Issue date: June 20, 1999

In this article:
Chart topping again
Collins' remarks on icons
A possible Genesis reunion?

Rocker Phil Collins makes Disney's Tarzan swing

Just another day in paradise? Phil Collins teams with the Disney machine for the animated feature's soundtrack.

By Dennis McCafferty

ummer déjà view? A Disney animated feature, Tarzan, opens at a multiplex near you this weekend. A stampede of promotional merchandise -- GameBoy products, CD-ROMs, posters, watches -- await your Visa card. A catchy, inevitably Oscar-bound soundtrack already is climbing the charts. And along for the latest Disney summer blockbuster ride is none other than the former '70s rock drummer-turned-'80s pop chart-topper, Phil Collins. Just another smart career move for this charming, yet candid, chap.

Today, making music means more than making music, and Collins, 48, is quick to oblige. The animation people need promotional pizazz? He'll spend hours signing animation cells. Disney execs want big-time foreign sales? No problem. Collins records the soundtrack in five languages: English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

In the movie, Collins says, he sings as if he were Tarzan's spiritual guide. So he wrote the lyrics to recall the spirit of Tarzan's dead father. "I feel like the Obi-Wan Kenobi kind of voice providing the guiding light -- that kind of role," says Collins. "But I don't want to use that analogy because I'm tired of Star Wars."

Disney executive Chris Montan says Collins' proven track record as a melody maker and percussionist -- the latter talent perfect for a cartoon set in the jungle -- made him an easy choice. "Another big plus is his voice," Montan says. "There's an emotional resonance there. When he sings the thoughts of the characters, he really expresses their emotions and takes the songs over."

CHART TOPPING AGAIN

Old formula, new success? The first single, You'll Be in My Heart, is on the charts and already is being touted as an Oscar contender. Other songs, such as Son of Man, Two Worlds and Strangers Like Me, recall Collins' musical peak.

The London-born Collins juggled a solo career while playing in two bands (Genesis and Brand X) and collaborating with a who's who of the recording industry (Eric Clapton and Quincy Jones, for starters). He went to the top with 11 straight top 10 hits, solo sales topping 70 million and seven Grammy Awards -- success that prompted such backlash that radio stations promoted Collins-free weekends in the '80s.

So it seems strange, in retrospect, how close Collins, a former child actor, came to not singing at all. After vocalist Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1974 to launch his own notable solo career, the band auditioned 400 singers before concluding the best replacement was their own drummer, Collins.

Today, as music enters the new millennium, Collins misses those days. Music is no longer about a band of mates making a record and taking it to the radio station for on-air happy chat and music samples. Competition is immense to get two minutes' worth of song play as increasingly corporate stations obsess on the bottom line. There aren't even any CDs at the stations these days, Collins observes. "Most of the music is computerized. It's kind of sad. It's not really about why we started rock."

While Collins, now engaged to be married, is still fairly upbeat about his own career, he wonders about Simon, 22, one of his three kids from his two past marriages. Simon records and plays drums, like his dad. "He's a fantastic drummer, and yet he doesn't play drums on his own record," Collins says. "He's using computers."

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'N Sync (also on the Tarzan soundtrack): "They're far more talented than 'this year's thing.' They have great voices. But their fans are young fans. Younger fans don't have the loyalty that the other fans do."

Sting: "I play a lot of Sting stuff. He's a little arrogant sometimes. But he's allowed to be. He's a good-looking, talented guy."

Divas: "Just tell me what you're singing about. Don't embroider everything. She's a fantastic singer, Mariah Carey. Fantastic singer, Whitney Houston. But I get tired of the embroidery, to be honest."

Rap: "Music can do two things. It can build bridges and make people understand each other and their differences. Or it can dig the ditch and make the problem bigger. Rap is making the problem bigger."

Michael Jackson: "The people who don't want anything from him are children. Everyone else wants something. They want to flirt with glory. ... He's a tabloid victim."

A Genesis reunion album or tour? "I really don't have much interest because it's something in my past. I love the guys we're talking about. Peter (Gabriel) and I spoke two or three times just recently. We're going to go skiing together... We're all great friends. But this is something behind me."

Paul McCartney: "I was in A Hard Day's Night. You wouldn't have seen me. Nevertheless, historically, I was in it. I was one of the kids screaming in a theater. They asked me to present an American Music Award to him in London, which was being beamed live to America. We're standing next to each other and I said to him 'I was in A Hard Day's Night.' He said 'You were?' I told him the story. He thought it was so strange that, 25 years later, I'm standing next to him and he's calling me Phil and I'm giving him an award."

Mick Jagger: "I've met him a few times. But he doesn't really know who I am."

Ice-T (who defended his Phil Collins record collection to a British TV journalist): "He said 'Don't mess with my man, Phil. I love his stuff.' I was like, 'My God. I wonder who else heard this?' My credibility might go up."

His own recent 30-piece big band, swing music tour: "In 1996, I did the European tour with Quincy Jones and Tony Bennett. I arrived fully prepared to swim against the tide. No one is going to see it. No one's going to be interested, but this is a labor of love for me. I've wanted to do it for 30 years. Then, I came [to the U.S.] and suddenly, everyone says 'Yeah, it's really happening now, swing music.' Now they're going to say Phil Collins jumped on the bandwagon. But, in fact, it's something I've always wanted to do really, because it never should have been away."

-- Unlike Collins, Staff Writer Dennis McCafferty tried playing garage-band drums and concluded he had two left hands.

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PHOTO CREDIT: Julie Dennis Brothers for USA WEEKEND