Phil Collins, the voice behind "In the Air Tonight" and Genesis frontman, sits down with Dini Petty six days before releasing what he calls his most personal album ever. It's November 1993, and the balding British rocker who's sold 100 million records admits he feels "embarrassed" and "a little guilty" about his success.
Collins, 42, has just finished recording "Both Sides" entirely alone in his home studio, playing every instrument himself for the first time. The result is a confessional record processing two divorces, the ghosts that won't lie down, and bridges that refuse to burn. He tells Dini about the song "I've Forgotten Everything," written in two hours after seeing Harry Connick Jr. perform, and why the raw demo made the final cut because the polished version couldn't capture the same feeling.
What makes this conversation remarkable is Collins' candor about the collision between superstardom and domestic life. His four-and-a-half-year-old daughter Lily is about to start school. His wife is coordinating with his manager to schedule a year-long world tour around school holidays. And the man who became Genesis' accidental frontman after Peter Gabriel left still insists he's not in control of his destiny, that it's all been "right place, right time."
This interview, never broadcast since its 1993 CTV airing, captures Collins before the health challenges that would eventually force his retirement in 2022. For fans who watched him perform from a wheelchair in his final Genesis shows, here is the Phil Collins who could still drum, still tour, still believe the best was yet to come.
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Dini reveals she's Phil's 15th interview of the day, and he still makes her feel like the first
1:00 Planning a year-long world tour around a four-year-old's school schedule (and why his wife works with his manager)
2:57 "This is your second family": what Collins learned about career and kids from his first divorce in 1978
4:30 Becoming Genesis' accidental frontman when Peter Gabriel left and nobody else wanted the job
6:13 The night Harry Connick Jr. inspired a song: writing "I've Forgotten Everything" in two hours
8:12 Actor, drummer, producer, singer: Collins on having "different lives" and playing drums behind Eric Clapton
8:58 "A little embarrassed, a little guilty": why success feels like luck, and how divorce led to songwriting
ABOUT THE DINI PETTY SHOW
The Dini Petty Show was a Canadian daytime talk show that aired on CTV from 1989 to 1999. Broadcast from Toronto, the show featured in-depth interviews with Hollywood legends, music icons, politicians, and cultural figures. Dini Petty's warm yet probing interview style earned the show multiple Gemini Award nominations and a loyal audience across Canada.
This channel is the official archive of The Dini Petty Show. Most of these interviews have not been seen since their original broadcast. New conversations from the vault are uploaded weekly.
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