Phil Collins isn't 'hungry' to make new music while he's 'very sick'

USA Today

22-02-2025

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Former Genesis frontman Phil Collins hasn't felt "hungry" about making new music lately, and he is attributing the problem to his health issues.
In a rare interview for the U.K. music magazine Mojo's April issue, 74-year-old Collins described the mental block he experiences when he tries to create new works.
"I keep thinking I should go downstairs to the studio and see what happens," he said in an excerpt of the interview, which published on Mojo's website Tuesday. 'But I'm not hungry for it anymore. The thing is, I've been sick, I mean very sick."
The interview excerpt did not clarify Collins' current ailments.
In Mojo's cover story — which is available on newsstands in the U.K. and boasts interviews with Genesis' "classic lineup" 50 years since the English band's "watershed split" — Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford recall "the lean years, mad costumes and tricky time signatures of a rock one-off."
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'Phil wasn't in as great a shape as he used to be, but they did a great job,' Gabriel said of the group's final show at London's O2 Arena in March 2022. '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.'
Drumming has taken its toll':Phil Collins reveals 'shock' of being unable to play drums
Phil Collins feels like 'I've used up my air miles'
Collins' last original works came in 2002's "Testify." "Going Back," released in 2010, saw him covering the Motown and soul music that influenced him in his childhood
In the "Phil Collins: Drummer First" documentary that was released in December, the musician and his son, Nic Collins, opened up about the toll that performing for so many years has taken on Collins' health.
Nic, who helped create the documentary and sometimes performs alongside his father, told the cameras his dad had suffered several injuries in recent years. Pain in his back and neck and trouble with posture can be traced to years of drumming, Nic said, revealing his father had undergone a major neck surgery.
Collins also suffers from drop-foot, Nic revealed, a condition the Mayo Clinic describes as "difficulty lifting the front part of the foot."
"In one of his feet, he has like no sensation, which is why he can't really play drums and why he has to walk with a cane, because he doesn't have that control that he used to anymore," Nic said.
That Collins struggles to make a drum kit his own the way he once did was reason enough to step away, the singer revealed.
"If I can't do what I did as well as I did it, I'd rather relax and not do anything," he told the filmmakers.
"If I wake up one day and I can hold a pair of drumsticks then I will have a crack at it," he said, "I just feel like I've used up my air miles."
Genesis embarked on their final tour in 2021, their first in the U.S. since 2007. Throughout the tour, Nic replaced his father on the drums while Collins performed seated.
Speaking with USA TODAY in 2022 about The Last Domino? tour, Banks and Rutherford more or less confirmed it would be their final venture as a group.
"We'd always say never say never, but there comes a point," Banks said. He added, "We thought the 2007 tour would be the end, and this was never planned, so it was a nice thing to have happened. But it's important to know when to stop something."