Phil Collins on Supper's Ready

Phil Collins, Both Sides (1993), tells the story of how Genesis moved from messy rehearsals to creating 23‑minute pieces such as "Supper's Ready" and how the same instinct for improvisation led him to use home demos on his solo records.

Collins recalls joining a band that could seem fractious — sessions in a run‑down farm, people walking out and moments of tension — but which gradually learned to play together and to edit sprawling ideas into single tracks. The result was a willingness to push studio limits: a 23‑minute song was a challenge for engineers and players alike, but it became a statement of purpose for the group. The interview, given to Prog, can be read here: Prog interview with Phil Collins.

Why Supper's Ready mattered

Supper's Ready showed Genesis could take free‑flowing jams and shape them into a continuous, multi‑section suite. Collins highlights the band's knack for improvisation — sections like "Apocalypse in 9/8" grew from players following different rhythmic paths until the parts locked together. Hearing the assembled edits at Island Studios was a small surprise to them; the whole suddenly made sense once the pieces were stitched into place.

"We all grew up with The Kinks, Beatles, Stones: three-minute blasts. It’s just we weren’t very good at it!" — Phil Collins

From home demos to Both Sides

Collins also traces a line from collaborative studio experiments to the more solitary practice that defined his solo work. His friendship and sessions with Brian Eno opened his eyes to using rough, home‑made ideas as starting points. That ethos carried across to Face Value and, later, to Both Sides (1993), an album he largely made at home when gear and mood allowed. He says he preferred capturing a moment of feel over polishing every sound, letting improvisation and the odd hiss survive if the performance mattered.

For fans, the takeaway is that the same appetite for risk and spontaneity powered both Genesis's long-form prog statements and Collins's most personal solo records: teams of players trying things until a lucky arrangement stuck, and a singer willing to keep the first, imperfect take if it felt true.