Genesis icon Phil Collins has opened up about his upcoming solo induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He also revealed his plans to come face-to-face with Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher at the ceremony, following a feud that began after Gallagher famously called Collins “the Antichrist.”
Collins addressed the prospect of crossing paths with Oasis at the pre-ceremony lunch, where both acts are set to be inducted.
“The [Hall Of Fame] inductees have all been invited to a lunch before the ceremony,” he divulged. “Which will be interesting, as I’m sure to bump into Oasis.”
Collins also recalled a personal moment involving his daughter and Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, shedding light on the human side of the feud.
“My daughter went up to him and said, ‘Why do you hate my dad?'” he recounted. “And apparently Liam said, ‘I don’t hate anybody, love.'”
The drummer and vocalist then turned his attention to Noel Gallagher’s “Antichrist” remark, offering his own theory about what may have prompted it.
“Now I’ve thought this through, and although Noel didn’t specify what song it was, I reckon it was Mama, where I go (recites the lyric) ‘Ha-ha-ha… Oww,’ with the light under my face,” Collins explained. “I think Mama is why Noel called me the antichrist. But I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here, and assuming he doesn’t really think I’m the antichrist.”
Both Collins and Oasis are expected to attend the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. Their long-standing feud may finally come to a head in person.
The upcoming encounter will mark one of the rare moments the two camps have been in the same room. It brings renewed attention to a dispute that has simmered for over three decades and never truly been resolved.
Noel Gallagher’s attacks on Collins date back to the early days of Oasis in the 1990s. He positioned himself as a crusader against what he saw as bland, mainstream rock. He described Collins’ music as “junk food” and “McDonald’s music,” framing his disdain as a broader cultural statement rather than a personal grudge. The feud escalated quickly. Gallagher declared that he wanted “the severed head of Phil Collins in my fridge by the end of this decade” — a remark that became one of the most notorious insults in British rock history.
Gallagher also weaponized the feud politically. Ahead of the 2005 UK general election, he urged British voters to choose Labour, warning that if the Conservatives won, Collins — who was living in Switzerland at the time — would move back to England. Collins later clarified that the claim about his political leanings was a misunderstanding. He stated that he did not vote Conservative.
Collins has never let the insults go unanswered. He described Oasis as “rude, horrible, and not as talented as they think they are,” and even nominated both Gallagher brothers to be banished on the BBC show Room 101. The two sides also crossed paths in person in 1996 on the island of Mustique. Collins approached Gallagher at a bar and suggested they jam together — an offer Noel flatly rejected.
Gallagher later admitted that the original “antichrist” comment was something of a throwaway remark. He made it after attending a Genesis concert while heavily intoxicated. He acknowledged in a 2006 interview that he did not fully know why he said it at the time. This makes Collins’ good-humored theory about the song “Mama” all the more fitting — and all the more telling of how one offhand comment can define a public rivalry for a generation.
Source: Mojo
