picture: Supplied

“It was only the kids really who were encouraging me to go back out, and my manager who wanted to see me active again,” Collins says.

“When I was last touring, you went out and came back and your kids were driving, it just seemed like an eternity and I guess it was OK at the time.

“But I did have enough of that, I wanted to be around for my kids, to bring them up.”

The seed to bring Nicholas into the fold was planted when the teenager joined his father during a benefit concert for the Little Dreams Foundation the rocker set up with his wife.

Collins was suitably impressed by his son’s efforts to learn the repertoire and then his performance “blew us away.”

The veteran rocker thought long and hard before inviting Nicholas into a band which features members who have played with him for decades; Ronnie Caryl has been with Collins for 50 years.

Phil Collins isn’t as mobile on stage these days because of ‘war wounds’. Picture: News Corp Australia

“I think the biggest thing about bringing him into a band of very seasoned veterans was them liking him and him not feeling intimidated. It was a bit of delicate thing because he’s the boss’s son. I know these guys well enough, they can be honest with me,” he says.

“They fell in love with him and he wasn’t intimidated at all. As long as I’m doing it, I’m hoping he will keep doing it.”

It begs the question whether this father-and-son musical adventure was sanctioned by his mother.

Collins said Nicholas kept up his studies during the first leg of the tour but has since finished his schooling. A brief foray into college didn’t work out because the school authorities weren’t flexible with the musician taking time off to tour.

“We don’t listen to what mum says. I learned that a long time ago,” the cheeky Collins says.

“Both her and I want to make sure he continues to be active and doesn’t sit around waiting for gigs, which is what I did.

“It’s going well, he’s working out, going to vocal lessons and drum lessons. He did go to college but they weren’t open to him taking time off to come on tour with me. He’s like me in so much this is what he wants to do.”

The music legend isn’t a fan of reissues … but is grateful critics are having another listen. Picture: Supplied

The reignition of his concert career coincides with his record label reissuing all eight of his multi-million selling solo records including the chart blockbusters Face Value, No Jacket Required and But Seriously.

While accepting reissues are the record label’s modern method of reheating a back catalogue, Collins feels they exploit the devotion of fans for profit.

“I’m not a fan of remarketing all that stuff because most of fans have got what they want and when you put those out again, it’s like a dog with a bone, they’ve got to have it and I don’t really want to be part of that side of the business,” he says.

But what the reissues did do was prompt a historical revisionism of his work from critics who had sledged the records, if they even bothered to listen them, when they were first released in the 1980s and ‘90s.

And for that, he is grateful.

Never say never to another Genesis reunion tour. Picture: Supplied

“It’s very nice. If you stick around long enough, which happened to Eric Clapton and Elton John, people re-evaluate you,” he says.

“The reissues, and me being retired and being away from everyone for a while, did a job I didn’t expect.

“I met various critics and they said they hadn’t heard a particular album back in the day and they heard it now and loved it and didn’t remembered what they were doing when it came out and they didn’t notice it. For that reason alone, it worked for me, rekindling the idea there’s some stuff out there that people dismissed, that looking back on, wasn’t that bad.”

Collins is rightly enthused about heading back to Australia in January and February for his first tour in 24 years.

He says he tried to bring the Genesis reunion tour with Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks here in 2007 but had no joy. He doesn’t rule out the possibility of another reunion with them — possibly with his son on drums, unless “one of the three of us go on to pastures”.

But he has yet to connect with a famous Australian who lives right next door to him in Miami.

Barry Gibb has quipped before that Collins has been avoiding hanging out with him. But the famed singer says he would be up for a duet or two.

“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?” when I ask if they have finally caught up for a neighbourly cuppa.

“My side wall backs onto his side wall so we are definitely neighbours. And I have not seen him in the three years I’ve been living there. He left a message for me once.

“I’ve played with the Bee Gees and we all got on great and I’ve met him a few times because he’s good friends of Eric Clapton, so there’s no reason.

“At one point I was thinking he and I could do a duets album and pay for the house. Both of our houses probably.

“From my remembrances, he’s a great guy but it is a strange situation where you haven’t actually gone into the other person’s garden. And I’m sure my dog annoys him.”

Phil Collins performs at Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane on January 19, Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney on January 21 to 23, Adelaide Oval, January 25, RAC Arena, Perth, January 28 and 29 and AAMI Park, Melbourne on February 1 and 2.