Phil Collins Beats Crippling Back Condition To Play The Drums Again
He sang Against All Odds – and now Phil Collins has beaten the odds by recovering from his crippling neurological conditions enough to play drums once more. Phil has confirmed he will perform behind the drum kit again on next summer’s comeback shows. The ex- Genesis star is so determined to wow fans that he has vowed to tape his sticks to his hands if he loses control.
He has undergone enough rehab to recover from back, neck and arm trauma, which has kept him away from the snare and hi-hats for the last decade. He has hired his son for his upcoming tour but is expected to play drums himself in the encore – to play his infamous drum fill from In The Air Tonight.
Phil, 65, said: “I am sure I will be able to pull that together, yeah.
“And I am going to apply myself to do something and hopefully be playing that particular thing (In The Air Tonight) with my son Nick, who is playing drums on the tour. “It is the subtlety in my hands that is important and I know that drum fill isn’t particularly subtle but there is a subtlety to what I do and when I play which involves my fingers and I have had this neuro problem for a while so even if I have to tape the sticks to my hand I will do something.”
Phil is at peace with his issues and has spent his last two years rehabbing.
Speakin on US radio he said of his previous battle with the bottle: “Sure I am 65. I have done it for 60 years bits wear out and sometimes hat is because of the old age and gradually things happen at different points in your life. “But this suddenly happened on the Genesis reunion tour in 2007 and that is what what started it off, but this irrelevant now.”
In 2007 the extensive drumming work load on the Genesis reunion tour left his body ravaged with pain.
The shows led to a dislocated vertebra in his neck that caused nerve damage in his hands, ultimately leaving him unable to play the drums. He tried to carry on, even taping the sticks to his hands, but it seemed hopeless. Just a couple of years ago he woke up one morning and was unable to fully move his right foot.
After extensive MRI scans, he learned that “my back and hips were just shot,” he said previously.
“The doctor had to go in there, work on the sciatic nerve and take my back apart and unscramble the mess.” Since then he has been rehabilitating his body, but never publicly discussed the notion of a return to the kit. Phil’s return for 15 dates in London, Cologne and Paris sold out in seconds.
He is plotting gigs in South America and north America too later in 2017.