Simon Collins on how he marches to the beat of his own drum
Musician on famous family, his drugs battle and hope for the future
The Irish-based musician Simon Collins obviously “Plays Well with Others”, considering his track record includes collaborations with Steve Hackett and Howard Jones.
But the multi-instrumentalist, who first picked up a pair of drumsticks at age five and spent a big chunk of his childhood on tour with his dad’s band Genesis, proved he was a man of principle when he couldn’t dance to his record label’s tune on his second solo album in 2005.
Warner Bros. wanted Simon to record a duet with his father Phil Collins, which would’ve guaranteed him a worldwide top 10 hit single.
But the then up-and-coming star, whose debut solo album sold an impressive 100,000 copies, was determined not to ride on any coattails and wanted to be taken on his own ‘Face Value’.
“They said, ‘What we’re thinking is that you and your dad do a single together’. I just stormed out of the room. I said, ‘I don’t want to work with these guys again. The strategic union of Warner Brothers and Simon Collins is over!’” he told me.
“My dad and I promised each other we would never do a cheesy vocal duet track together, because the labels are going to ask for that.”
The British-canadian artist would have the proverbial last laugh.
Simon did even better with his third solo album, U-catastrophe.
Its first single Unconditional was a smash hit in The Land of Maple Leaf, where he was raised by his Canadian-born mother after his parents split when he was still in short pants.
Father and son worked together on that album, too. “We did a ‘drum battle’ called The Big Bang. It was really amazing; it means so much to me,” he said.
“I said, ‘Listen man, let’s do something that means something to us. Our bond is drumming. Let’s do a drum battle’. Not so much a battle – it’s more call and response.
“It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. It meant so much to have him on the album. And I didn’t put in ‘featuring Phil Collins’. He got a tiny credit in the booklet and that’s it. It wasn’t for marketing purposes.”
But it hasn’t always been a bed of roses for them.
Simon admitted he was upset when Phil released his 2016 autobiography entitled Not Dead Yet.
Simon’s mother even announced she was suing her ex-husband over “wholly false statements” made in it.
“I haven’t read it. I’ve read some of it. I can’t say I was too happy about some of the things in that book. I don’t feel that some of it was accurate,” he confessed.
“You know, what do you get to do?”
He could’ve picked up the phone and given Phil a piece of his mind.
“Well, my mom did that anyway. She did it for all of us. I think it was more about things surrounding my mom and dad’s history. Naturally, I’m going to support my mom if she’s upset about it,” he replied.
Simon, who is now set to release his new album as part of the duo emolecule with his old Sound Of Contact bandmate Kelly Nordstrom, acknowledged that he and his younger half-sister Lily of Emily In Paris fame both got a leg up when starting out in the entertainment business thanks to their old man’s important connections.
But the cream always rises to the top.
“She’s so intelligent. She’s so talented. She’s written a book already. She’s done some modelling. She’s done a lot of films. And it helps to live where she lives in LA,” he pointed out.
“I think my dad helped her out a little bit at the beginning.
“My dad helped me get my first record deal with Warner Brothers. After that, he’s like, ‘I’m not helping anymore. It’s all up to you now, buddy, what you make of this’.
“And I don’t think I fully appreciated it at the time. I appreciated it... don’t get me wrong. But I took it a little bit for granted.”
They aren’t the only siblings in the Collins family with talent either. “My [half ] brother Nicholas did drums for Genesis and my dad’s solo tours. He’s great, such a talent,” he stated.
“And my older [half ] sister Jolie, she just moved to Holland. She’s a TV producer and an actress.
“And my baby [half] brother Matt, he’s playing football [in the youth team of German Bundesliga side Hannover]. Everyone’s doing something really exciting with their lives.”
Simon admitted that there is a downside to having such a famous dad, who incidentally turned 72 earlier this week.
“There’s a false economy with me and women: they think because my dad is famous and he’s rich, that I’m rich too,” Simon revealed.
“And so there’s a false economy there, were, all of a sudden, they quit their job and I’m paying all the bills! I’m like, ‘Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What happened here? That all happened very quickly’.”
Simon – whose first marriage ended in divorce and was later also “engaged for seven years, but that’s no longer happening” – has prudently decided to “take a break” from relationships.
“Because I’ve been a serial monogamist my entire adult life,” he went on, “and I decided, ‘You know what? For once, I’m going to have a relationship with myself and focus on my music, family and my recovery [from drug and alcohol addictions]’. I deserve to give that to myself. You know, some me time.” But these days Simon has more of a chance of coming across the type of gold diggers out hunting for the leprechaun’s pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
He now lives with his mother Andrea Bertorelli in the wilds of Kenmare, South County Kerry.
His mother had met Phil in a London drama school when both were only 15-years-old and later reconnected in Vancouver in 1974 when Genesis were on tour there.
They married at age 24 in 1975 and had Simon the following year, but divorced in 1980.
Why are they living in Kerry of all places?
“I moved here four years ago. I call it Middle Earth. I’ve got a studio out here, a cottage, in the rural settings in beautiful southwest Kerry. All my neighbours are farmers. Very nice, guys. I can make as much noise as I want,” he answered from his state-ofthe-art recording studio.
“I wanted to get away, I was living
My dad and I promised each other we would never do a cheesy vocal duet track together
in the UK at the time, before I moved to Ireland.
“My mom’s very sensitive to Wi-fi, smart metres, stuff like that. And it was becoming increasingly more difficult to find a place in the UK that wasn’t strong Wi-fi. So, we decided to move to rural Ireland.
“She’s much better now. But she fell ill for a while there.
“So we came out here together. And she’s just living next door to me. So, we’re a tight unit.”
Simon had managed for his first couple of years here to keep a relatively low profile, but that all changed when he was arrested on drug-driving charges in January 2020.
He had been clean and sober for years before having a “very bad relapse”.
The Guard had smelt cannabis in the car and said in court that he “noticed a white powder” on Simon’s ID.
Simon apologised and was fined €400 and was disqualified from driving for 12 months. This interview is the first time he has publicly spoken about the incident.
He told me, “It was a bad year for me; I had a bad relapse… making terrible, terrible life decisions. I’ve learned a lot from it, and I’m not ever going back to that place.”
Simon explained that he first started taking drugs at age 15 and had even done heroin for a “couple of years”, resulting in “like five overdoses”.
He decided to clean up his act after getting the shock of his life from his GP.
“I was given an ultimatum by my doctor. He said, ‘You’re not going to be around for much longer, man. Seriously. Get your s**t together’,” Simon said.
“You get this low-level superhero thinking. You know that, ‘Not me, I’m invincible’. ‘No, you’re f ***** g not, man’. It’s like, ‘You’re going to be worm food in no time with an attitude like that’.”
The 46-year-old received another major wake-up call when he had a stroke about 10 years ago, Simon told me.
“You might as well be doing 200k behind the wheel on the other side of the road, with your eyes closed and your headlights off at night. That’s how crazy it is to live your life through addiction,” he explained.
“You know, all your decisions for the most part are suspect and poorly made. It’s crazy. I’ve learned a lot.
“When I went to rehab, the counsellor said to me, ‘Just remember that even if you’re sober for 20 years, that your addictive self will still be doing push-ups. So, if you relapse after 20 years of being sober your body will react to that relapse as if you’ve been drinking the entire time’.
“And I thought that was a load of bulls**t. I’m like, ‘That’s ridiculous’.
“Then it happened to me. I had a really bad relapse and I just lost my fight. I was in a spiritual poverty.
“I’ve never been to such a dark place in my life. I fought with every fibre of my being to get out of that hole that was sucking me in. They call it the existential vacuum, you know. And so, I believe it now.”
What does Simon think was the tipping point in his relapse?
“I think isolation and loneliness. Everyone wants love in their life. I just never felt so lonely,” he said candidly.
“But you’d be amazed to know that I wrote and produced and engineered a double album during that relapse. And I don’t know how I did it, but I did it.
“I’d stay up for days working on tracks. At one point, I was pumping out a new song every day. I’ve never been in a zone like that in my life.
“It was such a strange duality of having that spiritual poverty, that nothingness feeling, and, at the same time, being inspired like I’ve never been inspired before in my life.
“I put everything that I had in my consciousness into that music. So, it’s a very important album for me. It saved my life.
“I’m grateful for all my obstacles that I’ve had to overcome, because it’s made me grow in a way that I don’t think I would have if I didn’t have those struggles.”
When did drugs first become a problem?
“I noticed it became a problem in my late 20s. I decided to go into rehab and get myself together. I’ve kicked a lot of habits. I’ve cleaned up my act, and I work hard every day,” he said.
“I was injecting heroin. And I can say that I haven’t touched it in 12 years – that coincided with my divorce. Actually, that usage was the kind of pain I was in, you know what I mean?”
Thankfully, Simon is in a good place these days, as he looks forward to the release of his new album next week.
“I’m winning the fight. I’ve been clean for months,” he said.
It helps that Simon clearly appears to be at his creative peak with his prog rock outfit emolecule, judging from their new album, entitled The Architect.
“I’ve actually been spending a lot of my career trying to get away from the solo thing. It wasn’t my childhood dream to become a successful solo artist,” he concluded.
“I became a solo artist because all the bands I was in kept breaking up.
“So I’m like, ‘F**k this. I’m gonna put out my own album… since none of you guys can show up to practice’.
“And I knew that I would to put a through that journey meet the right people band together with.
“So that became Sound of Contact. That broke up, and it took me two or three years to get over that, because it was my dream band.
“I even went bankrupt promoting it. I did everything to try and make it work. And then, you know, emolecule happened. It was always my childhood dream to be in a great band.
“And I’m very lucky now because I’m in two great bands. I think they’re great.
“I’m in one of the best places I have ever been in my life at the moment.”
Touch wood, long may it continue…