“I’m no longer officially retired,” the 64 year-old musician told Rolling Stone. “The horse is out of the stable and I’m raring to go.”
Collins last released new music in 2002 with Testify, his seventh solo record. While he appeared on a short Genesis reunion tour in 2007 and also released a Motown covers collection called Going Back, he’s largely been out of the public eye since his retirement 10 years ago. As recently as 2011, he insinuated that his rock career might be over.
“I look at the MTV Music Awards and I think: ‘I can’t be in the same business as this’,” said Collins in an interview with FHM Magazine (via The Telegraph). “I don’t really belong to that world and I don’t think anyone’s going to miss me. I’m much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely.”
It sounds like the Oscar-winning, multi-platinum artist has changed his tune, though. He’s in the early stages of recovery from “major back surgery,” but the new Rolling Stone story depicts a revitalized rock star. “No matter what happens, I can go out there, play piano and sing,” he told the publication. “I’m just in a very happy place right now.”
Details regarding the upcoming LP and tour are still uncertain, but Collins has reportedly “moved a studio” into his Miami Beach mansion to get things going again. It’s unknown which will come first: the tour, or the new record, and both projects are still in the early stages. While it’s assumed Collins would make the rounds stateside, he didn’t mention any details about just when or where the forthcoming tour will take place, adding only a few musings about taking his act far from his home base in Florida.
“I don’t think I want a very long tour,” said Collins. “But I would like to play the stadiums in Australia and the Far East, and that’s the only way to do that. But there’s a part of me that just wants to do theaters, so we’ll see.”
Collins also has a tell-all autobiography coming in October 2016.
