On November 14, Phil Collins will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in recognition of his solo career, 16 years after being inducted as a member of Genesis.
In a new interview with the New York Times, Collins says that he is "very, very pleased" by the accolade, and admits that he was "quite surprised" to learn that he was being considered for the honour. He also suggests that his solo career, which began with 1981's Face Value album, benefitted from the fact that he didn't really know what he was doing at the time.
"Being self-taught as a drummer and a keyboard player, I would come up with things that were unusual," he tells writer Jon Pareles. "Sometimes if you don’t know the rules, you don’t know if you’re breaking them."
Collins freely admits that he had no grand master plan when embarking upon his solo career: "It was just me trying to get the equipment to work and basically having a bit of fun improvising" he tells Pareles. As songs began to take shape, he imagined that their fate would depend entirely on whether or not his Genesis bandmates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford might consider them for inclusion on the the band's tenth album. Banks and Rutherford maintain though that while Collins offered up Misunderstanding and Please Don't Ask as possible contenders for what became Duke, he didn't ever play them the song that would ultimately launch him as a solo artist, In The Air Tonight.
When released as a single, that song topped charts in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and Sweden, peaked at number two in the UK, and reached number 19 on the US Billboard Hot 100. It has since been certified for half a million physical sales in both the UK and US (plus three million digital sales in America, and 1.8 million digital sales in Britain), and remains Collins best-known song globally.
Though Collins went on to sell over 100 million albums as a solo artist, and has won eight Grammy Awards, he says that he was not anticipating that his solo career would be recognised this year by the music industry's most prestigious institution.
"I’d gotten quite used to being overlooked," he admits. "I didn’t go looking to see who was nominated this year, so I was quite surprised when I heard I was up for induction. It’s just a pat on the back, you know. If it wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be craving it. But it is there, and I’m very, very pleased."
This year's Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony will be held at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles on November 14. The class of 2026 inductees include Iron Maiden, Oasis, Billy Idol, Phil Collins, Wu-Tang Clan, Joy Division/New Order, Sade and Luther Vandross.
