Paul Collins's Tour Kicks Off Today in Chicago

Paul Collins is a guy who's been around the block. He was one of the progenitors of the early power-pop movement in the '70s in not one, but three influential bands of that era - The Nerves, The Breakaways and The Beat (the latter even appearing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand back in the day). He later turned towards a decidedly rootsier approach to his music, exploring country and folk rock, before returning to the more driving, high-energy sounds of his youth on his acclaimed 2010 Alive Naturalsound effort The King Of Power Pop. His music has been covered by a host of talented musicians, most notably his song "Walking Out On Love," which Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong performed as part of the punk band's hit Broadway musical American Idiot.

Collins has been diligently working the DIY circuit since 2008, playing with some 160 up-and-coming bands in that time, and working harder than he has in his entire career. The music legend is still standing and has the same enthusiasm for the music that he did when he first started rocking out in 1974.

This September Collins will be releasing his follow-up to The King Of Power Pop, aptly entitled Feel The Noise. On it, he travels full-circle, tapping into the very spirit of rock 'n' roll that fueled much of his early groundbreaking material, and is the obvious extension of his most iconic work with, what many still consider to be the most important power-pop band, The Beat.

As far as the direction of the new record is concerned... well, probably best to just have Paul weigh-in on that...
"Yeah, it's a concept, man. Rock 'n' roll... remember that? Well I do, like it was yesterday. Standing on the corner of Hollywood & Vine in L.A. or on Columbus & Broadway in front of Aquarius Records in North Beach San Francisco circa 1975... Thinking that all I wanted to do is rock out, so sick of everything I was hearing on the radio, all those bands seemed to suck to me. I couldn't understand what happened to the real rock 'n' roll that I grew up on. Where did it go? Where were the balls? Where were the guts? Where were the songs that blew my mind, the guitar licks, the harmonies... what happened? For too many years after that all I heard was the same old thing... 'rock 'n' roll is dead.' Every time I heard it, it made me mad, it made me think... yeah... F**K YOU!

Then I heard the Ramones, and things got better for a while, and then it got bad again. Then I heard Nirvana and things got better again for a while, then they got bad again, but at that point I didn't really care anymore because I knew that rock 'n' roll was never gonna die... you know why? Because there will always be a new generation of kids who will dig this stuff as much as I do... Feel The Noise!" - PAUL COLLINS

Paul Collins' Feel The Noise was produced by studio legend Jim Diamond (who also plays bass and guitar on the record), and will be available September 9, 2014 on CD, digital and limited edition colored vinyl through Alive Naturalsound Records.