Paul Collins, former Nerves drummer, talks about the evolution of his music career ahead of his show tonight at RecordBar

Singer and songwriter Paul Collins has, in his storied history, played in both the Nerves and the Beat — both bands whose influences can still be felt in today’s garage-rock scene. The self-described “King of Power Pop” can still be found releasing strongly-rocking, intensely catchy records, and his latest, Feel the Noise – out now on Alive/Natural Sound Records – is as strong as anything the Beat put out in its heyday.

We spoke with Collins by phone about the new record and his storied career ahead of tonight’s gig at RecordBar. 

The Pitch: I want to start out by saying I really enjoy the new album. It seems like a return to form. It sounds like it could have been recorded any time in the last thirty years.

Collins: Well, that’s a pretty big compliment. In my case, you know, I’ve been around for a long time, obviously, the first couple albums, especially the first album – that stuff with the Nerves – is always being held up as like, what I’m gonna be compared to. I understand that and I’m happy and proud that I have something that good to be compared to. So, when anybody says – and that is what a lot of people are saying – obviously, you hope for that, and I needed that more than ever right now, because, obviously, I’ve been in the game a long time, and really, the world I live in now is kind of like that same world [I started in]: I’m playing in clubs, I’m playing with all these young, upcoming bands, and I’m mining like, you know, a real fresh, rockin’ scene.

I go out, I’m playing clubs, and that’s upbeat, energetic music. So, to be able to come up with an album that kinda fits in with all that, and reaffirms where I came from – but in a fresh way. When you’ve been doing this a long time, obviously, you don’t wanna wear or try to put on the pants you wore when you were 18, you know what I mean?

I was kind of curious, because the cover photo is of a younger you.

[laughs] Yeah. OK. With The King of Power Pop, I learned something really, really important: I learned that, you know, I’m in this media game. I can do what I want. Calling myself the King of Power Pop? The only reason I why I did it is ’cause I had that song, and I knew it was cheeky and I asked the label. I said, “Well what do you think? I could get completely rammed on this.”

And they said, ‘”Listen, it’s rock and roll. You gotta have balls. Go for it!” And then, subsequently, I realized – I mean, I don’t think I’m the King of Power Pop. I think I’m really good at what I do, but – and I think there’s other people that are just as good – but, what happened was, the media thing, and you know I’m out in the marketplace competing with all these new up-and-coming bands and, you know, the whole scene. And everybody is fighting for whatever space they can get. I realize that people just call me the King of Power Pop, you know, just suggesting it made it true. And I don’t even think people ask themselves, you know, “Is it true” or not.

So, coming to this picture, then. I’ve managed somehow to keep a really good archive through all these years, all the moving and stuff. I’ve had that photo in my archives for quite a while and, I don’t know, maybe eight to ten years ago when I was living in Madrid, I had a friend put all of it onto my computer, scan it and everything.

And, we did this tour in China and they used that picture on the poster, and then when it came time to do the album, I really liked the picture and it had that attitude to it, and I said, you know, “I’m DIY.” One of the advantages of being DIY is you can do what you want. First of all, you’re out there hustling on your own, no one is paying for you, you don’t have some big record company agent and manager, you simply do what you can do.

And I figured, you know, since I was playing exclusively here in America with all these young [bands], I wanted to come up with something that was gonna relate to that. I think the music backs it up. Also, I wanted something that the kids were gonna wanna pick up.

I find it interesting that on the album, you do that Four Tops cover. That, to me, is what sort of really ties it to that idea of that it could have been recorded at any time. Very much like, a pop group covering an R&B song is such a timeless concept.

The reason why I did that song was, every album has its thing and this one was very difficult. I put it off like four times. I actually recorded an album in Europe – it tanked – so this album was under a lot of pressure. I had canceled the recording like three or four times because I didn’t feel that I had the songs and you know for me, for an artist like me, if you don’t have the songs, you’re gonna be in some serious trouble.

So finally, what happened was I did a record in Europe, and it didn’t work, and when the label got it they said, “Listen man, you gotta make us a record. Take some time, go back up to Detroit and make a record. And make a good one.”

So, I took some time off to rest – I’d been touring for six months, I needed to get my voice back in shape. Actually went and did vocal lessons, cut back on the drinking and the smoking – actually quit smoking, which has been huge.

I had a huge, fairly extensive song closet. A handful of those are from way back in the day and were just kicking around. And I was going through all the tapes, and the Beat did a version of that song [“Reach Out I’ll be There”]. And I had completely forgotten about it. And when I heard it, I went, ‘Wow! This is fuckin’ smokin’!’ And again, I’m putting together an album, I need twelve up-tempo tracks that rock. And, that just fit the bill.

And then the logic of it came later: “Okay, we’re doing it in Detroit…” I didn’t even put that stuff together until Jim [Diamond, producer] said, “Well, you know, we gotta make this song really happen.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Because these guys are from Detroit, and we’re in Detroit, and there’s no way I’m gonna be responsible for cuttin’ this song and it not coming out great.”

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Do you find that as [your label] Alive/Natural Sounds has just re-issued a lot of your past work over the last couple of years – has that helped rekindle the interest in your music?

Well, I mean when you come to the gig and see my merch table you see a record store. You see seven, eight vinyl, cds, that, that and the other, which is awesome. And they’re all great records, so … I mean, it’s really good for me to have all that stuff in print. people really, I mean The Nerves, just through my live show, I’ve disseminated a ton of Nerves to young kids. So, I mean yeah, it’s been great!

That Nerves discography is a fantastic compilation. It sounds great, and it’s really comprehensive.

Well, what’s nice about it is that here’s this little band, that can’t get arrested anywhere. They make one 45 in 1975 and all this comes out of it. I mean, that’s pretty heavy. And now, that fact that, forty some-odd years later, we have this really nice artifact – because you’re never gonna see the band, that I can guarantee. And even if someone offered us ridiculous amounts of money, and we were stupid enough to do it, you still wouldn’t be seeing the band. You’d be seeing three old guys trying to do what they did forty years ago. That’s not the band. The band in its day was really awesome, and those records are the closest thing you’re going to get to it.

I think that’s an interesting perspective because that seems to be the thing these days: Bands try to get back together and try to recapture something and even if it’s good, it’s still different.

Well, you know there’s a big difference. What people tend to forget is that there’s a big difference. For example: like, the Rolling Stones – they’re not a band getting back together, they’re a band that never left. They’re doing what they’ve been doing all along. They didn’t take, you know, a 30-year hiatus and then decide, “Oh, let’s get back together!” They’ve been the Stones. So that’s one thing, and then other bands like Fleetwood Mac? That’s huge and did so much work, you know it’s gonna be more or less the same. I would imagine they’re just a little bit older.

Is it that if you’re going to be playing clubs, you’d rather be playing the new music? I know you play your older material as well, but that’s part of being a touring musician.

Well, I’m really lucky in that sense. I do it all. I play stuff from the Nerves, I do stuff from today, and it all seems to go hand in hand. It’s not like there’s such a huge difference between what I did and what I do now that I can’t continue to do it. So, on that level, I’m really really very lucky. I go out and I play, and I have new songs, that now, like there’s a song off Flying High called “Helen,” which is as big as any song I’ve ever done. People come, they know it, they sing it, they dance to it, they love it, they say it’s their favorite song more than “Rock ‘n’ Roll Girl,” more than “Don’t Wait Up.”

So, I have newer material that my fans – I mean, my die-hard fans from back in the day – love as much as my early work. So, I’m really lucky. What I got going here is I got a nice little family operation. Most of the clubs I work with are now my friends. Most of the fans that come to the shows are now my friends. We tour so much and go to the same markets, usually, that we’re hanging out with people we know. We stay with them. On some of these tours, we’re at a hotel a couple of nights on the tour. The rest of the time, we’re staying at a friend’s house. So, it’s a whole different trip. It’s not this endless going to city after city, it all looks the same, there’s no difference in anything, and an endless stream of hotels, you know what I’m saying?

It sounds like you’ve found a way to enjoy yourself, so it’s not a grind.

Yeah. And that makes it fantastic.

Paul Collins plays the Record Bar on Monday, October 6, with openers Rich Hands and All Blood. Details on that show are available here.