The Aldous Collins Band has been on the music scene for several years now. First, Aldous Collins was a singer-songwriter who had to work hard to get his music heard. Numerous solo gigs forced Collins to step up his game. A lot of people in his greater-Manchester community were liking his material and they told him he needed to put a band behind him. Hence, the Aldous Collins Band was born, That was six years ago. Now, Collins and his band are proud winners of Best In State–New Hampshire award from the New England Music Awards.
“We were shocked for sure but grateful too,” Collins said. “It’s a big award for us, and were just very happy about it.” Collins and his band mates didn’t think they were going to win, as they were never nominated for any awards before. “When they called our name, none of us really thought we were going to win it, but I guess we really got some good fans who look out for us.”
The Aldous Collins Band was also recently named one of the best New Hampshire bands by The Hippo Press, New Hampshire’s alternative newspaper. “That was good,” Collins said. “We’ve actually had a nice relationship with Hippo over the years. They’re doing a spotlight on us soon. We have a gig at The Shaskeen on May 10th. But, they’ve been really nice to us, and it was nice that the people who read Hippo voted us in.”
Now living on the south shore of Massachusetts, Collins grew up in Goffstown, New Hampshire. His stomping ground is the Shaskeen in Manchester where he’s been playing for nine years, the venue having been helpful to him for building up a fan base.
“The staff are great friends. I grew up in Goffstown, and I just have a lot of friends, and they’re pretty supportive. For years, we’ve been packing the back room on the weekends and we play once a month on the first Tuesday. It’s a good time. We’ve just had a nice friendship. It’s very good. I help them out with bands. They help me out with just being good to me. They are very nice, and I basically am very loyal to the Shaskeen, and I don’t really play anywhere in Manchester besides there.”
Collins and his Aldous Collins Band are a very busy and. They have a full slate of gigs in just April alone. They play through out New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Collins attributes his popularity to where his band has been at the last two years. He recently became more comfortable putting down his guitar at the shows and entertaining more at the microphone.
“Now, it’s very upbeat, poppy, reggae, roots music, and the people are really reacting to it. We just played the BBC last night, and that’s been a nine month Wednesday residency, and this place is kind of off the beaten path down here in Pembroke. We’re probably averaging over a hundred people each week.” Aldous Collins Band also just picked up another residency at Main Street Sports in Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Collins and his boys are trying to get into the festival circuit and they’ve been getting radio play. Their first video, recently released, has been getting a lot of attention. That is not bad considering Collins started late in life, becoming more than just a dabbler at age 27, and that he had to gather a fan base in tiny New Hampshire. He broke into the scene about ten years ago. His first band, Sweet Libido, had a Chili Pepper sound, all originals, and they played out often.
“The scene in New Hampshire, I think that back then, if we had stayed together it would have been easy to have success,” he said. “We’re just starting to get success. We’re working much harder and smarter. Growing up in New Hampshire, doing the local circuit, there was a lot of nice, supportive people. I love New Hampshire. I think people in New Hampshire live a care free life. They’re pretty laidback and open. It’s a very supportive state for the arts.”
Life long friends made the difference. It’s not usual for the Aldous Collins Band to fill the Shaskeen and the next time they play it, they fill it again, but will all different people from last time. Radio station The River 92.5 started playing their music six years ago, making their song “Raise Your Hands” a local hit. Collins’s band has performed concerts for The River, and they’ve played at The Flying Monkey Music Hall in Plymouth, New Hampshire. They also play the Ri Ra in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
“We just play sporadic places up there but Manchester is our real spot. We play a bit there. We don’t like to saturate. Basically, between the seacoast and Manchester and then just little spots here and there,“ he said. ACB has also played with Grace Potter And The Nocturnals at the Mountain Jam Festival.
“We’ve been around and done enough things and worked the circuit,” he said. “We have our life long friends and some other people that have come on that have become really good friends. Life isn’t that easy, and we’re trying to have fun and make people have fun because we want to have some fun out of life. These weeklies residencies down here at the BBC; it’s about 40 gigs, and we have people who’ve come to see us maybe 30 times. I think it’s just because people are looking for something to take them away from they’re everyday stuff.”
Collins has become as known for his song craft as he has his fun live shows. He draws his inspiration from many sources. Although he was writing in that funk oriented band he stared his career in, he’s gone through an evolution since then. After that first band, he went into singer-songwriter mode. Playing a 150 gigs a year by himself forced him to write quality songs.
“It’s a quick boot camp, as to what’s working and what’s not,” he said. “I learned to how to write a song in that period. And recently, I’ve learned how to change my direction in a song. I’ve always like Bob Marley and his inspirational part of his stuff. Somehow, I’ve been able to channel that. A lot of it is by being surrounded by good people that come out and see us. We’ll go play a gig, and there’s some stuff that just happens out of us jamming.”
His song “Love” was inspired by his singer-songwriter side. “That’s me looking inward and not pushing out that love but trying to capture it within myself.” Another of his songs, “Head Down,” is about perseverance in life. Both songs will be in a movie called Lack Of Cockery directed by Josh Mitchell. A song called “Beat Like The Sun” is Collins fulfilling his mission to bring something positive to his listeners. “The sun, to me, is something that heals us. We look to it, and the warmth of the sun.” Aside from Bob Marley, that song shows Collins influences, ranging from James Brown, G. Love, and Donavon Frankenreiter.
Collins and his band have recently recorded a song called “I Don’t Care.” A humorous video based on the song features a man in banana costume. Collins said the song was about not having any airs and people accepting him as he is because he doesn’t care what other people might be thinking about him because he’s happy with who he is.
“Other people are going to be happy too, and they’ll be freer to be who they want to be,” he said. Producer-director-video star Josh Mitchell made the comedic video for Aldous Collins Band. The song has a similar message in its visual presentation.
“Life is supposed to be fun,” Collins said. “And when you don’t care, you laugh more.”
The Aldous Collins Band has a long complicated history. Collins began his music career about eight years ago as an acoustic solo singer-songwriter. As his songs became more popular in his local New Hampshire scene, more musicians became interested in working with him. Next thing he knew, he had a band. The line up has changed over the years. Yet now, he feels more confident about his band than ever.
“My band line up has changed dramatically over the years,” he said. “The latest formation is really starting to cook. We’re developing our catalogue of music. The longest member is our guitarist Michael Rahman. He’s a Berklee grad. He’s just a hard working, crazy talented, unique guitarist. He lights up a lot of shows. He’s got a nice style. He plays crazy good acoustic, and he’s got a lot of different tricks on his electric. He works day and night, so his efforts have really come across. He’s a creative power on the guitar. He comes up with a lot of unique stuff.”
Bassist Matt Nourse is another cornerstone of the Albert Collins Band. “He holds down the rhythm section. He’s just a steady, great player,” Collins said. “He’s a good guy. He plays in a lot of good bands, and he brings a lot of experience to the band.
Drummer Nick Asta keeps the beat beneath all of the sophisticated arrangements. “He’s the youngest in the band,” Collins said. “He was a Nashville touring artist, playing drums for touring people in Nashville. He’s just got a great heart and a good work ethic, and he just loves being a part of it, so he’s putting his heart and soul into this.”
Trumpet player Sam Dechenne also works for the popular reggae band John Brown’s Body. “He’s so good. He’s a very lively player and he just puts in the right lines for our music,” Collins said.
Percussionist and backing vocalist Steve Smith has won a Grammy with his other band Dirty Vegas for their song “Days Gone By.” “He’s a monster in the studio,” Collins said. “On stage, people can’t believe how good he plays percussion. He’s very, very good and he sings like crazy. He’s very, very talented.” Smith has a full endorsement from Zildjian.
Unlike Collins, who hails from New Hampshire, his band mates are from Boston and south shore. The band would like to continue recording songs. “We’re going back into the studio,” Collins said, “to make songs that we’re playing live that we know people are enjoying and to really develop them into something we can be really proud of with the recordings and then sharing that through video.”
