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Phil Collins
(August 2005 Issue)
Testifying On And Off The Drums Phil Collins' first studio album in six years,
Testify,
is another brilliant collection of pop songs, textures, and sounds from
the singer/composer/drummer/producer,
who still considers himself - first
and foremost - a drummer.
When last we spoke, two years ago, Collins
was about to
embark on a big band tour, which unfortunately had to be
cancelled due to Phil's being diagnosed with sudden deafness
syndrome.
"I was recording two or three songs for possible inclusion on a
love-song compilation I was doing," Phil says. "But
at the end of the
week, my ear closed up two or three times during the course of an
evening. I couldn't hear. I went to a
doctor, and he told me I had
sudden deafness syndrome, which the medical world knows very little
about. It has nothing to do
with music or age. They told me it's just
random bad luck."
After having received a second opinion about his
condition, Collins was
given Cortisone injections. He was told that if this treatment didn't
help, he would just have to wait
to see how things worked out. "It's
been a couple of years now," Phil says, "and I have about thirty
percent
comprehension. Gradually your brain adjusts and compensates to
the extent that you can work."
Amazingly, Collins
hasn't allowed his hearing loss to slow him down.
"I've written loads of music," he says, "a lot of it for the new
Disney
film I'm working on." Phil is talking about Brother Bear, which will hit theaters in about a year. Brother
Bear follows Collins' Oscar-, Golden Globe-, and Grammy-winning soundtrack to the hit movie Tarzan. (Phil is also
writing new material for a stage version of Tarzan, not to mention the music for Tarzan II,
a direct-to-DVD release
for Disney.) As for his drumming, Collins
assures that once these deadlines are met, he will resurrect his big
band
project.
For now, though, bringing Testify to the
public is a priority. For a multitude of reasons, Collins took his
time
making the album. And some of the songs were in the making over many
years. "It wasn't until I started working
with the computer that I was
able to develop those bits into songs," he says. "But their lives
started way back. Frankly, I
didn't really want to make an album before
now, because I didn't want to be pressured into going on tour
because
of my ear problems, as well as the fact that my wife had a baby,
Nicholas, and I didn't want to drag him around
the world."
Last
summer, Collins found the time to serve as "house drummer" for the
Queen's Jubilee concert at
Buckingham Palace. "I was in London for two
weeks," he says, "rehearsing and being in a band again with the guys,
with Ray
Cooper playing percussion. We looked at each other every day
and said, "You call this work"? One by one, the artists would
come in
and we'd rehearse with them. I got a chance to play with Queen, Joe
Cocker, Eric Clapton, Tom Jones, Ozzy
Osbourne - it was great." You can check out Phil's performance at that event on the recently released live set,
Party At The Palace (Virgin).
When asked what it was like backing Ozzy, Collins laughed, "I realized
that
it's not easy to play "Paranoid." Playing the concert was great
fun, and I got letters afterwards, one from my early hero,
Brian
Bennett of The Shadows, who said he hadn't seen someone having such fun
playing drums like that in
years."
Robyn Flans
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