Phil Collins has not given up on the possibility of touring again despite spending the better part of 20 years battling numerous health problems.
“Never say never … I do think, every now and again, that I’m not finished [touring],” Collins, 75, revealed in a recent interview with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. “On the other hand, I think of the practicalities.”
Those everyday “practicalities” would include giving up his current lifestyle for the grueling physical toll of life on the road.
“I’ll enjoy the sunshine, you know, just there’s no sweat, don’t have to do anything. Just get up and say, ‘What am I going to do today?'” he said. “But on the other hand, once you’ve been on stage all your life and tasted that, it’s difficult to stop.”
As for the possibility of releasing new music, Collins teased, “I’ve got ideas. I got things I finished. I’ve got things that I’ve half finished.”
Collins has struggled with various health issues, including type 2 diabetes, for many years. In February 2025, he told Mojo that he was no longer “hungry” to keep playing music because he’d been “very sick.”
The rocker suffered a serious spinal injury in 2007 that caused nerve damage. While the injury initially left him completely incapable of playing drums, he underwent corrective surgery in 2015.
Collins recovered well enough to reunite with Genesis bandmates Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford for the group’s The Last Domino? Tour in 2021, though his physical limitations mandated that Collins perform from a chair.
The “In the Air Tonight” musician told BBC Radio 2’s Zoe Ball in January that he now had “a 24-hour live-in nurse” as a result of undergoing five knee surgeries.
“I’ve had challenges with my knee… I had everything that could go wrong with me, did go wrong with me,” he explained.
Collins’ health problems got so serious in 2024 that his five children — daughters Lily and Joely and sons Simon, Nicolas and Matthew — were summoned to his bedside to say their goodbyes.
“Because there were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’” he shared with The Sunday Times in August. “My kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing up. People were coming to say goodbye.”
He continued, “But I don’t remember them coming. I didn’t have no idea this was going on. They were all worried that they wouldn’t see me again. It could all have gone so terribly wrong.”
Collins made a major life change in 2024 when he stopped drinking alcohol after experiencing serious complications with his kidneys.
“I guess I had too much of it,” he told BBC Radio 2 in January. “I was never drunk, although I fell over a couple of times. But it is just one of those things that happened and it all caught up with me, and I spent months in hospital.”
An encouraging milestone for Collins will take place on Saturday, November 14, when he is inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo act alongside Oasis, the Wu-Tang Clan, Celia Cruz and producer Rick Rubin at Los Angeles’ Peacock Theater. (The band Genesis was previously inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010.)
