“I've stopped thinking that it's going to make my fortune any time soon”

What Steven asked Bob Collins, guitarist with The Dentists and too many other bands to fit here

Steven met Bob Collins in his home, to discuss forming The Dentists, why they simultaneously released three singles on three different labels, Homespun festival, and the peculiar quirks of Medway’s music scene.

Bob Collins and guitars.

Where were you born?
I was born in Gillingham in 1965.

What jobs did your parents do growing up?
My parents were both from Glasgow. They moved to England four years before I was born. My dad worked in factories. I can't tell you exactly what he did, but it was like electrical factories and electrical components. Earlier in life he did a lot of driving jobs and things which is what brought him to England in the first place. My mum was a housewife. She worked in a pub, which is weird because she hated going to pubs. She worked in a local typewriter factory called Hollands and Blair and then when I was a bit older, she got a full-time job as an accounts clerk for a local electrical wholesaler.

At the risk of a stupid question, did they come down together or they were from Glasgow, but met here?
No, they come down together. They got married, my sister was born in Glasgow, and they moved down. There was a job going in Warwickshire. They moved to Warwickshire for a year and then came to Gillingham because my mum's sister was already down here. Her husband was working on the Isle of Grain somewhere. They settled here and they liked it here. They'd never have thought of moving back.

How did you find school?
I enjoyed infant and junior school after a while. It took me a while to get used to it. But I suppose my memories are fairly happy of that. I just went to Twydall school, just a big, council estate school. Secondary school I went to the Howard, there was ups and downs there. I was quite bright academically, but I didn't really work that hard (chuckles). If it was a subject I was interested in, I'd just get the textbook and read through stuff myself without bothering much with what the teachers were trying to tell me. I got enough exams, I did quite well at O-levels, A-levels I just about scraped through.

What did you specialise in for A-level?
I did Maths, Geography and Government & Politics. When I took my A-levels at school, I got chickenpox and I had to do most of them at home. I failed and I might have gone to university but then I had to do a retake for a year. I went to college and during that year, I got a job and The Dentists had started and it was really happening and I thought ‘No, I'll just stay.’ If I hadn't got chickenpox on the eve of my first A-level, my life might have been completely different.

What instruments do you play?
I play guitar and bass. My guitar is my instrument, although when I first started playing, I got a bass, so that's my kind of first instrument. That's really it. There's a piano, there's no way I could say I can play the piano. I can figure out a tune, but I'm not a natural on the piano. But that's it really. Give me any instrument, I'll probably do something with it. If I had one musical ambition, I've got this hankering to maybe have a try playing the saxophone.

How old were you when you picked up the bass?
15. I got a bass for my 15th birthday. There was a handful of people at school who were just getting into buying guitars. I got a bass. I asked for a bass because I just thought it looked easier, fewer strings. I don't know why I thought I might not be able to play guitar. I got quite a cheap old acoustic guitar about a year and a half later and started learning some chords.

Have you ever been a member of a political party?
Right, well, I’ve been thinking about the questions you ask, and there’s no reason to go around the houses. No, I haven’t. I have never quite got my head around why people join political parties. Not knocking anyone that has. I just haven’t.

What were you thinking about the questions I ask?
You are going to ask what I do for a living. Because those are your standard ones.

Should we jump ahead to that?
You can if you like.

What is your official occupation?
I'm a civil servant, and I have been since I was 19. Initially, it was just something that was something to do and bring some money in until my band takes off and makes my fortune. After 10 or 11 years, I figured out maybe that wasn't going to happen, I might be better off just staying being a civil servant and here I still am. I work for the Department for Transport.

What does a civil servant do?
There are lots of them and they do very very different things. There's no such thing as a typical civil servant. But I work in central Whitehall departments, I work on policy. The job of the civil service is to advise ministers on what they could do and what would happen if they did certain things. And once they've decided what they want to do, to help them carry it out.

It's an apolitical role?
Yeah.

Are you part of what is referred to as the Blob?
I think for people who use that word, I'm probably in it yeah, even though it's a silly expression.

I'm not allowed to ask you who your favourite Prime Minister is.
You can absolutely ask me that, and I have the privilege of not being able to tell you. Because it's funny when you look at those interviews, you can see no one likes that question. Because everyone goes, well, squirm, squirm, caveat, caveat, Blair, I suppose. And so I'm lucky that I cannot answer your question.

What was your first full-time job?
Being a civil servant at the Gillingham Artificial Limb and Appliance Centre. It was only after I joined that I realised that it was part of what was then the DHSS, Department of Health and Social Security. I became a civil servant by accident.

What additional roles, paid or unpaid, do you do?
Well mostly, I do musical things, which is why you know me and why you're interviewing me. I'm in two bands that are active at the moment. I'm probably, technically in other bands that are inactive, but the ones that are active are The Treasures of Mexico and Swansea Sound.

What's the difference between those two?
The Treasures of Mexico is a band that is really the band of my friend, Mark Matthews, who was also in The Dentists, which was the band I was in for many years when I was younger, my primary band. The Treasures of Mexico is basically Mark. Me and him have been in various bands, but he started this kind of as a solo project about 2014. It was just a vehicle for him writing songs and doing stuff. He just asked me ‘Do you want to do some guitar on it?’ and then that became an album and then 2018 they did the second album. I also played guitar on that but it's still very much just a studio thing. After that it became a live band.
The other band is Swansea Sound which was a big surprise for me to get asked to join them. They existed as a lockdown band. Rob and Amelia who used to be in a band called Heavenly, and Amelia used to be in a band called Talulah Gosh before that. When I was in The Dentists, we knew Amelia, we played gigs together, we knew each other on the scene in the 80s. During lockdown, they just formed this project with a guy called Hue who used to be the lead singer of The Pooh Sticks and he's from Swansea, hence the name of the band. I think it was the same with them, they just recorded this stuff and then decided it could be a band. They had another guy playing guitar with them originally, but then he couldn't make a few of their dates. They got me in a couple of years ago. They're quite active in terms of getting gigs and so I've ended up surprisingly being busier in this band than I've been in any band for years and I'm loving it. The reason they got me in because they wanted to do Glas-Goes-Pop 2022. I was amazed to get asked, but I was very honoured and that was brilliant because it's my mum and dad's hometown, but I had never played Glasgow. Now we are going to the East Coast of America in June for a little mini tour. I certainly never thought I'd be doing that again.