Edwyn Collins has a new single and album and has just been speaking with The Guardian, letting slip a few new tidbits of fan-pleasing reminiscence along the way.
Orange Juice’s classic Rip It Up has, despite its 'start again' theme, proven to be the product of a band and artist seemingly unwilling to do any such thing. So when its creator breaks cover with a new single and album, let’s just say that it's a special sort of (perhaps stat-pondering) muso that (probably slowly) sits up and takes notice.
Hi!
Despite becoming one of the most enduring hits of the '80s, Orange Juice frontman and subsequent solo artist Edwyn Collins remains one of the decade’s most pondered curios, being seemingly unwilling to re-attempt its same level of psyche-adhering zeitgeist dominance, while blithely intent on proving that we were daft for expecting him to do so.
Nonetheless, Collins has a new single, Knowledge, out now, and album Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation following on 14 March.
And his latest is actually part of a quiet flood of output as he has continued to record and release over the years, despite suffering a stroke in 2005.
“At the beginning, it was difficult to form my language,” says Collins. “But you shouldn’t hide any of it away.
"There’s no point. I express myself and sometimes I get it wrong – the words, the meaning of things… So what? I am a private person, but with no shame.”
You Can’t Hide Your Love Forever
Being a dominant force as part of what would become the legendary output from Scotland’s Postcard records – alongside such scene-setters as Josef K and Aztec Camera – Orange Juice signed a big label deal with Polydor for their debut album with success seemingly in the bag.
However, their run of sure-fire singles mysteriously failed to catch alight and with their 1981 debut a well-received but commercial dud, the original band broke up.
A second album from a new Collins-helmed lineup followed in 1982 which, despite its more pop ‘n’ synth-friendly direction seemed set for a similar fate with two flop singles heralding its arrival… But success was to come with the album’s third single and title track, Rip It Up, finally proving to be a huge and enduring commercial success.
This timeless '80s classic was the first chart single to make use of the then brand-new Roland 303 bass synth, a device designed to offer bassist-free bands quick and easy access to deeper grooves but which only really found fame when it increasingly came under abuse by cash-strapped synth boffins.
However, and pivotal to the Orange Juice story, following Rip It Up’s success the band’s subsequent output once again failed to set the chart alight and, once again (and perhaps prematurely) the band fell apart (again) playing their final gig at a miner’s benefit at Brixton Academy in January 1985.
“Orange Juice had come to an end. Polydor were dropping me and Zeke [Manyika, drummer] was busy with his solo career,” explains Collins.
“It came to its own conclusion, really. So I said, I might as well say this will be Orange Juice’s last gig… There were people crying in the audience.”
Start Again?
Following the Orange Juice break-ups (and perhaps to avoid further disappointment) Collins then simply chose to stop playing a game that – despite great tunes and critical acclaim – seemingly always had stacked the odds against him.
Instead, he has always chosen to do things his way, famously dishing out some harsh words while always garnering praise and thanks from his fans along the way.
“Back then, every indie band was nasty about everybody,” says Collins. “Nowadays, everybody’s nice about everybody.
"Some of the people I’ve been horrible about are very, very lovely to me now. Then you meet people and they’re really nice and you just feel like, what a wanker I am.
"I remember Pete Wylie from Wah! Heat [aka The Mighty Wah!]. I said [to him]: “Aren’t you sort of like Abba?” And now we are good buddies.”
And Collins' star was to shine brightly one more time. In 1994 (and featuring on his third solo album) A Girl Like You showed all the non-Collins watchers what they’d been missing.
Speaking of his unexpected return Collins says: “It was obvious it was the single – but it didn’t get playlisted. Much later, Mickie Most, the genius producer, said that occasionally there’s a record you can bury under the Empire State Building that will still find a way out. High praise from Mickie.
"There was absolutely nothing you could do to that record to stop it. It was an unstoppable force. Even I couldn’t mess that record up.”
But after that? Collins slipped away once more…
Thus Orange Juice and Edwyn Collins are one of UK music’s most enduring ‘whatever happened to?’ and ‘what if…?’ mysteries. Hence perpetual and ongoing interest in what he (or they) might do next…
So might a reunion be on the cards any time soon?…
“No!” Collins replies.
We’ll take that as a ‘no’.
Collins’ new album Nation Shall Speak Unto Nation is released via AED Records on 14 March. His last-ever tour starts in September. Details can be found here.
