The famous band that Phil Collins said he was never a big fan of

Philip David Charles Collins was born in London, England back in 1951 and a few years later adopted the artistic name of Phil Collins. He first achieved fame as the drummer of the legendary Progressive Rock band Genesis, which had Peter Gabriel as the vocalist. After the singer decided to leave the band in the mid-70s, Collins also became the voice of the group.

It was the beginning of a big change in the band’s career, since they started to be more accessible, since they mixed a Pop sound to what they were already doing. It was a crucial move to make the group become one of the best-selling bands of all time with an estimated amount of more than 100 million records worldwide.

Curiously, in the early 80s, Collins also started a solo career that was equally successful, since he became one of the few artists in the history of music that sold more than 100 million records all over the world as part of a band and as a solo act.

Over the decades, the musician talked a lot about other groups and was always sincere. He even revealed which is one famous group that he was never a big fan of.

The famous band that Phil Collins said he was never a big fan of

Although there were a lot of Psychedelic Rock bands in many countries including the United States in the 60s, what was later known essentially as Progressive Rock really started in the United Kingdom. Many famous groups including Genesis were born during that era in England. They influenced countless generations of artists in the following decades.

Those groups continued to evolve in the 70s and added even more elements to that kind of sound during that decade. The drummer and singer Phil Collins always had a broad musical taste. But was always paying attention to what groups from the same sub-genre were doing at that time. However, there was one group that he said that he really wasn’t a big fan of, which is Pink Floyd.

He revealed that in an interview with John Edginton in 2014 when he explained that he didn’t believe that Genesis wasn’t on the “same box” as other groups. (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage): “I was a big early Yes fan, less so. Even though I like the guys in the band I didn’t relate to a lot of their music after the first two or three albums. Jethro Tull, ELP not for me, musically. Floyd, I was never a big (Pink) Floyd fan.”

He continued:

“I probably became more of a Floyd fan in later years than I was at the time. Even though I saw them at the Marquee with Arnold Layne. I was aware of what they were doing. But I never was really a fan. I was in a band that was kind of being always put in the same box as that lot. But never felt that we actually were in the same box. But we probably were,” Phil Collins said.

Waters was never a big fan of Collins too

One of the founders of Pink Floyd, the bassist and singer Roger Waters, who was also an important songwriter for the band, was never a big fan of Collins. Especially in the 80s and early 90s that he didn’t say many good things about the Genesis drummer and frontman. Because he was a huge Pop star and was everywhere in the music business.

In an interview with Musician magazine in 1992, Waters said that Collins pretended to be “a songwriter and a rock n’ roller”.  “You can draw a line between what I’m interested in and what I’m not interested in. On one side you can name Dylan and Lennon, who observe the world and have ‘feelings’, and write songs directly from those feelings. On the vapid side you have pop groups who need material and write songs to fill the hole. Rather than getting somebody else.”

‘But they might just as well get somebody else, because it’s a manufacturing process. It’s not poetry, because it doesn’t spring from heart or guts or wherever John Lennon‘s or Dylan‘s songs came from. And in my view – I seem to always wind up attacking poor Phil Collins. But it’s only because he’s so visible. He’s symptomatic of an awful lot of if. He might well disagree and so might his fans. But the ‘feeling’ I get is that he’s pretending to be a songwriter or a rock’n’roller.”

He continued:

“It’s an act. That’s why it’s unsatisfying. And those videos underscore that feeling. If you cared about what you were doing, you would ‘not be able’ to do that silly walk, one behind the other. Because you would find it impossible to ridicule your work in that way. ‘Mister Picasso, we think it would sell this work if you hung by your heels from a crane and held it upside-down with your trousers down.'”

“Pablo’s not gonna do that because he’s serious about what he does. Just a passing thought. That’s taken over an awful lot of the business. You could say, ‘Well, why shouldn’t it?’ Absolutely “no” reason. So long as it doesn’t take over and “squeeze” out the Lennons and Dylans because they’re too good for it. They “won’t” take their trousers down and do silly walks on the beach,” Roger Waters said.

Pink Floyd was formed two years earlier than Genesis, in 1965. In the 70s became bigger then their peers, being the most succcesful Progressive Rock group in history. Albums like “Dark Side Of The Moon” (1973), “Wish You Were Here” (1975) and “The Wall” (1979) were crucial for helping them to gain more fans. They have sold an estimated amount of more than 250 million records worldwide. That number makes them one of the best-selling bands of all time.