Meet Brian Collins

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Collins.

Brian, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born and raised in the foothills of the Colorado Rocky Mountains, blind since birth. Such a life gave me a lot of time to focus, reflect, and write songs, which I have done since age five to some capacity.

When I was 19 years old I hit my first open mic at Lucky Joe’s in Fort Collins, where I shared a few originals and began gathering feedback for what I was doing. This began my adult life as a local musician/performer.

I took a couple of years to attend music school at UNC In Greeley but found it wasn’t really my gig. There were too many musicians and not enough improvisers. There were too many written notes and not enough pure inspiration. The keys of the piano began to feel more like, as my good friend Jason Tempero said, “pieces of plastic rather than pieces of mind.”

Jason Tempero is my best lifelong friend. Our families both had ten-acre sections up at Stove Prairie Road, making us neighbors. Without Jason, I wouldn’t have climbed nearly so many radio towers, hiked so many mountains, or tried to die in various other ways. In turn, I turned Jason on to music. We had a project growing up called Section Eight and wrote and recorded instrumental music.

Anyway, back to the story. I dropped out of college when I was 21. For the last two years, I had majored in music performance. When I practiced my classical music I practiced for 10/20 minutes at a time. Then I would lose focus and revert to songwriting.

During the weekends and over the summers I would head back to Old Town Fort Collins, where I lived with my sister and some friends. It was there that I began playing with Sean Waters, Jason Tempero, and Josh Cole to form the band Placebo Affect. I was much more excited about this band than I was my music degree so I dropped out of college to pursue it. I can clearly remember my father saying, “you are giving up a prestigious job as a music professor to go play in sandwich shops.”

Placebo Affect did not last long. Gigging, building a following and being social were not in Jason Tempero’s wheelhouse. Josh Cole was raised a Christian and was encouraged by his family not to hang out with us. Soon it was down to just Sean Waters and I. We played open mics, Sean on guitar/vocals and myself on keyboards/vocals. One fateful evening, we ended up in a giant jam session, later referred to as “sonic shit,” where we met drummer Marshal Vanstone and guitarist/bassist Ehren Crumpler.

In early 2002 Sean, myself, Marcial and Ehren formed the group Wasabi. We learned covers and shared originals until we had enough material to play a couple of sets. Since we were a jam band, one set could be 5/6 ten minutes songs. From 2002/2009 we played shows and had a blast. We headlined the larger venues in Fort Collins, opened up for other bands at larger out of town venues, and played many weekend warrior gigs in mountain towns like Crested Butte, Evergreen, Lander, Wyoming, Etc..

Wasabi had a real good run. We made two full-length albums in our time together and secured a following. I still get asked about Wasabi to this day.

In 2009 Wasabi began disbanding while Sean and I were forming a new project, The Seers, to help fuel and satisfy our creative ambitions and songwriting needs. The Seers started out as a three-piece with myself on keys covering bass lines with my left hand, Sean on guitar and Ryan Gray on drums. We played a few shows and thought the future was looking bright. Although Ryan was a cool guy to play with he didn’t like the live scene enough to sustain the group. In early 2010 The Seers reformed with drummer Tyler Lindgren and played a few more shows, but Tyler was out of control back there at the drums and always gave the songs way more than they were asking for. For the later part of 2010 and the earlier part of 2011, The Seers essentially took a break while I played some solo performances in old town Fort Collins, building up my living as a solo musician.

In the early summer of 2011, Sean and I landed a gig at Equinox Brewing Company in Fort Collins as a duo. We had indeed gone full circle and were back to the old school style of performance style we had known ten years prior, namely Sean on guitar/vocals and myself on keyboards/vocals. We put on a great show and decided to rock The Seers’ acoustic duo. This has worked out for us. Today we work most every weekend of the year as an entertainment duo, playing requests and originals. We have made seven studio projects and are working on a couple of singles to release in 2020.

As The Seers progressed Sean became a well-accomplished recording and mixing engineer. As Sean progressed into the digital world our recording process changed. In the digital world, bands don’t often play the song together. Instead, members take turns recording and perfecting their parts. I began to miss the old school method of recording where bands would set up, the engineer would hit the record button and the band would go for a live take of the song in the studio.

In 2016/2017, three things happened that were paramount to the beginning of my solo career as Brian David Collins. First, I met my wife, Dana Collins, then Dana Goodwin, the love of my life. As our relationship began and grew I began writing songs about her. These songs were different from the ones I had been writing for the later Seers projects. They were my first love songs and they really meant a lot to me! In addition, the songs spoke for themselves and didn’t seem to need complex arrangements.

Then Sean met Paul Andrews, a recording, mixing and mastering engineer who lived in Longmont at the time. When we went to see his studio, Bridge Studios, I fell in love with the grand piano set up in his living room, used for recording. At that meeting, Paul was very supportive of the songs I was writing and didn’t want to change them, which I appreciate.

The third and final thing that helped to form Brian David Collins was the WAC, the Wednesday afternoon club. By 2017 Dana and I were living together. Every, Wednesday, we opened our doors from 11:00/4:00 to friends. Tom Ditzler, a drummer/percussionist I had befriended in 2015, began coming to WAC every week with his wife Donna. Each week Tom and I would play the songs I had been working on for Dana, which ultimately became the majority of the music on my first two records.

On November 14, 2017, Sean Waters, myself and Tom Ditzler all headed to Longmont to Bridge Studios to begin recording an EP at Bridge Studios with Paul Andrews. Before the session, I had met with Paul and talked with him on the phone several times about the project. It was understood by everyone that Tom, Sean and I would all set up in the living room of Paul’s house for a live recording. The session was exciting and went well. We got good live takes of all five numbers with myself on piano/vocals, Tom on Cajon and Sean on bass.

At the time we were going to call the record The Seers Presents Brian Collins. By the time the record was completed, I had written, funded and arranged most of it, with the exception of some cello parts Sean had helped to write. The record felt like my own record, which it became. I ended up using my full name, Brian David Collins because online research helped Dana and I to discover that there is already a Brian Collins in country music.

Once Brian David Collins was established Sean Waters left the project. Now, Brian David Collins plays as a three-piece, with myself on keys/vocals, Tom Ditzler on full drum set, and Aaron Oberndorf on bass. This trio has just finished a new full album, different Light. Please enjoy on Spotify or come see me at a show for a copy on CD.

 https://open.spotify.com/album/6poJSskLG0t9asOXW535IA?si=t1aS62o8S6GC6PMPWGCaQg

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Brian David Collins music has been a smooth road when it comes to band dynamics. We are all friends and there are no hired guns that are worried about their pay grade. As a solo artist, I am directing the group musically, but there is always room for creativity and compromise. Then there is Dana, the love of my life, who has inspired so much of the music by being in my life, but that is only the beginning. Dana does all of the social media management for BDC as well as a large part of the office work. She has an undying faith in the project even when the work is long and the road is uncertain. I am truly fortunate, we are all building this inspiration together.

Brian David Collins music has had rather a rough road when it comes to family, grief and loss. Bassist Aaron Oberndorf has recently fostered children with his wife and taken on a new job. Tom and I have both experienced grief in the family and are at times emotionally and spiritually overrun. Everyone is busy and it is hard to find time to practice. We want gigs to build a fan base but we need a fan base to get gigs. The moral of the story is this, if you are forming an all original music project that doesn’t entertain by playing popular songs everyone knows, it is a long road that is built brick by inspiring/painstaking brick.

Can you give our readers some background on your music?
Brian David Collins music is an independent, all-original musical project. I write all of the material. Then, with the help of loved ones, musicians and engineers I trust, I produce, arrange, record, release and perform my original music live. Brian David Collins Music specializes in blues/rock, mellow singer/songwriter tunes, and upbeat piano rock that makes you want to get up and move!

I am proud of Brian David Collins music because it is something I have wanted to build for a long time that is finally coming to life and sprouting wings. So much of the digital recording world is done one person at a time in front of a computer. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, every track is picked through with a fine-toothed comb and fixed digitally. In Brian David Collins music we get back to basics in the studio. What you hear on the record is what you get live. No one plays in the studio what he/she couldn’t play live.

Another thing that sets Brian David Collins Music apart is the attention span we hope to achieve with our listeners. I once read that pop music wants a listener’s attention for a few minutes every day, while I prefer a few hours of attention every month.

What were you like growing up?
I can tell you that as a small child I lived in a world of my own making. As other kids played on the playground, I pondered how many minutes there are to a day, listened to leaf soldiers march down the sidewalk in the Autumn, and talked to wind dragons. As an older child, I played music in a music room my father had put together for me in our home. I would try to watch a show or movie with the family but would invariably end up in the music room. I did like to get outdoors. I was rather spoiled in some respects. We had a pond on our property where I along with my younger sister and the neighborhood kids loved to swim. I hiked often with my good buddy Jason and had a fairly even temperament.

In addition, I was always fairly O.C.D., not clinically so, but just in my personality. My family always laughs when they think of the time when I was in the sixth grade, pondering whether pickle juice would kill brain cells. I liked to write or record short stories into my tape recorder and loved to strengthen my imagination, something that hasn’t changed much.

Pricing:

• Songs are available for download on iTunes and Amazon for $0.99 cents a song
• CDs are available on CDBaby and at live performances for $10.00 a disk.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.briandavidcollins.com/press-kit/
• Phone: call: 970-412-0935/text: 970-222-0914
• Email: bdcollins11@gmail.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrianDavidCollins/
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/album/6poJSskLG0t9asOXW535IA?si=t1aS62o8S6GC6PMPWGCaQg

Image Credit:
Music, Laughter, Love Creatives and Rae McAlister

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