Phil Collins has admitted years of alcohol abuse left his kidneys "messed up"

Speaking to Zoe Ball for the Phil Collins Eras: In Conversation series, he said: "It's an ongoing thing. You know I have a 24-hour live-in nurse to make sure I take my medication as I should do.

"I've had challenges with my knee, I had everything that could go wrong with me, did go wrong with me.

"I got COVID in hospital - my kidneys started to back up, you know, everything that started that could, all seemed to converge at the same time.

"I had five operations on my knee now - I've got a knee that works and I can walk, albeit with assistance, you know, crutches or whatever.

"I'd probably been drinking too much, and so my kidneys were messed up, you know. I enjoyed coming off tour, coming off the road, but I thought, right, I'm gonna do all those things that I couldn't do.

"I wasn't one of those guys that sort of stayed up all night drinking, I'd drink during the day, but I guess I had too much of it. I was never drunk, although I fell over a couple of times. But, it is just one of those things that happened and it all caught up with me and I spent months in hospital."

The In the Air Tonight hitmaker shot to fame as the drummer in Genesis but took on the role of lead singer following Peter Gabriel's departure in 1975 and he admitted he found the change psychologically difficult because he wasn't a "natural" frontman.

He reflected: "Well, it wasn't natural for me. I mean, I, it's a psychologically....the drums are a safety blanket, you know, a security blanket.

"It's like you've got something between you and the audience.

"The first thing I had, that scared the life out of me was having to go down the front and stand with just this microphone stand. Because there's nothing, you know, you are just exposed, everyone's looking at you 'cause you are the singer, whereas they didn't look at the drummer."

Phil hasn't released a new studio album since 2010's covers record Going Back but he hinted there may be some new music on the way.

He said: "The things that are ahead for me would be, apart from just being back to being totally mobile and healthy, is go in there and have a fiddle about and see if there's more music 'cause you know, you tend to sort of feel, that's it, I've done that.

"But you've gotta start doing it to see if you can do it. Otherwise you don't do it. So that is something on my horizon.

"I've got some things that are half formed or were never finished, and a couple of things that were finished, which I like, so you know. Maybe life in the old dog. Yeah. You'll see."

BBC Two and BBC iPlayer will broadcast Phil Collins Eras: In Conversation on 31 January to mark his 75th birthday. The programme is the fifth and final installment of the Eras: Phil Collins podcast series, which will debut on BBC Sounds and BBC iPlayer on 26 January ahead of broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on 1 February. The first four episodes are already available on BBC Sounds.