Interview: Edwyn Collins - Back on track

Published on Monday 6 September 2010 17:17

ONE of the most joyful and life-affirming pop journeys of recent years has been the steadfast recovery, rehabilitation and return of Edwyn Collins from a life-threatening brain haemorrhage.

• Edwyn Collins has got back into the studio to record a new album

He reaches another milestone this month with the release of a new album, the glorious, touching, tender, charming and celebratory Losing Sleep, which was written and recorded with a little help from some famous friends and showcases the first batch of new songs Collins has written since he suffered two strokes in quick succession in early 2005. For his legions of fans and well-wishers, Collins has this succinct update on his condition: "My talking is dodgy, let's say, but my songs are not dodgy."

In fact, Collins has made great strides with his speech, as he has in all areas of his recovery. But he still struggles with aphasia, a condition which affects his spoken and written language skills - though not, as anyone who has seen him play live in the last couple of years will attest, his singing ability - and so interviews are conducted as a two-hander with his wife Grace, whose support has been fundamental to his progress.

The couple make an instinctive (at times comical) double act, with Edwyn taking the lead in replying to questions, Grace expanding on his answers and Edwyn finishing her sentences with le mot juste. He starts to talk about the album's title track, the first fully-formed song he wrote after his stroke, but tails off in the middle of his account.

• Alex Kapranos: 'Edwyn Collins is a good laugh, but a serious writer in the studio'

"Shall I extrapolate that a tiny bit?" offers Grace. "Yes, go on," is the terse reply. "He's giving me a dirty look here," she laughs, before recounting that Collins had actually written the first snatch of words and music shortly before being discharged from hospital back in 2005. This formed the hookline for the album's poignant acoustic coda, Searching For The Truth. And then there was nothing for the next three years.

Collins returned to playing live, to delighted acclaim, and put the finishing touches to Home Again, the album he had been making before his hospitalisation. But the desire or will to write new songs appeared to have deserted him until he woke suddenly one night and instructed Grace to write down some lyrics.

The next day, en route to a physiotherapy appointment, he came up with a tune, chords and backing vocals, recording them on a Dictaphone while hailstones battered on the roof of the car. By the time he made it into the studio, his band had their instructions for this new "Northern-Soul-meets-punk" track.

"It was a breakthrough, wasn't it?" recalls Grace."And after that, the floodgates sort of opened and that was him off and running. It's a big challenge for him since his language centre has been wiped out. But if you can't do it the old way you come at it from a different angle and he looks on it as an artist does - it's a limited palette and that's often a good thing."

There was no big plan to collaborate on the album with anyone but his band - including former Sex Pistol Paul Cook on drums and Collins's son William on guitar - and his creative partner, Sebastian Lewsley but, once word got out that Collins was working on new material, friends and admirers queued up to offer their services.

And so about half of the (resolutely non-dodgy) songs on Losing Sleep were co-written with contributors including Johnny Marr, Roddy Frame, Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy from Franz Ferdinand, Cribs frontman Ryan Jarman, Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers and Collins's new biggest fans, The Drums.

"I wasn't around the sessions," says Grace, "so I would hear these tracks that just seemed to have dropped from the sky. They were done very quickly in a really great spirit of…"

"Adventure!" interjects Edwyn. When I ask him what he is like to work with in the studio, he replies "very good at sharing the responsibilities I hope". "But you do take a bit of a leadership role," adds Grace.

Kapranos calls Collins "the funniest cynic", while Drums guitarist Jacob Graham says he is "just one of the nicest guys we've ever met".

"Everybody always seems to have a really good time," says Grace. "Happiness breaking out all over the bloody place. The studio's got a lovely atmosphere - it's very home from home. Edwyn and Seb are very experienced and very relaxed. They never come across like a pair of old…"

"Twats," offers Edwyn.

He thinks he's changed emotionally. "Back in the Orange Juice days, I was arrogant, let's say. I was shy as well."

"But you're not arrogant any more," agrees Grace. "He's very humble. In fact, he's got a song called that on his album. Edwyn is quite workmanlike, dogged about his recovery, and he's patient - he just takes it a day at a time, does everything he wants to do. It's always a means to an end, it's always about getting back to work. And now he is back at work, the work itself has become his therapy."

Thanks to that work ethic, Collins no longer requires any physical therapy. In addition to his own music, he and Lewsley have produced a couple of albums for other acts and are poised to launch a label, named The Artisans, after an Orange Juice song. Their first signing is a London-based group, originally hailing from Germany, called The Kinbeats.

Over the years, he has also rekindled his skills as a figurative artist, starting with simple line drawings of birds and moving on to more sophisticated animal portraiture. A collage of his bird illustrations adorns the sleeve of Losing Sleep.The next big plan is to build a studio in Helmsdale, the Collins' getaway sanctuary in Sutherland. The couple are such a fixture in the area that, like his grandfather before him, Collins was recently made Chieftain of the Helmsdale Highland Games. He chuckles at the thought: "Imagine that."

• Losing Sleep is released by Heavenly Recordings on 20 September. Edwyn Collins plays Oran Mor, Glasgow, on 7 November