WASHINGTON — Phil Collins may be known for middle-of-the road hit songs, but the hits he deals out in a recent British interview are somewhat more pointed.
For one thing, his feelings on former Beatle Paul McCartney can’t actually be reproduced here.
While he starts off by telling The Times of London that “McCartney was one of my heroes,” he adds that “He has this thing when he’s talking to you, where he [takes the attitude] ‘I know this must be hard for you, because I’m a Beatle. I’m Paul McCartney and it must be very hard for you to actually be holding a conversation with me.’”
Collins, 65, recalls meeting McCartney in 2002 at a Buckingham Palace party. “McCartney came up with Heather Mills and I had a first edition of ‘The Beatles’ by Hunter Davies and I said, ‘Hey Paul, do you mind signing this for me?’ And he said, ‘Oh Heather, our little Phil’s a bit of a Beatles fan.’
“And I thought, ‘You f—. You f—.’ Never forgot it.”
It’s just one of several insights into the former Genesis drummer and 1980s hitmaker (“In the Air Tonight,” “One More Night,” “Take Me Home”) revealed in a recent interview with The Times of London on the eve of the release of his autobiography, “Not Dead Yet.”
Collins is depicted as “unintentionally hilarious: grouching around his luxury digs like a former dictator under house arrest, moaning about the humidity and dressed like a bus driver,” but eventually the interviewer esteems him “rather lovable actually. If very intense.”
He’s also back together with his third wife, Orianne Cevey, whom he divorced in 2008, and their two children, living in Miami, which Collins claims not to like particularly.
Collins also discusses his recent health problems, involving impaired foot and hand mobility, as well as the alcohol problem that almost killed him and developed not because of the pop-star lifestyle but from having too much time on his hands after essentially retiring.
And for someone who has taken more than his share of critical abuse, and sold millions of records despite it, he shows a surprising sensitivity toward what people think of his music, including his fears after a brief collaboration with Adele.
The Times interviewer deems him “faintly embarrassed by his 1980s ubiquity” and says, “I have never interviewed someone so openly plagued by insecurities.”
Collins looks to his legacy and sighs that his headstone will read, “He came, he went [he sings the ‘In the Air Tonight’ drum fill], he wrote ‘Sussudio’ and divorced his wife by fax” (a rumor he debunks).
