Paul Collins & His DIY Beat

Having begun his career as a member of the Los Angeles-based trio The Nerves with Jack Lee and Peter Case, Collins formed The Beat in the late 1970s.  Unbeknownst to him was another Beat – the British 2 Tone ska band featuring Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger that was just beginning to gather attention on the other side of the pond.  Confusion, not to mention a lawsuit pressed against the Brit band by Sony/Columbia, led to slight modifications in each band’s name  – Paul Collins’ Beat and The English Beat.

Paul Collins’ Beat toured extensively for a decade, appeared on “American Bandstand” and had ia song – “There She Goes” – included in the soundtrack for the motion picture “Caddyshack,” before the group broke up in the late ’80s.

Get Hip recently reissued two albums from the Paul Collins’ Beat.  The Beat and The Kids Are The Same include the original artwork and both discs come with bonus tracks.

Three decades later finds Collins playing with a new Beat.  While chatting with Pollstar from his home in New York City, Collins described his do-it-yourself way of doing things and how touring with up-and-coming bands allows him to keep expenses extremely low.

But Collins didn’t just talk about his own career.  A power pop pioneer, he took us deep within the genre, describing the artists and bands he’s met while keeping his Beat.

While you’re essentially a DIY artist, are you in total control of everything relating to the Paul Collins Beat?

I have two operations. My U.S. operation, I am in complete control of.  My European operation, we work with a lovely agency out of Italy.  That is kind of in the DIY spirit. 

The DIY ethic in America, I think, harkens back to what this country is all about – people taking their lives into their own hands and making the kind of life they want to have, based on their own beliefs and aspirations. …  You don’t have to toe the corporate line if you don’t want to. … I think you have to be in the position to do that.  Some people aren’t.  Some people have to do things according to the way society prescribes because of their economic situation, family situation or employment.  I think a lot of the DIY people are people that had broken away and either had to start all over [or] start from scratch and carve out a living for themselves and figure out how they were to survive, and that process opened up all these possibilities.  And I think the internet has played a huge, huge hand in it.

You’ve seen the music business from both sides – DIY as well as being on a major label, Columbia.  Plus, you had Bill Graham for a manager at one time.  What did you learn from those experiences that you apply to your business practices today?

Bill Graham Presents … taught me to tour in a straight line – “Under five hundred miles – drive.  Over 500 miles, fly.” There are times when you look back and say, “I didn’t know how good I had it.”  We had the whole nine yards.  We had BGP Management behind us, had that whole office working for us. {Touring] in a straight line is essential for roadwork.  We used to run into friends of ours in other bands and they were like, destroyed, … and I [was like], “Who the hell is booking your tour?”

That’s one gripe I have sometimes with agencies.  It’s one thing to be sitting in an office and booking a tour that you’re not actually going on. You’re going to be home in bed and these guys are going to try to do what you’ve set up. It’s physical wear and tear.  If you have to do a show and then get into a van and drive 14 hours to make the sound check on the next show, it’s going to kill you.

The other part of the DIY thing that I really enjoy is that it’s a family operation.  The clubs and bands I work with, we’re friends.  My motto is “go where you’re loved.”  I have a network of club owners that treat us with dignity.  They’re fair, it’s handshake agreements.  Every time I do something that’s maybe a step up in the “real world” where there are contracts and other things … all just business and there are problems that sometimes don’t exist in the DIY thing.

In the DIY thing you have total control.  When I go on the road I know where I’m going to be, I know how long it’s going to take me to get to the next place.  I know that the hotel will be 10 minutes from the gig because I booked it. … If you have to drive 45 minutes to a hotel as opposed to walking across the street, it changes your whole day.  You can go back to the hotel after sound check and take a shower and take a nap if you want to.  If you’re 45 minutes away you’re  pretty much stuck in that club.

I grew up in a time when the major labels  were what everybody aspired to.  Everybody wanted a major label deal, the satin jackets, the big look. … The only way you were going to crack the Top 40 or sell millions of records was if you had that big [promo], machine behind you.

One thing I keep very clear in my mind now, because I fell into this trap when I was living in Los Angeles and was on a major label … is that it is a very, very big mistake to try to do your craft for the business.  You have to do your music or your art because you love it.  It can’t have anything to do with what’s happening now or what’s the flavor of the month or what’s going to satisfy a big company. … I lost a lot of time doing [that].

What’s your touring transportation like?

I have been very lucky … almost unwittingly.  About five or six years ago, I was living in Europe for a long time and I pretty much fell off the face of the earth in the United States.  It had been 12 years since I had released an album here and as many years since I had toured.  I was touring a lot in Spain because I was living there.  Then we said we had to branch out so we began playing in Italy and around Europe.  I said, “We got to do SXSW.  We’ve have to reintroduce ourselves to the American audience.

So we did SXSW two years in a row and it was a strategic move [that was] great for me.  All these people who literally thought I was dead saw I was active again.  That was the germ, the seed, of what I’m doing now.  I met a lot of young bands at SXSW that I didn’t know existed.  I didn’t know there was this entire subculture with all these bands, citing power pop, as part of their influences. 

Then I did a tour which was instrumental to what I’m doing now.  It was … with Gentleman Jessie. … He walked up to me at SXSW and said, “I love your music.  If you want to tour in the United States, I’m your guy.  My band can back you up.”

So we did a tour together.  It was kind of a leap of faith, all DIY [through] Facebook and stuff, and it was a raging success.  We made a lot of money and had a great time.  I saw firsthand that you could do tours in the United States and not have the support of a big record company.

That started me working with all these young bands that knew and loved my music.  I, in turn loved what they were doing so it was a win-win situation.

I’m a guy who never says, “no.”  I really believe … you go through a door and that opens another door.  That has served me well through my whole life.  I don’t go, “How much money?”  I go, “OK. That sounds cool.  I’ll take a chance.”

So I was playing this BBQ [in Austin, Texas].  At that time I was 50-some years old and feeling, “What the hell am I doing here?  I’m an old coot and these [people] are young 20-somethings, completely tattooed.  What the hell are they going to see in me or [why] would they even want to hear me?”

And [there was] this kid sitting on the fence going, “Hey, man!  Play that song that tells you what life is all about!”  And I’m like, “How the hell do you even know that?  That song was written, recorded and put out 10 years before you were even born.”  That’s when I realized that the power of music doesn’t have a timeline to it.  These kids knew the music through the internet and they loved it.  I was so flattered and encouraged by that, I started doing these tours.  I came up with this thing [where] I could do these tours is if I hook up with these other bands and they supply the backline. … It just made sense.  And kids today have much better gear than when we were starting out.

That morphed into what I’m doing now.  My last two tours have actually been booked by the bands that I’m touring with. We travel with them in their vans and with their backlines.

These guys, we’re all in this together. They love the music, they want to go out and play.  We put together legitimate shows.  They use my name to book themselves into legitimate venues and it’s a win-win situation. …  If I had to rent a van in New York City, fill it up and drive God knows where, and, with the price of gas and everything, we [couldn’t] do this.”

Do you ever wonder why other bands don’t do what you’re doing?

Actually they’re starting to and I feel very happy about that. In the scene I operate in, a lot of these groups I work with see that this can actually work and that it makes sense.  I run this Power Pop-A-Licious festival.  I’ve done two years and I’m planning a third one.  I get these bands together and I see them making connections … and going out doing … shows together. And that’s what it’s all about.  These kids, today, aren’t stupid.  They see what’s going on.  They go, “OK. This works.  We can do this.”

If you have a local band and you want to get out beyond the radius of where you live, the expenses of roadwork are just really prohibited. … And a lot of these kids, fortunately or unfortunately, they have jobs.  When they go on tour it’s like someone else going on vacation. 

Do you own the masters to the recordings you made while on Columbia?

No, but it’s almost the next best thing because I’ve always prided myself on having good relationships with the people I work with.  And I do have good relationships with Sony and Columbia. I’ve reissued all my work with them. Sometimes the deals are tough to cut.  But they cut them and I act as the middleman.  My stuff is in print.  Alive Records has been great about reissuing everything else that wasn’t on a major label.  They put out The Nerves’ stuff, they put out The Breakaways’ stuff. So my catalogue, more or less, is in print. And that really helps me a lot, just from a merch angle. You ask any touring band, merch is a big part of your income.  I can make more money at the merch table than I make at a gig.  And LPs are back, big time, with young kids.  I sell, maybe, five-to-one LPs to CDs.

What about publishing?  Are you active in placing songs in movies or on TV shows?

Publishing is really the most lucrative side of the business.  It’s also the most difficult because publishing is the real estate of music, and everybody in that side of it knows it. I used to be published by Bug which was the largest independent music publisher in America.  They had artists like Del Shannon, Los Lobos [and] John Hiatt.  Then about 30 years into their life they started getting bought.  They were bought by Windsong … and wound up being owned by BMG/Chrysalis, which is great for me.  One of their head offices is in New York. I’ve gone there [and] made friends with the people who are directly responsible for my catalogue.  They pitch my stuff.

The publishing world is tough. I think the way it goes down … let’s say they’re making a movie.  The music producer, the guy who is going to get the music for that film  … will get a chunk of money … from thereon in, whatever deal he can cut is going to depend on who much of that money will go into his pocket.  So when it comes to artists like me, they want the song but they want to pay, like, $500 for it.

Obviously, if they want a Stones song, there is no quibbling.  You call [The Rolling Stones] up and they say, “OK. It’s $5,000, $10,000,” and either you pay it or you don’t have the Stones.

My philosophy though, and it is one of the other reasons why I tour, is that I keep my ass out there.  I keep punching my CDs and LPs.  Maybe one of these days [an] 18 year-old or 20-year-old kid will be working at an ad agency and go, “Let’s use ‘Rock N Roll Girl.’”  That’s what I’m waiting for.

You mentioned living in Europe for a number of years.  How does your music sell on that side of the ocean?

Europe is a great market for me. … I’m at the point now where I have to think about what I’m doing.  I think I’m at the top of my game in the DIY thing and I think I have to figure out how to jump up to the next level.  You get to a certain point where you go, “ I can’t stay at this level. I have to go the next increment up.”  We’re going to do a two-week tour of China in March.  … We’re going to take a bullet train from Shanghai to Beijing and play all these little towns where they don’t even know what rock ’n’ roll is. It’s going to be through the roof.

Those kind of things I find really exciting.  To me, my biggest challenge is how to make my working conditions better. … If I could play to 100 or 150 paying customers a night, I would be rolling in it.  That’s where I’m setting my sights right now.  Work in better clubs [under] better circumstances.

Do you think some music fans might not be aware of the power pop sub genre is because bands from various genres might be tagged with that identifier long after the fact?  That they may be identified as rock, alternative or whatever, and years later are labeled as power pop acts?

When I first heard the word I was like, “I’m not power pop.  I’m a fuckin’ rock ’n’ roll band.  It sounded like wimpy bullshit to me.  Back then it was a term that worked against me.  Radio was like, “We ain’t playing new wave and we ain’t playing power pop.”

Same thing with The Ramones. “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” should have been a No. 1 hit single but putting the words “punk rocker” in that title just fazed it.  No radio station in America was going to play a song with that title.  Period.  End of subject.

When you really sit back and look at what it is, power pop embodies the best elements of rock ’n’ roll – great songs, great melodies, great guitar licks.  Every song that I love about rock ’n’ roll has that. Elvis Presley, Beatles, Stones, Kinks, you name it.

I think one of the biggest problems power pop has is that it’s not dangerous.  It doesn’t tell you to kill your girlfriend or family.  It doesn’t have that dangerous element to it that a lot of successful forms of rock ’n’ roll has.  The Beatles weren’t dangerous but they were so fuckin’ good that nobody could deny it. The Stones were dangerous, they were the bad boys. You wouldn’t want your daughter to go out with the Stones.  I don’t think anybody’s parent is going to have a shit fit if somebody is playing a power pop record.

But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a legitimate genre.  Those are brilliant songs by anybody’s standards in rock ’n’ roll.  The highest level of craftsmanship went into the making some of that music.  I just think it’s a genre that still needs promoting and acceptance.

Let’s get your take on some of the bands that are often mentioned as power pop pioneers.  What’s your impression of The Raspberries?

When you talk about power pop, people say Pete Townshend coined the word. … Power pop to me was born in my generation.  I was born in the mid-1950s and started playing rock ’n’ roll 15 to 20 years later.

The Raspberries, to me, were not power pop.  They were rock ’n’ roll and they were great.  Those harmonies and stuff, are legendary.

How about Big Star?

I’m one of those guys who kind of missed Big Star when they happened.  I’ve gotten into Big Star more now, because of the documentary and because I work with a lot of people [who are fans].  I think that Chris Bell song “Thirteen,” [although] the subject was a little suspect, is a gorgeous song. …  But they weren’t part of me like Dwight Twilley was.

Did you ever tour with Cheap Trick?

No.  The closest I ever got to Cheap Trick was in two instances.  We were on tour and did a show in New York with Southside Johnny at this place called Zappa’s in Brooklyn.  The day of the show, all of our gear was ripped off.  So we did the show with Southside Johnny on rented gear.  He came out and played harmonica with us.

Then we flew out to Los Angeles for a show at The Whisky.  We still didn’t have any gear.  I don’t know what the circumstances were, I wound up playing Rick Nielsen’s guitar, which was bigger than I was.  They taped it up with gaffer’s tape.  Halfway through the set the gaffer’s tape broke and this guitar goes flying down to my shoes.

Recently, we played Rockford, Ill.  Bun E. Carlos comes to our shows whenever we play there, and he’s just a lovely guy.  Never toured with Cheap Trick.  Not that I wouldn’t have loved to.  I’m a huge Cheap Trick fan.

What about The Jam?  Any stories?

I was a huge Jam fan and I saw their very first U.S. show at the Whisky A Go Go, three nights in a row when I was in The Nerves.  Me, Jack and Peter went, we were standing there and going, “Oh, my God!  These guys are so fuckin’ good, we might as well give up.”  They were red hot.  They just burned up the stage.  Then I toured with them and Paul Weller was a complete asshole to us.   It just bummed me out.

I’ve met a lot of pretty big cats [through the years] and the coolest ones were the ones who looked you in the eye, shake your hand, weren’t threatened by you, [and] they treated you nicely.  Consummate professionals, polite, nice, didn’t have any ego problems.  They weren’t trying to make you look like shit to make them feel better.  Those are the guys that you remember and those are the guys you look up to.  And that is what I try to be.

Did you read Slim Whitman’s obituary?  It was so incredible.  It said, “I just wanted to be remembered as a nice guy who always wore a clean suit.”  That’s cool.

If you could give a young musician some advice, what would you say?

Practice your ass off.  Be your own worst critic.  And don’t do it for the business.  Do it because you love it.

I really believe, and you can apply this to anything – cooking, raising children, being a good boyfriend, husband or whatever – if you do it with love, you have a pretty good chance it’s going to come out OK.

Upcoming shows for Paul Collins Beat, with Parasite Diet on all dates:

Jan. 10 – Indianapolis, Ind., Melody Inn
Jan. 11 – Carbondale, Ill., Hangar 9
Jan. 12 – Evansville, Ind., PG
Jan. 13 – Nashville, Tenn., The Basement
Jan. 14 – Murray, Ky., Terrapin Station
Jan. 15 – Memphis, Tenn., Hi-Tone Café
Jan. 16 – Atlanta, Ga., The Earl
Jan. 17 – Murfreesboro, Tenn., House Concert
Jan. 18 – Huntsville, Ala., Copper Top Dive N Dine
Jan. 19 – Athens, Ga., Hi-Lo Lounge
Jan. 21 – New Orleans, La., Siberia

Please visit ThePaulCollinsBeat.com for more information.