On the last day of 2021, David Wimbish, a millennial, posted a viral video on TikTok. It’s is a perfect snapshot of what The Collection does best. The instrumentation is catchy and Wimbish inhabits the unambiguous emotion of the song with his vocal performance. The lyrics are intense, vulnerable and painfully relatable (“another lockdown stuck inside this shit town I can’t find a way round my intrusive thoughts now”).
“I went from someone who was trying to please everyone, to someone who is outspoken about my sexuality,” Wimbish told BandWagon later. “Why are you so afraid of pleasure,” he sings in their new single ”Get Lost,” and this celebration of pleasure is on full display at the Collection’s live shows. Wimbish twirls his mic stand theatrically from among the folds of flowing white clothing and band members bounce around the stage wildly during instrumental breaks. Huge grins and perspiration are the band’s unofficial uniform.
When The Velveteers (Demi Demitro, Baby Pottersmith and Jonny Fig) pulled up to a hip, all-ages venue in Detroit, they didn’t expect anyone to recognize them.
“Most of the last two years we’ve just been doing the same thing we always do, which is the three of us practicing music alone in a tiny garage,” Pottersmith tells BandWagon.
As soon as they stepped out of the tour van that day, the illusion of isolation was shattered. Maybe shattered is the wrong word. A fan, sporting Adidas flip flops, a Johnny Cash t-shirt and playing air guitar on a squash racket, was pacing outside of the venue and screaming the lyrics to the lead single “Charmer And The Snake” from their deliciously sinister hard rock album Nightmare Daydream.
