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In Session<\/a><\/p>\n \n A Vulture series in which studio musicians select their best performances.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cPhil was just a blue-collar guy, and all of a sudden he became a star.\u201d If you have two ears and heart<\/a>, you\u2019re naturally inclined to enjoy the music of Phil Collins. The man had an unimpeachable run of dominance during the 1980s \u2014 we\u2019ll leave the \u201cSussudio<\/a>\u201d debate for another time \u2014 and along for the ascension was guitarist Daryl Stuermer. Chosen by Genesis to become a touring member after the departure of Steve Hackett<\/a> (\u201cThey needed a guitarist to come in and duplicate what he was so masterfully doing,\u201d Stuermer recalls), he was quietly approached by Collins when he started to consider a solo career. The two artists quickly realized that they shared a strong musical sensibility, and when Collins indeed began work on his first album, Face Value, Stuermer was recruited as his trusted sideman. He would go on to perform on every album and tour with Collins, minus his non-collaborative 1993 album, Both Sides, until Collins\u2019s public retirement<\/a> due to illness. (All while continuing to tour with Genesis until their own farewell tour.) \u201cI didn\u2019t know that my relationship with him was going to start in 1978 and pretty much go until 2022,\u201d Stuermer now says. \u201cI never thought that would happen. It\u2019s almost like being a member of a family. I\u2019m the only musician in the band who started with him and ended with him.\u201d<\/p>\n Stuermer\u2019s kinetic guitar work shines in the new<\/a> box set for No Jacket Required, a remaster that highlights his rhythms and solos in hits such as \u201cOne More Night\u201d and \u201cDon\u2019t Lose My Number.\u201d Despite having not talked to Collins, who continues to deal with health issues<\/a>, in a year, Stuermer is effusive about his old friend throughout our discussion about his best performances. \u201cPhil has been such a wonderful person to work with,\u201d he says. \u201cI feel bad for his physical problems now, but at his peak, from Face Value up to Both Sides, he was a force that couldn\u2019t be reckoned with.\u201d<\/p>\n One day I was rehearsing with Genesis in Shepperton Studios, and after our rehearsal, Phil Collins asked me, \u201cAre you going back into London? I\u2019m going there too. I\u2019ll take you back, but I want you to hear something.\u201d So I was sitting in his car, and he put a cassette in. He put on this song that he called \u201cIn the Air Tonight.\u201d It was a demo \u2014 it started out with the drum machine, and then the keyboards came in. I was sitting there thinking to myself, What is this? It sounds like a great song for Genesis. He didn\u2019t even have the big drum fill on the song when I heard the demo, it was just a drum machine, keyboards, and vocals. I didn\u2019t know he was a songwriter at the time, because most of his writing was working with Mike Rutherford, or the whole band would write songs together. Frankly, Mike and Tony Banks were the main writers for Genesis at that point. He finally said, \u201cI want to do a solo album.\u201d It kind of blew me away, because I thought it would be a great album song for the band. Little did I know it would become quite a classic hit. He also played another demo called \u201cI Missed Again,\u201d which was a totally different kind of song in the R&B and Motown feel. So I\u2019m thinking, What is this album going to be?<\/p>\n He asked me if I\u2019d like to do this album with him. About a year went by, because we went on a long Genesis tour. I was living in Santa Monica, and Phil booked a studio that was only about a mile from where I lived. So this is when Face Value started for me. I didn\u2019t know where it was going to go, because it sounded so different to me. I thought, Is this going to be commercial enough? But when he did that drum fill for \u201cIn the Air Tonight,\u201d I thought, Wow, this is really original. It\u2019s not that it\u2019s the most complicated drum fill in the world, but it was the most original-sounding song I\u2019d ever heard. Phil was just a blue-collar guy, and all of a sudden he became a star.<\/p>\n It\u2019s funny, because Phil never sits down and says, \u201cThis is what I want to do.\u201d He always thoroughly demos everything first in his house. The one thing Phil can\u2019t play is guitar, which I\u2019m very happy about, because then he used me on everything. I\u2019ve always felt bad for, say, the keyboard players we had in the band. A lot of times they didn\u2019t get a chance to play on the records because Phil would play on his demos and would keep those parts, which were fine parts, but I always felt if I was the guitar player that was listening to the demos and I couldn\u2019t play on the actual record, I\u2019d feel bad. But he always allowed you to bring a little bit of yourself into each song.<\/p>\n I always think of \u201cYou Can\u2019t Hurry Love\u201d for that reason, because we played the arrangement similar to the original, but I played both guitar parts in different keys than the original. Because the Supremes are all female voices, they have a much higher range, so Phil had to put it in his range. So we approached the song as if we were just going to cover it but in a different key, and it pretty much stayed true to the original. Most people who were younger thought it was an original song. That happens with occasional songs that Phil covers. In fact, Taylor Swift did<\/a>. She did a cover of \u201cI Can\u2019t Stop Loving You,\u201d which was on Phil\u2019s album Testify. But, see, Phil didn\u2019t write that song. Billy Nicholls did, but it was a totally different version. Taylor Swift said it was a Phil Collins song, and it wasn\u2019t. That\u2019s his impact.<\/p>\n
\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty\n <\/p>\n