HIS BENEVOLENT REIGN Paul Collins
Aug 27, 2010
Things come full circle for the once-future, and now firmly established, King of Power Pop.
BY MARY LEARY
"Power pop is a genre that draws from 1960s British and American Pop and Rock. It typically incorporates strong melodies, crisp vocal harmonies, economical arrangements, and prominent guitar riffs. Instrumental solos are usually kept to a minimum, and blues elements tend to be downplayed. Recordings tend to lean toward compression and a forceful drum beat. While its cultural impact has waxed and waned, Power Pop is among Rock's most enduring subgenres." - (A compressed, economical rewrite of a Wiki definition that omits any mention of skinny shoes ‘n' ties.)
The headache starts when I hit a YouTube gridlock. The pay-out jingling in after typing Paul Collins' name into a search box is much more complex than the innocent pleasure of slamming a couple quarters into a jukebox. Instead of slurping a shake and pouring catsup while snapping the fingers of my other hand to "Don't Wait Up For Me," "Rock ‘n' Roll Girl," or "When You Find Out" (ooh, those Beatlesque/Zombiesque harmonies - yeah, this is a dream juke; maybe a reality in L.A. circa 1979), I'm overwhelmed by choices. There's footage of The Beat, Paul Collins Beat, the more folk/country-skewed Paul Collins Band (which, to my ears, still sounds mostly like Power Pop), Paul Collins solo, and the short-lived Breakaways, which helped him ford the dissolution of The Nerves... which helped sculpt Power Pop's second coming.
The media lode provides some answers to the question plaguing anyone who hasn't kept up: What happened to the originators of a song with which the Nerves will always be associated? Okay, for $10,000... yes, it's "Hangin' on the Telephone" (a pole which Blondie subsequently grabbed for a vault closer to the top). Whatever happened to Paul Collins is, as it happens, a LOT. The world's fickle, at times lukewarm response to his plaintive cries and fulsome bounce has been answered by solutions like moving from drums to guitar, and his idealistic Beat Army booking/networking project. Dogged performing has built a sprawling fan base including Spain, his second home since the ‘80s. He's penned two fictional autobiographies, Mi Madre, Mi Mentor y Yo and 8 Million Stories: Pete the Fly. He's produced Spanish pop bands. And he runs a few record labels. What the heck is this guy on?
Evidenced by the smokin'-new, Jim Diamond-produced King of Power Pop! (released, appropriately enough by Bomp! sister label Alive, given that Bomp!'s founder, the late Greg Shaw, was one of the earliest and most vocal champions of Power Pop; the record sleeve is also a nod to the cover of the now-classic Bomp! magazine Power Pop issue from '78), he's fueled by an addiction to ringing guitar chords, danceable beats, and mid-‘60s forms via the late ‘70s. As much as evolving into a Power Pop despot, Paul seems to rule that shaky cliff where adolescent joy and anguish intersect - as long as every vignette's resolved within three minutes, tops. At the mic, like he's studied every nuance, he still cocks his head right and left, a la Paul McCartney. Anyone got a problem with that?
I had the uncertain luck of contacting Paul right before he started the Canadian leg of his tour. His cheery, enthusiastic responses have compensated for the truncated nature of our discourse.
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BLURT: Are the "we could not tune our guitars" and "they couldn't really play so they started writing songs" lines on the track "Kings of Power Pop" true of you and the other Nerves, or do they just convey the DIY sensibility of so much seminal New Wave?
COLLINS: Both. When we started playing we didn't even have tuners. So sometimes it was hard to get our guitars in tune. And we were just beginning, so we spent hours and hours practicing to get our sound right. There were a lot of bands like us in L.A. who were just starting. Maybe we didn't play that great, but the songs were amazing! Jack Lee was a great guitar player - you just have to listen to The Nerves to see that. And Peter Case was also a fantastic guitarist and vocalist. They knew a lot about music theory, which is evident from the harmonies we had. But tuning guitars by ear is difficult, and the rows they had over who was flat and who was sharp have always stayed with me! Since we could not get any industry acceptance, we were able to make our own rules. By music business standards, they didn't think we were even musicians. More often than not, they would throw us out of their music stores and record shops!
What's the first music you remember? Did anything make you so excited, you didn't know what to do?
My dad's Hank Williams and Ray Charles records... then in Long Island, as I lay in bed listening to WABC Radio every night. What I loved about the music was how it seemed to just get right inside of me, like these guys knew me and everything I felt. I feel lucky that I grew up in the time period that I did. As I listened to song after song of great pop music it just floored me...it was like one big hit single, back-to-back: You had The Buckinghams, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Glenn Campbell, Mitch Ryder, The Beatles, The Monkees, The Supremes, The Rascals, The Kinks, The Stones, and Elvis -- and on and on! It was the golden age of rock ‘n' roll, everything from The Beach Boys to the Memphis sound and the British Invasion - it was my school of rock ‘n' roll! I would listen in awe, not knowing how they did it.
I heard "Big Girls Don't Cry" in a taxi cab in Vietnam and it drove me wild! Something about how the melodies blended together really drove me nuts... that's what really got me in pop music - the way the vocal harmonies and the music and the words all melted together into one big ball of sound.
King of Power Pop has a cover of The Box Tops' "The Letter." And it closes with The Flamin' Groovies' "You Tore Me Down." Assuming you like Wayne Carson and Cyril Jordan, can you name some other fave songwriters?
There are a lot, but the main ones are The Beatles; Lennon and McCartney. I have loved that band ever since I was a kid, but I am a huge fan of the music of the 60's -- Jagger/Richards; Chuck Berry. Actually, I think he is my favorite. His use of words and melody is unparalleled: "Moving down the sidewalk like a mounted cavalier...Nadine! Honey, is that you?" It doesn't get much better than that. I never thought that I could do this. When I was a kid I would listen to the music in awe - I couldn't understand how these bands could make the sounds that they did. When I joined The Nerves, I started to understand.
When the New Wave started, it felt like those of us who'd been too young to dive into the Mod and Merseybeat scenes got to experience some of that, in a way. For one thing, it was a fresh, grassroots movement. And a lot of bands - The Nerves, Tina Peel, Nick Lowe/Dave Edmunds, The Jam, The Real Kids, The Romantics -- were basically reworking ‘60s sounds. On King of Power Pop you still have that "We're doing this!" joy. After 30 years, with stints of not playing much, poverty, and sucky jobs, how do you do it?
I love music! When things got really bad for me and I wasn't sure what I could do, and it seemed like my career was over, and I couldn't even get a normal job, and I was looking right into the mouth of poverty and starvation again, I decided to pick up my guitar and make this happen. A friend told me once that there is nothing sweeter then taking a lifetime of failures and turning it into a success. I just could not give up. Something inside me has driven me to do this ever since I was 17 and I left New York to come to California to join a rock band. I didn't have a clue how I would do it - I just knew that I had to.
Some of the material on KOPP is from older releases - can you do some of my homework?
I am proud of this record because it has songs from all the periods of my career. "Do You Wanna Love Me," "Don't Blame Your Troubles on Me," and "Many Roads to Follow" are from right after The Nerves broke up. "Losing Your Cool" is from the early 80's when I was back in New York. "I Go Black" and "This is America" are a few years old, from when I was living in Madrid. What makes it important to me is that it connects the dots to my entire career. I'm so happy that "Don't Blame your Troubles on Me" has finally come out. I always thought it was a great song; it just kinda got swept under the carpet until now. In a way, I'm glad it was, because all the older songs on this record play an important part on the recording, so it was good timing! Sometimes it seems like songs are just hanging out waiting for the right moment to come out -- same thing on the last record, Ribbon of Gold. "Hey DJ" was an outtake from The Beat's second LP. It sat around for some 20 years before it got recorded, and now it's one of our big live numbers!
Anything particularly cool or weird about the Canadian tour, so far?
We've had a ton of adventures, starting with the very first moment we got on the road. Twenty minutes on the highway, and the van broke down. We had to get it towed, unload all the gear, get a car and a van and get back on the road...we made the show, though, and it was five hours away! I love touring in Canada. The bands we're working with are so cool, we have all become good friends - it's what makes playing music so very special. We get to hang out with these guys and see their country in a way no one else can.
It's the same thing that has been happening all over the world - we have all these new friends from touring: Radio Days in Italy, The Yum Yums in Norway, Los Chicos in Spain. As I am writing this to you, our new buddy Dan from Zebrassieres is cooking us up a mess of bacon and eggs in his lovely home in Ottawa! Canada is incredible and the drives have been exquisite -- lovely green countryside and trees, all kinds of different trees everywhere! The Girls! Canadian women are very, very pretty! Yesterday we went swimming in a river in a small town called Wakefield. It was amazing, with an old wooden train trestle bridge. It was delightful to swim in the cool clear water...then we had burgers and poutain (Quebec-style fries and gravy).
Do you listen to the radio or your mixes on the road?
Today we are listening to Barbara Manning, plus a ton of other stuff - we have very eclectic taste. It can be anything from Thin Lizzy or Motorhead to The Real Kids or Tom T. Hall or NRBQ - or stuff I have never heard of!
Your lyrics often focus on the details of women. That quality of attention seems, in a way, delightfully romantic; almost chivalrous. Are there a lot of women at your shows? What's the audience percentage, more or less?
Nowadays there are a lot more women, thank God. There was a time not too long ago when the only people who came to these kinds of shows were record collectors, and they were mainly guys. Now, thanks to the Internet and all these new bands that play power pop, there are a lot of girls again. And I for one am very happy about that. Power Pop is still a vibrant form of music, and it is growing all the time... I am excited to be part of it this second time around.
A lot of your stuff feels like it's driven by a sort of innocent longing. How do you keep writing this stuff, now that you've been married and have a son?
I am twice divorced, and my heart has been broken a number of times. And I am a romantic. Hopefully some day I will find my princess/queen/rock ‘n' roll girl! I have a son, and being a parent is one of the best things that have happened to me. I have learned so much about life and about what it is to really be a man by raising my son. This year he is on tour with me and it is an experience of a lifetime for both of us! I think having a kid and playing music has kept me young. If you were to ask my two ex wives, they'd say I act like a child!
Are you ever tempted to do one-night stands, easy sex, etc., on the road? Does either giving in, or, if not, the inevitable fantasies, help your songwriting?
I take being intimate with someone very personal, as I have had my fair share of one-night stands. I am really more interested in falling in love with someone...that being said, I adore women and the thought of being up close and personal with a lot of the ones I see or meet is a great fantasy. But nothing beats being in love with someone who loves you back....nothing. Of course, thinking about girls or the things that happen with them, both good and bad, is fuel for great songs! I am crazy about girls...especially their smiles and sparkly eyes, their necks, and legs and thighs and... mmmmmm... I would like to be able to settle down one of these days with the woman of my dreams...I hope she comes to me soon!
"King of Power Pop" is quite a claim - why are you the king?
Because I am pretty much the only one still standing from back in the day that actively plays this kind of music. And after investing my entire adult life in doing this, some 35 years, I said to myself, "What the hell - I am the king of Power Pop!!!" I know it's ballsy, but what the hell? As the guy at my record label said, "In marketing you have to have balls."
In the late ‘70s you said, "We're just four guys playing music - no trickery, no bullshit, just rock ‘n' roll. It's a whole new ball game now. All of a sudden, people who had their fingers on the pulse of what was going on - no longer do. All of a sudden, groups that were the definition of the times - no longer are... What we're doing is no big deal to us, we're doing what comes to us naturally... the difference is that we're not trying to be the stuff that's going on now. We think we are what should be now." Do you still think you are what should be now?
Yes, I do. In a weird way, things have come full circle. The mainstream radio sucks. A lot of new bands play homogenized music that has no originality. We are playing music that is vital and real and based on solid musical principals. Fortunately, it's not just us; it's most of these new bands we are playing with. They are young and vital and right at the core of what rock ‘n' roll is all about!
Paul Collins' Beat is on tour during August and September throughout the Midwest and West Coast. Tour dates can be found as his official website.
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