Introducing Brittany Collins
Photo by Zach Moffatt
Hey Brittany, how the devil are you?
Doing pretty good!
Easy question first, where are you right now, and what are you up to today?
Today I’m hanging out at home with my dogs and prepping for the release of my debut full-length album! I’m also recuperating from a fantastic weekend of shows here in the Pacific Northwest and I’ll probably go for a hike here in a bit to clear my head and see if any good song ideas come up.
Introduce yourself to our campers.
I’m an Americana singer-songwriter from a small town in northern Washington and I’ve been writing and playing music for most of my life but didn’t actually get the courage to perform live until I was in my twenties. I grew up listening to a lot of punk and grunge bands but started getting interested in roots music as I got older and really identified with the ways that folk and blues and old-school country music really dealt with topics like heartbreak and poverty and oppression in this very meaningful way. I began playing as a solo artist about four years ago but it wasn’t until the pandemic that I really started focusing on songwriting, which is where the idea for the album came from.
I feel like we know each other a little bit now, so tell me something about you that nobody knows.
I’ve always secretly wanted to write my own young-adult adventure novel.
Cool! But in the now, your new album is out, what can you tell me about Things I Tell My Therapist in two sentences?
This is my debut album and it deals a lot with topics like self-acceptance, healing from trauma, love, loss and theres a murder ballad or two thrown in for good measure.
Tell me about your latest song ‘The Journey’.
That was actually one of the oldest songs on the album. I wrote it when I was still dating my (now) husband. I was thinking about how all the love songs I hear are about new love and I wanted to write about a love that’s been around for a while and grows and changes as the people in it change. To me there’s something really beautiful about the way our relationships evolve over time and we learn each other’s needs and learn to care for one another in the small ways.
The opening couple of lines to ‘The Apple’ are so good, how much of a challenge has it been for you to shake off that idea, of the apple not falling far from the tree?
That’s a big theme in the album and really I think that’s something I was grappling with a lot when I first started writing for the album. For so long I thought that my family history was something I had to hide or make up for. I felt like if I just fit myself into the “normal adult” box well enough I would be able to escape that history and it really prevented me from being able to be authentic with the people in my life. It prevented me from pursuing the things I loved. At some point I started dealing with some of this stuff in therapy and I realised that healing isn’t about becoming a perfect person, it’s about loving yourself as you really are, not in spite of who you really are. I want people to know that it’s never too late to build a life that makes you happy, regardless of where you came from.
Where’s the Belvedere Hotel and how did the song come about?
The Belvedere Hotel is a hotel in Baltimore, Maryland that’s somewhat infamous for having a storied past, including several deaths or disappearances. The song came about because I was watching an episode of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’ one day and got sucked in by the story of Rey Rivera, who died at the Belvedere Hotel under mysterious circumstances. I wanted to learn more about what happened and ended up doing a lot of reading about the hotel. I’m kind of a nerd and I’m fascinated by the idea of places having a “memory” of the things that have happened there. I wanted to tell the story using the hotel as a character watching all of these events unfold. When I originally bought the song to my producer it was your standard 3-minute verse-chorus-verse structure, but he had the idea to really dig into the WHOLE story. It’s probably the longest I’ve ever spent writing a song, but the end result was probably my favorite song on the album and definitely the most song for us to record. We took an “everything but the kitchen sink” approach and just had fun with recording it, and I think that really comes through on the final mix.
What was the last song to make it onto the tracklist?
I actually didn’t write ‘Things I Tell My Therapist’ until the day of our last pre-production session. I was out on a hike, which is where I tend to do a lot of my reflecting and thinking, and the song just wrote itself in my head. I brought it to my producer along with a handful of other songs and he really responded to it. We thought that it was something really special that deserved to make the album, although I didn’t decide to make it the title track until we had wrapped recording.
What can you tell me about the studio environment you recorded in?
We recorded in a great studio in Bothell, Washington called MARS. It’s an incredible backyard studio that we basically lived in for the three days we were recording. As an indie artist, my budget was tight so we did as much pre-production and planning as we possibly could before we went into the studio. We live tracked everything, with the band in one room and me in the adjacent vocal booth, which really enabled us to maximise our time and also maintain that energy of a live show that sometimes gets lost in a recording environment. At the end of the three days we were all shocked to realise we had recorded 90% of everything we needed for the album.
What will you be doing on album release day? A party?
I had a pre-release party in my hometown because it was really important to me that the people who have supported my music from the beginning get a first crack at hearing the album. It was a ton of fun and it meant so much to me to get to share that experience with my local community. We’re putting together some exciting surprises for album-release weekend, but there will for sure be lots of shows and I’ll be live-streaming and sharing lots of behind-the-scenes footage from the making of the album and the journey to it’s release.
You’ve played a few shows this month, what has been your favourite experience out on the road?
Honestly my favourite thing is just getting to meet new people and bond over our shared love of music. Every time I travel I try to find the local spots and listen to the local bands so that I can really get a sense of the community and culture. Every city is so different and I’m just hungry to learn about how other people live and what they experience on a daily basis. Getting to experience other cultures and climates is a really humbling experience and helps you to break out of your own narrow worldview.
And what’s the one thing you really could do without when you’re on tour
Gas stations with no public bathrooms!
You live in the Pacific Northwest, what can you tell me about the town you live in and what do you do for fun there?
I’m from a pretty small town in Washington and I have chosen to continue living outside of the city because that’s where I’m happiest. It’s important to me to be connected to nature and to be able to go for a hike to clear my head. I always feel a little like I’m leading a double life because I live in the sticks but spend so much time travelling to different cities for music. I really feel like it helps me maintain a balance. People from small towns are so often really enthusiastic about live music, especially local live music. I feel like in big cities there’s sometimes an attitude of “I only want to do this thing if other people are going to think it’s cool” but in small towns they’re just happy to be out and having fun.
With the poor $ numbers from streaming, what’s the best way for people to support you and your music?
Well streaming is a fantastic way to support small indie artists and I never try to make people feel like they have to spend money to support me. If you don’t have a single dollar in your pocket you can still support small artists by streaming them as much as possible, sharing their music with your friends and adding them to your playlists. If people do have money they want to spend, I always like to encourage people to catch a live show, because that’s really where I get to bond and spend time with fans of my music. Buying a t-shirt or an album also goes a really long way because that money goes directly into my pocket rather than getting split between a label, a manager, a lawyer, etc. before getting to me.
If you could recommend one artist to listen to this week, who would it be?
Well I definitely go through phases, but this week I’ve been listening to a lot of Zach Bryan. I love his lyricism and the way he can tell a melancholy story that splits your heart wide open.
What’s the question I should have asked you today but haven’t?
Oh man I can’t think of any! These questions were all so good!
Finally, how do you take your coffee?
Ok so I actually have a really specific answer to this question. I’m a little bit of a coffee nut and I started getting into this coffee called “Bones”. It’s small-batch flavoured coffee and their flavours are so good it’s unreal. I have a french-press so in the morning I’ll grind my beans, make myself a coffee with my french-press, add a splash of oat milk creamer and I’m good to go. It’s the perfect way to start my day (and my afternoon, and my evening). I also have this pre-show ritual where I always make myself a coffee right before I leave for a show and sip it in the car on my drive into the city.
To find out more about Brittany you can visit her website or check out what she’s up to on Instagram and Facebook.
