Phil Collins has given an update on his health.
The “In the Air Tonight” musician, 73, spoke about the condition that left him no longer able to play the drums in a new documentary on his life, “Phil Collins: Drummer First,” released Wednesday.
“It’s still kind of sinking in a bit,” Collins admitted in the on-camera interview filmed in October 2022.
“I’ve spent all my life playing drums. To suddenly not be able to do that is a shock.”
Collins has been playing the drums since he was five years old but stopped in March 2022. Among several health challenges he has faced in recent years, the Genesis band member has been diagnosed with drop-foot, a condition that left him with no sensation in one of his feet. He has used a cane to walk since 2015.
The “Tarzan” composer went on to explain that, over the years, “the drumming has taken its toll on my hands, legs.”
“If I can’t do what I did as well as I did it, I’d rather relax and not do anything,” he added.
“If I wake up one day and I can hold a pair of drumsticks, then I’ll have a crack at it. But I just feel like I’ve used up my air miles.”
Collins’ son, Nic, who followed in his father’s footsteps and took up the drums, spoke about his dad’s health in the documentary.
“Musicians, people in bands in general had this thought that they were invincible,” Nic said.
“I think that’s really what it is with my dad is just this kind of sense of you’re a drummer, you’re invincible, you do what you do. But you don’t know it’s gonna take a toll in the long run.”
In 2007, Collins dislocated vertebrae in his neck, which left him with nerve damage to his hands. He had a “big surgery on his neck [in 2015] that stemmed from all those years playing drums and bad posture,” Nic said. It was after the surgery that Collins began using a cane.
Collins, who joined the band Genesis in the 1970s, shares a variety of stories in the new documentary.
According to the film’s synopsis, the doc is told “from a drumming perspective—from [Collins’] early days behind the kit to his groundbreaking work with Genesis and his celebrated solo career, from his time with the jazz-fusion group Brand X to composing for Disney’s Tarzan, forming his own big band, and ultimately passing the torch to Nic during the final Genesis and Phil Collins tours.”
“Phil Collins: Drummer First” is streaming now on YouTube.
