Genesis’ Nic Collins Shares Why His Father Phil Collins Didn’t Teach Him Drumming

Genesis drummer Nic Collins recently spoke about his drumming skills and credited the person who taught him the instrument. To the fans’ surprise, it was not his father and former Genesis drummer Phil Collins but someone else.

After Phil Collins suffered through several health conditions and had surgery on his upper spine, he, unfortunately, began losing control of his fingers. The health struggles obstructed him from drumming as he used to and forcefully distanced him from the instrument. Phil has been a devoted member of Genesis since 1970, while he also focused on his solo career from time to time. Collins sang and played the drums for the band for years until he had to stop playing the instrument.

Genesis recently replaced him with his son Nic Collins for their shows while his father continued to sing by sitting down on stage to be more comfortable physically. Phil Collins stated that this was the last tour he would be on with the band before retirement. Hence, these recent shows are an essential benchmark in the former drummer’s life.

Since Phil gave the flag to his son in the band, his fans expected that it was him who taught Nic how to play the instrument. However, in a recent interview, Nic revealed that another drummer named JP was his teacher. He stated that his father didn’t know much about the technical side, making it challenging to teach someone else. Phil also didn’t want to be the pressure point for his son, so he left him alone to learn from someone else. Nic stated that he was able to learn the techniques better from JP.

Here are Nic’s words:

“My dad never wanted to be so on top of me that I would almost start hating the drums. That’s so important, especially with drumming, where it’s so fuel-based. You have to find your angle towards it and what you want to do. JP was my drum teacher when I first moved to Miami. My dad was an outstanding drummer, but he didn’t have much knowledge of the technical side. He just did it. This is why some of these fills are so great. Even some of these fills that I am learning are like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna do it this way.’ This is not the way it’s supposed to be, but this is how he played these iconic parts.

Whereas JP taught me the rootements and just the technical side of things which I think is important to any drummer to at least know of that. I’m not saying you have to be able to side read because I can’t side read but having some knowledge about how to do certain things. When everybody’s playing, you just don’t notice it, but when you have that knowledge, it just expands, and you can make it so much more. He definitely helped me a lot to move to get that side of my drumming moving too.”

Genesis is currently on ‘The Last Domino’ tour, indicating their last tour. While Phil is retiring, it’s unknown what the rest of the members will be doing next. However, the fans know that this is the last chance to see the band performing together. However, it seems like the 20-year-old drummer Nic’s career is just starting, and it’s is exciting to see what will happen next.