GENESIS, In Defense Of GENESIS

GENESIS, In Defense Of GENESIS

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Chris Welch

“Because I’ve had solo success, people say I’ve suddenly got a stranglehold on the group, who want to make as much money as possible and are prepared to do whatever I say!” Phil Collins rolls his eyes to heaven and contorts his expressive face into a scowl.

He’s talking about Genesis, his relationship with the group and his own fantastic solo career, while coping with a sore throat and a steak sandwich.

“It’s weird what people think, because that is completely off the mark.” He gulps down another bite of sandwich, coughs and adds.. .“Really off the mark!”

After their 1986-87 tour—which included Budokan Hall in Tokyo, Wembley Stadium in London, and numerous soldout stadium shows in the U.S.—the concept of Genesis is still being challenged. Jeered at and dismissed by some critics in recent years, Genesis have grown ever more popular—so popular, in fact, that they oft appear to be more a horn of plenty than a viable “group.” When Genesis play “live” now, most of their material is from recent albums like Invisible Touch, which has sold about 10 million worldwide and yielded a stream of hit singles like “Tonight Tonight Tonight” and “Land Of Confusion.” Gone indeed are the cult days of Trespass and Nursery Cryme.

So with all this success and public acclaim, why is Phil, their cheerful and good-natured spokesman, getting so cross? Well, he’s not so much angry as weary at the way people denigrate Genesis, often without even listening to the music.

And he’s extremely tired at the way the band’s motives have been questioned and distorted of late. Their manager, Tony Smith, gets even more furious about it and says: “Criticism is fine, but you don’t get that. Quite often in a review they don’t even mention the bloody music. They go on a diatribe about the band or what Phil looks like, and that infuriates me. It’s nonjournalism and it hurts when they spend a lot of time making records they are very sincere about, only to have it dismissed as ‘another commercial record by those millionaires.’ We’ve never done things just for the money and never will. OK, we earn good money, but that is the by-product. In the past we have always spent more on our shows than we’ve earned. Genesis have always kept their feet on the ground and stayed normal. Maybe that’s what bugs some critics, but I feel very proud of the band.”

Phil rejects suggestions that Genesis has been reduced to a one-man band and that he writes all their current hits. Their songs are group compositions he says, and always have been.

“People assume I have more of a say in the band now, and consequently I’m steering them in a certain direction. All we’re doing is the same things we’ve always done, but we got better at it! A song like ‘Invisible Touch’ is basically not that much different from ‘I Know What I Like’... But suddenly your old fans think you have sold out, and the new fans don’t know you for anything else.

“People tend to say now we’re just a commercial group who write pop songs, but ‘Domino’ and ‘Tonight Tonight Tonight’ are more like the old Genesis. We have always written collectively, and any individual songs have been credited to the group anyway. We thought if one person got the credits he would get all the royalties and it would create an unfair imbalance.”

OK. But there have been changes in the way Genesis come up with their songs. Up until the Duke album (1980), the members of the group would turn up with bits of ideas at the studio and try to put them all together. Now they arrive with nothing prepared and work it out between them in the studio, a process of improvisation that resulted in such gems as “Mama” on 1983’s Genesis album. Says Phil: “The band is now like a melting pot of different musical tastes. People heard ‘Mama’ and thought ‘Ah, that’s Phil!’ In fact, Mike Rutherford came up with that one. It was an idea he got with his drum machine. Tony added a few chords and I started singing, making up the lyrics on the spot.”

Another big influence on the way Genesis has developed stemmed from them all being given Roland drum machines during their Japanese tour of 1978.

“They were the first hip drum machines. Soon as we started using them our writing spaced out. You didn’t have to keep the left hand going on the piano or strumming a guitar. Tony Banks could play one note on his keyboards instead of a big chord. We tried to avoid being a caricature of our past selves.

“I’ve got a big drum sound and there was less room for lots of notes. Abacab (1981) was the album that seemed to say this is what we are doing now as opposed to what we used to do. The songs we write now get played on the radio, and once you’ve got your foot in that door, you’re away.

“The interesting thing about Genesis is the chemistry between us. We are a bit like Monty Python. They are all very good on their own, like John Cleese and Michael Palin, but they come together as a group and do something completely different! It’s the same with Genesis. We all do our own things, but when we get together as a group, something different occurs. Sometimes we don’t see each other for a year-and-a-half. We meet up in our studio and it’s like we’ve never been gone. We pick up the pieces and go for it.

“Nobody minds if you make mistakes. It’s just natural. And that’s the kind of chemistry you don’t often get, only with great groups like the Beatles and the Who. I’m not putting ourselves up on a pedestal alongside them, but, like them, we can work together right away.”

If no one else, the paying customers seem to subscribe to the comparison. While such notables as Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times termed their Dodger Stadium concert “boring,” the concert was sold-out. Nothing new here: Phil and Genesis are often the target of satirists who parody their songs, or sneer at them as bores. And they good-naturedly collaborated with their chief tormentors, the Spitting Image team, for the superb video of “Land Of Confusion.”

“It’s funny how people perceive you,” says Phil. “We thought it would be fun to do a video of us as Spitting Image puppets and show we could take a joke. ‘Land Of Confusion’ is a political song about the mess we have landed in, and so we handed the Spitting Image team the song and they made new puppets of me, Tony and Mike. It was a great antiimage thing. Most people get made up and do their hair for videos. We chose the ugliest models available! It’s good to poke fun at yourselves. We do take the mickey out of ourselves in our shows and yet a lot of people think Genesis are a very serious—you know—boring art rock group. But we are less pompous than we used to be.”

Case in point: one of the biggest turnarounds in Genesis policy in recent years has been to play a medley of rock and soul hits as encores, ranging from “Satisfaction” to “Pinball Wizard.” Definitely not art-rock.. .and great fun!

“It’s baffled some people,” says Phil. “Some critics who like the show say: ‘Why do they spoil it with that awful R&B?’ Other people say: ‘We had to sit through two hours of boring music until we got to the R&B bit.’ It’s amazing.” Phil smiles, looking genuinely baffled. “Some people don’t think it’s right. To us it’s just a bit of fun at the end of a two-and-a-half hour show.”

Collins now seems completely in charge of the stage, with a real actor’s professionalism. Yet he admits he is still nervous about the whole business of talking to audiences and being the front man. “Ah, yes—well, it took me ages even to take the microphone off its stand. It isn’t something I feel completely natural with. The thin microphone stand was something I hid behind for years. It took me a long while to become acclimated to being ‘The Singer.’ I learned a lot more doing my own tours and albums. Nowadays people are shocked when I get up on the drums. They don’t even know I’m a drummer. They’ve only heard me from my albums or seen me on video playing the piano. ‘Oh, he plays drums as well!’ Which is remarkable considering I’m 36 and I’ve been playing drums for 31 years.”

In addition to some film work, the nonstop Collins continues to work with other musicians and on his own. “I’ve done some stuff for Paul McCartney, Chaka Khan and Tina Turner. Sometimes I have to tell my wife, Jill, ‘I could be home anytime, it depends on how good the bass player is!’ ” So if Phil intends to back off from over-exposure, will there be another solo album in the offing?

“Oh yes—I’ve spent a lot of time writing the album. There are a few ideas around, but only in skeleton form. This will be an important album for me, because No Jacket was so successful. So I’ve thought a lot about it. I’ve gotta back off, so when I finally come back people will say: ‘Oh, Phil’s back, yeah, right!’ ”