Robert Plant’s opinion on Phil Collins

Robert Plant has an incredible career, rising to fame as the frontman of Led Zeppelin, one of the most influential bands of all time, becoming one of the most important voices of Hard Rock while also showing his love of Folk music alongside Jimmy Page on the band’s acoustic-inspired songs. After Led Zeppelin came to an end following John Bonham’s death, Plant built a successful solo career and collaborated with a wide range of artists, demonstrating the remarkable breadth of his musical tastes, from Rock to Americana.

To this day, Plant remains passionate about discovering new artists and keeping up with the genres he loves. Over the decades, he has paid close attention to the music industry and has shared his opinions on many famous musicians, including Phil Collins.

What is Robert Plant’s opinion on Phil Collins

“I was coming out of 12 years in my previous setup with Zeppelin and I was very haphazard. I didn’t know, it’s like suddenly you’ve lost all the structure of everything around you. Anyway, I set about for myself to make a record. Then I got this note from Phil saying: ‘My whole time as a drummer I’ve always looked so highly upon John Bonham. If you need any help, I’m your man. I’d find it great to try and fill a drum stool behind you.’ I was so flattered by that because really, I’d always seen myself as a bit of an appendage in Zeppelin. (I was) just sort of wiggling around and coming up with some funny lyrics (laughs).”

“True to his word, he came down to Rockfield. He said to me: ‘Look, I can give you a week. I can give you Monday to Friday, but we’ve got to do all the tracks by then. I said: ‘Ok’. So he came down and he was incredible because of his awareness of where he sat within the music, the embellishments that he gave, the drive that he gave to the whole thing on a musical level. And we really did get these tracks down.”

He continued:

“But we had so much fun, we lived in a little house on the top of the hill. It was nothing but excitement and positivity. I love him and he must know his presence in my early takeoff post Led Zeppelin was really, really encouraged and supported, humorously by my dear friend,” Robert Plant told BBC Radio in 2026 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). As the singer has said, he is a big fan of Phil Collins. Besides praising him on multiple occasions over the years, has also thanked him for helping launch his solo career. Collins played on five tracks from his debut solo album and six from his second. Like for example in the hit songs “In the Mood” and “Big Log.”

He also toured with Plant as his drummer in 1983 during a part of his successful North American tour. During those shows, Plant was performing only songs from his solo records and a few covers, like Elvis Presley’s “Little Sister”. Collins has been a huge fan of Plant since he first saw Led Zeppelin playing at the historical Marquee Club in London back in the late 60s, when they were still starting.

Phil Collins played with Led Zeppelin on their reunion at Live Aid in 1985

By 1985, Phil Collins was already a global pop star thanks to the enormous success of his first solo albums. That year, Bob Geldof invited him to perform at Live Aid, the benefit concert held to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. Collins performed at both Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.

After his set at Wembley, he flew by helicopter to Heathrow Airport. There he boarded a British Airways Concorde flight to New York City, and then took another helicopter to Philadelphia. There, he played another solo set, joined Eric Clapton on stage, and later played drums for Led Zeppelin. All of that happened in a single day, making Collins one of the few musicians to perform four separate sets across two continents on the same day. The invitation to play with Zeppelin came from Plant himself.

He said:

“I’m in Dallas playing, Robert Plant turns up and says: ‘Well, I was thinking of doing something with Page (At Live Aid). How about you, me and Page doing something?’ Then of course, John Paul Jones got involved and it became the Zeppelin reunion.” After performing in England, flying to the United States on the Concorde, playing his solo set, and joining Eric Clapton on stage, it was finally time to perform with Led Zeppelin.

The band made the decision to double down on drummers, with Phil playing with Tony Thompson. Although Jimmy Page wasn’t ultimately happy with Phil’s performance, Plant said he did a good job. “What better could we do than have a guy who knows John’s work inside out? He’s kind, very capable and eager. So, he did quite a journey that day. I think he did a sterling job,” he told BBC in 2026. Talking with The Times in 2021, Page said that it was “not very clever” to reunite and have Phil Collins. “The drummer couldn’t get the beginning of ‘Rock and Roll’. So we were in real trouble with that,” he said.

The story with Robert Plant that inspired Phil Collins’ album title “No Jacket Required”

Curiously, the origin of Phil Collins’ second album title was inspired by when he and Robert Plant were hanging out in the Ambassador East in Chicago, one of the most prestigious hotels in the United States. “There’s nothing worse than a hotel like that. We were allowed to use the lobby and the elevator, but we couldn’t go into anything. The bar, restaurant, and yet we were paying for it,” Plant said.

When both of them tried to enter the bar, the maître d’ let Robert Plant in. “He was wearing a suit, a WillyWear suit, which was actually, you know, quite loud checks,” Phil recalls. “I had a leather jacket on and believe me, I had jeans on. But you know, they weren’t scruffy jeans and it was a brand new leather jacket. But you know (laughs), this is…, I sound like a complainer, don’t I?”

He continued:

“(laughs). The fact is that we went down there for a drink in the pump room at the Ambassador East hotel in Chicago. For those of you who want to visit, just take a jacket.” The maître d’hôtel argued that the jacket was not “proper”. He didn’t create a fuss about it and after telling about the incident on TV shows at the time, the management of the restaurant later sent him a complimentary sport coat and an apology letter saying he could go back there wearing anything he wanted.

“I remember doing the Prince’s Royal Trust with him, the very first one, with (Pete) Townshend and people. He was the driving wheel, as Bobby Blue Band would have called it. He was right behind the whole show, he learned everything. What a great thing to do, to be that good that you’re prepared to wing it through everybody’s songs in a show like that,” he told BBC.