Q. It's been five years since your last solo record did you think when you finished 'No Jacket Required' it would be another five years?
A. No, it doesn't seem like five years and I know that most people would probably say 'Oh Christ it doesn't seem like five years' because so much has gone on in between, there was my tour, sorry my album and then my tour and then the Genesis album and Genesis tour, Eric Clapton album and Eric Clapton tour, Buster, Groovy Kind Of Love, Two Hearts. Yes it's been a busy five years really but if I'd known it was going to be five years I'd have been very depressed knowing it was going to be that long before I had another crack at doing another album. But in the long run I think it's probably a good thing. I have accumulated an awful lot of material. Some of this stuff, well there as a bit on the album that was actually written in 1978 but I mean there's bits that have happened really ever since I'd finished the last album I started writing and kept writing. So there are things that have been around that long. Most of the things I suppose have been written in the last couple of years.

Q. Was your vocal approach different on this record compared to your other solo records?
A. I'd sat down for ages before we started to write the lyrics because I wanted to go into the recording of the thing knowing what I was going to be singing about, we did vocals throughout the whole album rather than just do it in one big chunk at the end. Usually after a couple of weeks I write all the words and then come back and sing them all. You are fed up with singing them everyday so we just interspersed the whole thing. So it's a very enjoyable album that way.

Q. The brass section has got a fantastic sound on this album ...
A. The horns were recorded digitally and they sound a lot sharper and also the born charts are pretty awesome this time. I did it the same way as I normally do, I go dadadada and diddly datdatdat into a microphone cassette player, send it to Tom Tom in Chicago and he makes sense of all my babbling and the first time I actually hear it is when we go into the studio and the guys play it. There's one thing at the beginning of' Hang In Long Enough' which is like a horn introduction to the whole album. I just went out there and said 'Listen guys I have always wanted to hear something that goes diddlydiddlydiddly da. And they said 'Triple Tonguing? I don't know about that' so we just wrote something in ten minutes.

Q. 'Hanging on Long Enough' seems to be about ambition?
A. Ambition and greed really. There's two sides of it one is if you do hang in long enough you do probably get what you want but there's an awful lot of carrots being held in front of people to get them to do things. Ambition's a strange thing; it gets people to do very strange things. It makes people do things they wouldn't otherwise do.

Q. Was your writing style consistent on this record?
A. I'll write the thing and straight away record it and then I'll start over dubbing on to it to get ideas and then I start singing. Whenever I write anything I sing I obviously record and I write down and when I come to writing the lyrics I will refer back to this and if I can use what I've sung spontaneously I will and 'Hang In Long Enough' was something that I just sang when I originally started singing on the demo and I just thought OK that's my chorus now I got to make sense of that and so that's what I did. Other songs the lyrics in their entirety pretty much came spontaneously.

Q. How do you think this album stacks up against your other solo work?
A. This I think is the most solid album that I've done, since 'Face Value' for me. I think it's as important an album coming when it does five years after 'No Jacket'. I think a lot of people who are out there who think of Buster, they think of 'Groovy Kind Of Love', 'Two Hearts' think in the 1st couple of years I have gone soft. Whereas in fact I really look at it as project. You know I did Buster because I loved the story, I loved the script and I wanted to act. It was a great vehicle for me but it was a 60's vehicle and therefore me and Lamont sat down and wrote 'Two Hearts' you know, which is a 60's song and it wasn't what Phil Collins would do as a solo artist necessarily, although I am very proud of that song. But it's a project song, you know like 'Groovy Kind Of Love' was a project song it's not what I would necessarily have fitted in on this album, which is why I didn't really cover any songs on this album. But I feel that people don't see that, they just see it an another Phil Collins' single. So really I tried on this album to try and haul people in to back to where I actually am, which is a drummer/singer/songwriter if you like. That is capable of writing songs, I think very moving songs. My best songs for a while now are on this album.

Q. Is 'That's just the way it is' written about a particular long running conflict?
A. It's about Northern, Ireland as far as I am concerned. Which in England we are used to it all the time I mean Ireland of course it's on the doorstep but everywhere else in the world it's, just another news report, but if you are living in England and you just sort of constantly people getting blown to smithereens because this thing that's been going on for the last twenty but also for a lot longer in Ireland it's only just come to the front in the last twenty years. You see newsreels of kids throwing petrol bombs because their brothers throw them and then their dads throw them and their dads dads and it's just bred, in bred now this violence and I just thought someone somewhere, and it's got to be from both sides has got to say 'Hang on, life means more than this. This has got to stop.

Q. I think one of your great strengths as a writer is being able to put yourself in the position of like the person on the street.
A. I can only write conversationally I can't write as a poet as it were. I am not a very well read person. My education kind of stopped when I went to drama school which was when I was fourteen. I went to a grammar school before that, but when I went to drama school I was always out doing auditions or doing the odd job and I've since lived by common sense and I tend to look at relationships and sort of... nothing aggravates me more than seeing two people not talking to each other about something they could help. If they just stop and talk to each other they would actually solve the problem that they have. So I think I relate to people like that because I write songs in a conversational way. 'Do You Remember', which is on this album, is a song that is in the normal person's speech. In the normal way of thinking, it makes sense.

Q. You've got David Crosby on a couple of tracks. What is it about David Crosby that you liked and made you want to get him involved on this record?
A. I'd been a fan of his since the Byrds and I really wanted him because his approach to harmony is unique. He will pick out notes from the air that nobody else would sing. So I had never met him, until the Atlantic records 40th anniversary patty we were back stage and they were rehearsing and I knew Graham Nash and I'd met Stills a couple of times, Steve Stills. And I said I've got to meet David he's a big hero of mine. So they introduced me to him and I went back stage and said 'can you sing on my next album he said 'sure'. He's such a sweet bloke. Because by this time he got himself sorted out and I just stayed in touch and I sent him a tape when I was in Los Angeles just recently for the album and we had already set it up previously so he knew I was coming in. I sent him a tape of the two songs and he loved them, came in and he was wonderful. We sat down at the piano because I'd given him a tape he showed me his ideas and he did exactly what I thought he'd do. He came up with these ideas that nobody else would think of.

Q. I believe the track 'Something Happened On The Way To Heaven' was written for a film?
A. That was the last song I wrote before I came into the studio and originally I wrote it for the Four Tops because I'd been working with them, since Buster we'd done a couple of things together. We did Top Of The Pops together for instance and they said 'Listen have you got any songs' I said 'I'll try and write something' so I wrote this song but I liked it enough to record the backing track. Danny DeVito called and asked me to write a song for his new film 'Ware of the Roses' which is a very funny film, very black comedy. He sent me a synopsis of the thing and basically it's about two people that fall in love with each other but are very very occupied by what they are doing and they become more and more preoccupied with what they do. That's what the songs about, it's about a relationship falling apart and how at the very last minute, in this particular instance when they are lying on the floor having almost killed each other they realise, well he realises that he really loves her and that he made a mistake. But anyway Danny didn't use the song in the film so when the film comes out go see it, it's a great film.

Q. With the track 'Colours', musically that sounds like almost two songs ...
A. 'Colours' was always the second half of the song, that's what that was called. 'Hymn', you know, H.Y.M.N, for a while. Well actually, I didn't want to make "Hymn" a love song; it was just a piano piece and I didn't want to write a love song but I thought it could be used for something more important than that. So, the words that came to me, were really ... the idea was like a news piece, like a documentary-type piece on South Africa, you know, the Ethiopian thing. I wrote it a bit like a Michael Buerk (who's a journalist, a television journalist) I wrote it a bit like one of his films that started the Band Aid and Live Aid thing off really ... so that's the way I wrote that. And then the second half. I had certain lyrics the second half already and I just thought, as they're both about South Africa, they could work together, so we called them both under one umbrella, called them 'Colours'.

Q. You've got your mate, Eric Clapton on this record. What did you say to him to get him to play?
A. I said 'Eric, have I never asked you to play? Come on, I've got a song right up your street.' And I actually did .when I wrote 'I wish it would rain down' it was as close as I get to the blues, I felt. And I just ... it was kind of an Eric song and I just knew that he'd wail away on it and he came down here and did. It was great. Yeah, I mean I'm so proud to be close to him, you know. I've known him for, like, ten or eleven years now but I used to collect scrapbooks on Clapton. And I've still got them. And he still says I should show them to him 'cause he probably doesn't remember half the stuff.

Q. Is there a particular incident associated with 'Another Day In Paradise'?
A. The day I cut the record, I was leaving the cutting room in London, me and Hugh Padgham, and we crossed the street and we were walking towards my car and this lady was sitting on the side of the street, with two kids ... she said 'Lend us some money Guy' and I froze . . . you know ... I almost pretended I didn't hear it, the same as everyone else does. I mean I do a lot for charity and I'm not saving I look the other way ... it's just that, in this particular instance, I froze and I thought 'God . . . ' and as I was carrying on walking I thought 'I'm carrying on walking and she's just asked me'. She's obviously ... she's got two kids and she hasn't got any money ... maybe she hasn't got a home at all, who knows. She must have somewhere to live ... she's got two kids. And here I am and I've just finished cutting the record so I've heard it a dozen times and ... it's frightening. People like me, and I think everybody's the same, have got to do something. But I'm not talking about alcoholism or drug abuse. I'm talking about your man on the street who actually just hasn't got a roof over his head and there's so much of that in Europe, in America, all over the world, it's not just specific places that have always had that problem . it's everywhere.

Q. `Heat On The Streets' lyrically, seems to be dealing about unrest ...
A. The working title was called 'Motown' because it was going to be that kind of thing. But having done that with 'Two Hearts' and 'Groovy Kind Of Love' and all that kind of thing, I felt ... well Hugh and I both felt, Hugh Padgham, that we should approach it from a different angle; so we arranged it, instrumentally, slightly differently. And when it came to writing the words, I had some of the words, like the chorus I had and the bit before the chorus I had, I just didn't have the verses. But it all added up to, son of, this bubbling under. You know, aggression and violence is on the English streets ... the Brixton and Bristol riots and things. Do people in higher places realise this is ' happening? Do the yo know that the bubble is just about to burst? Because, you know, it's getting tough out there. And it's almost a warning to people to look out.

Q. Who was 'All Of My Life' written for?
A. It's me having a go at me really. It's me saying 'Why did I do this, why haven't I ever done that, why did I spend all that time doing this when I should have been doing this?' The last verse is about my dad which is ... I've lived with regret since 1972 when he died. I just felt that all that time I was practicing the drums, I was listening to records upstairs, he was downstairs watching TV and my mum was always working, I should have spent more time with him really. I wish I had done, because I don't . . . I have memories of me and my dad but not as many as I'd like you know and that's because I have always been too busy like I am now. You know, my first marriage split because of it and it won't happen again but you know but I just was always wanting to . . . I was son involved with me learning how to play the drums and all that and just doing things I suppose every kid does but maybe my dad died a little earlier than most kids' dads, I don't know.

Q. How did you come to have Steve Winwood on the album?
A. I rang him up and said 'Steve, you know you were saying no one ever asked you do you fancy playing some stuff on my album?' He said `That'd be nice, yes, what do you want me to do? So I said 'Well, I've got the synthesiser side of it covered you know I did ail that, but organ, you are such a great organist'. It reminded me of (a) how great an organist he is and (b) how nice an organ sounds. People nowadays think they can do it all with synthesisers but a Hammond organ is a one off. It's like drums you know, there's no replacement for that.

Q. You must have such a good time ... there's not many other people that seem to consciously have such a good time doing what they are doing ...
A. I have never a day's work really, a proper job, apart from a couple of weeks when I actually joined Genesis I did some exterior decorating because they went on holiday as soon as I joined for two weeks and then they came back and we started writing together. So that was the only time I ever did anything really, like hard work although this is hard work. A proper job, that was the only time. So you know I feel very lucky when other people are around aren't doing ... if they've got a job they probably aren't doing what they want to do. Here I am doing exactly what I want to do, have done for 25 years almost, 20 years, with Genesis. But I do enjoy it yeah. It's the fact that everything is different all the time. I would get bored and driven crazy if it was just one band, one thing. Apart from producing and there's the song writing and drumming and the Genesis thing, the solo thing, occasionally playing with Eric Clapton, the filming. It's all ... everything keeps me fresh for the next thing I do. So it never gets a chance to get boring.

Q. You've got a 13 year old son, was 'Father To Son' written with him in mind?
A. 'Father To Son' was one that I actually wrote because I wanted to write something for Simon as a guideline to life, he was starting to go out with girls 12 or 13 years old, so I wrote that for him really.

Q. You seem to be fairly self confident most of the time. What affects you self confidence?
A. Well I'm not that self confident. I mean I know I can play the drums but I still when I go in and play the drums for Tears For Fears will they like it, are they getting what they thought they were gonna get? Am I doing what they want to hear? I'm still like that, I might give the appearance of being pretty confident but I'm not that confident. I know what I can do but it's still 'am I doing that good enough?' I mean when you said comfortable I kind of . . . that's exactly what I was . . . I know this it's a fact that's what people perceive me as, maybe that's my thing life, maybe I'm just doomed to be comfortable. ,

Q. You are on tour most of next year, will there be any other film projects after that?
A. There's the `Goldilocks And The Three Bears' which looks like becoming a reality. Which is me, Bob Hoskins and Danny DeVito as the three bears. Well, Kim Basinger got in touch with me, who wanted to be Goldilocks and I want people to know she got in touch with me, pretty slick I think.

Q. What are your touring plans?
A. I start rehearsing in January and I go out at the end of February to Japan. We're touring everywhere, Japan, Australia and then Europe and America. We're leapfrogging to different places. Basically we're on the road until the end of September.

Q. Tell us about the musical ideas behind the track 'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning'.
A. The idea was you see, I had this idea five years ago probably, but I hadn't had a chance to do it until now. Improvising vocally and improvising on the drums at the same time. I put a headset mike on so I could sing and play so I could do like DDDDDD (beats an imaginary drum) it's quite complicated, just because I'm singing and playing I'm the same person doing it and you can improvise to your heart's content. Then I thought wouldn't it be hip if an arranger took what I had sung, orchestrate it, and then they over dub to what I've already done. We called it 'Saturday Night, Sunday Morning' because the first part is like kind of heat if you like, Saturday night things kind of groove and then the last part is more or less Sunday morning New Orleans feeling.

Q. You are seen as the complete entertainer. Do you think you are seen as being quite comfortable?
A. Well, I put that in front of me when I started doing it. If after Genesis I'd done my album it wouldn't have necessarily the same situation but coming after Buster and Buster ... as soon as you start, acting I become this all round entertainer which is a fate worse than death. But it's that kind of stigma that I ended up I thing being stuck with because (a) I was acting (b) I'd written with Lamont 'Two Hearts' which was a love song and a jolly sort of love song but really all it was meant to be was a pastiche of a Motown song of the sixties. People don't see that, they just see it as the next Phil Collins thing. So when I went into this album I actually wanted to bring people back to that. . . reminding them that this is actually what I do and to try and show that there is that depth that they've maybe thought wasn't there or forgotten it was there one of the two.