Phil Collins: I've Contemplated Suicide

Genesis man talks about death and rebirth and his fighting days at the Alamo. Really.

Is Phil Collins throwing it all away?

In a revealing interview in this week's Rolling Stone, the Genesis star opened up about his belief in reincarnation and—despite his mega-success in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band and as an Oscar- and Grammy-winning solo artist—having suicidal thoughts.

Not another day in paradise, Phil?

"I wouldn't blow my head off," Collins tells the magazine. "I'd overdose or do something that didn't hurt. But I wouldn't do that to the children. A comedian who committed suicide in the '60s left a note saying,'Too many things went wrong too often.' I often think about that."

The 59-year-old rocker mostly spends his time these days at his estate in Switzerland, raising his two sons and playing with his collection of Alamo artifacts(!). Speaking of strange obsessions, Collins also confesses to seeing glowing, translucent light orbs in some photos of the old fort.

"It's paranormal energy," says Collins about the invisible touch, adding that a psychic told him he had fought at the famous battle in a past life.

Remember the Alamo, huh?

"I don't want to sound like a weirdo," says Collins. "I'm not Shirley MacLaine, but I'm prepared to believe. You've seen the pictures. You can't deny them, so therefore it's possible that I was there in another life."

Last year, Collins wrote on Genesis' website that during the group's 2007 tour, he dislocated a vertebra in his neck and is no longer able to play the drums or piano, though it's not something he dwells on.

"I was going to stop drumming anyway," he confesses. "I had stopped. I don't miss it."

As for a future solo record or new Genesis material, don't count it. Aside from an album of Motown covers, the musician sounds happy to simply fade away.

"I sometimes think I'm going to write this Phil Collins character out of the story," he says. "Phil Collins will just disappear or be murdered in some hotel bedroom and people will say, 'What happened to Phil?' And the answer will be, 'He got murdered, but yeah, anyway, let's carry on.' That kind of thing."

Sounds like somebody could use a hug.