Interview: Joey Collins - The Yin and the Yang

Joey Collins is a Nottingham based singer-songwriter who has been steeped in music for as long as he can remember. Ahead of his headline album launch show at Metronome on March 24, Phil Taylor chatted to him to find out what makes him tick.

Joey Collins’ obsession with music started when he was six. As a small child, he was kept company during long car journeys from Derbyshire to Wales by a portable CD player and the sounds of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Crowded House and Bob Marley. A couple of years later, he started learning bass guitar, and in secondary school he found the nerve to begin performing on stage.

“I’ve still got the DVDs of my school concerts and you can see me with my head down - I was so shy and awkward,” Joey says.

His first band was formed in college and named Saturn Ascend, after a lyric from the Tool song The Grudge. That was the first time Joey began to experience being a front man, and shook off that school-age shyness.

“I kind of got forced into that because none of the other lads could sing,” he tells me. “It was so crucial, that time - cutting our teeth, getting familiar with being on stage, honing our craft and making sense of everything.”

Joey went solo a couple of years later, after moving to London to study and build experience. But he soon realised that London wasn’t necessarily the place where dreams are made.

“If anything it was really difficult - you’d barely ever get paid, you’d get one drink and then pay ridiculous prices for drinks the rest of the night. But it taught me a lot about what gigs to take and not take; I learnt a lot through my mistakes, and now I’m at a point where I feel I know my value and worth.”

Now back in the East Midlands after graduating, Joey has built a strong local following, performing solo or with his band under the name The Bushido Code.

On 24th March, Joey will release his debut solo album and play a headline show at Metronome, with an all local support line-up. The album is titled Yin-Yang, and covers a timespan going back to 2015 when he started writing and performing solo material. So why release it now, in 2023?

“I had this huge collection of songs; I’d literally poured my entire existence into it - all the vulnerabilities of my life, the darkest points,” he says. “I thought: if I want to release this, I just need to do it now myself. As scary as it felt, it was like shedding my skin so I could move on. As soon as I finished it, it was like a weight off my back.”

This intensity in Joey’s work has been noticed by others, too. BBC Introducing has made comparisons with Jeff Buckley and Thom Yorke, two of his favourite musicians, and Joey says he’s heard many other singers and musicians cited to him. He puts this down to his musical upbringing.

“My dad had such a vast, eclectic taste - we listened to world music, blues, Irish folk, even pop. These things all managed to find a way into your influence, whether you’re conscious of it or not - I always find that interesting.”

Joey has clearly inherited this varied musical appetite.

“I’d love to collaborate with Tamino - he’s pretty much my favourite singer-songwriter of our time. He’s Egyptian, Belgian-born and basically Jeff Buckley reincarnated,” Joey says. “His music is so profound - I’ve not heard anything like it. When you come across acts like that, it reignites that fire you have in you as a songwriter.”

I asked Joey where the title of the album, Yin-Yang, came from. “It’s about polar opposites, and for me I realised a lot of my songs have that theme recurring throughout. It’s about your triumphs and failures - there’s so much polarity in life - you can’t have one without the other.”

“It’s all about learning that perspective: you might be having a bad time, but once you’ve hit the lowest point, things go up again,” he explains.

Joey spent time with Dave Fry (who mastered the album) and Guy Elderfield, remixing some of his older songs, working on his newer ones, and deciding how all the material could be collated. As the album took shape, themes emerged, and eventually the title, too.

“Some of the lyrical themes can be cryptic, but there’s some dark stuff there, too - some of my darkest moments have been captured,” he says. “Writing music is like therapy for me, and sharing it with the world is liberating. There's a lot of comfort knowing I’ve captured all these times of my life in a body of work - I can sleep a little easier.”

The album has 14 tracks, a generous number in itself, and Joey is also releasing a deluxe version with 10 additional recordings, including some live sessions and covers, which he says is already selling well in CD format. The records span the whole range of alt-rock, with elements of grunge and shoegaze in places, as well as quieter “singer-songwriter” moments.

Unsurprisingly, Joey is a big believer in the concept of an album as a cohesive whole. “I’m a huge vinyl lover and always listen to albums in that way, start to finish.”

With the album completed, Joey is not resting on his laurels. “I’m always writing new music, and we’re hopefully going to start doing some more gigs outside the East Midlands - Manchester, London - and explore some new territories. Hopefully we’ll have some festivals, too.”

As far as the upcoming live show is concerned, Joey says we can expect something energetic, loud and not for the faint hearted, despite it being a seated show.

“We’ll treat this as we always do: we’ll give it our all, rock out and put on a good show. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun,” he says.

Tickets for Joey Collins and The Bushido Code are available now. Support comes from Ellie Stainsby, The Public Eye, and George Gadd and the Aftermath.