Rock biographies are one of my guilty pleasures. Like eating sweets, they're not very good for you in large measure, and I tend to overindulge. This is especially true when it comes to the stories of artists that I liked when I was younger. If I'm honest, a lot of the music isn't objectively that good, but it retains a Proustian effect, taking you right back to more innocent and exciting times. Who doesn't think fondly of their teenage years?
Actually, quite a lot of people probably, but mine were largely fun and relatively carefree - which is why nobody will be queueing up to read my memoirs. Maybe Phil Collen should have taken note.
I was really looking forward to this, to the extent that I prioritised it over Steve Jones' Lonely Boy and Johnny Marr's Set the Boy Free - books that I'd acquired or bought in a Christmas binge.
Def Leppard were one of the earliest metal bands that I got into. I know Joe Elliott hates to be called metal, but that's what they are really, albeit more melodically inclined than most. Nothing wrong with that.
The first two albums, which don't feature Phil Collen, but Pete Willis, are both pretty decent, especially High 'n' Dry. At the time, Collen was the main axe in Girl, a similarly melodically inclined rock band, from London. They released two criminally underrated albums, Sheer Greed and Wasted Youth before folding when Collen left to join Def Leppard. You can't really blame him for that, and time has proven that it was the right choice. However, it doesn't mean that it makes for a great story, especially not in the hands of Phil and his ghostwriter, Chris Epting.
Perhaps I'm being a bit unfair to Phil Collen, as plenty of rock biogs are more lame than this. It's just that there was so much more potential meat that he could have got his teeth into: his early days in Girl, Rick Allen's accident, Steve Clarke's demise. He touches on them all, but in a very drive by manner. I'd have loved to have heard more about what he really thought and felt about these important times in his life.
Instead, we get Phil, the cheery cockney geezer who seems to glide through life with nothing really touching him. It's the usual rock star narrative: struggling early days; break through point and rise to the top; being a bit naughty; get serious (and sober); family man, blah, blah... All incredibly linear with little real analysis or thought about what's going on. He devotes more of the book to the hilarious incidences of being mistaken for Phil Collins (geddit!) than his decision to quit drinking.
It's not as if Phil doesn't have things to say as the bonkers final chapter reveals. Suffice to say it's all a bit David Icke - we're all suckers who don't really know whats going on int the world. Wake up people!
To repeat, this book is no different to many others in the rock and metal sphere, so perhaps I'm being unfair expecting Collen to be a fount of self-awareness, but he could have given a bit more. He hints early on that he doesn't have much time for navel gazing rockstars, in which case, why bother with the book in the first place.
He doesn't even touch on his amazing middle-aged physique besides a few annotated pics of himself looking ripped - they're not in there for irony. Seriously though, one of the most engaging sections of Duff McKagan's It's So Easy is where he sobers up and gets fit. It's a genuinely different and uplifting read - a rock literary equivalent of the Rocky training scene that culminates in him bounding up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Modern Art. I'd have loved to hear more about Phil's exercise regime, his diet (he's a vegan. How do we know? Don't worry, he tells us!), his sobriety, and what keeps him motivated. But he seems to be a man of few words - I suppose we're lucky that Epting has teased this much out of him.
Strangely, given my current read - the Steve Jones volume - Phil ends up playing in a band - Manraze - with former Sex Pistol Paul Cook. There's not much that's eye-opening about that either. How did they meet? Is there some sort of under-employed rockers employment exchange? The truth is probably more prosaic. For all his reminders to readers about his working class background, Phil has slipped quite easily into becoming part of the rock establishment, where such connections just happen.
Do yourself a favour and investigate the first two Girl albums to find out why Leppard wanted Collen in the first place. Then read Steve Jones' book and wait for Joe Elliott to write his autobiography. He's the sort of big-mouthed rocker that I want to hear from and will probably reveal more in the first couple of pages than Phil Collen's workaday effort manages in its 200-odd pages.
