Chris Collins (singer)

Chris Collins
Genres	metal, instrumental rock, blackened death metal
Instruments	Guitar, vocals
Years active	1986–present
Labels	Roadrunner
Associated acts	Dream Theater, Winterspell
Website	[1]

Chris Collins is an American guitarist and songwriter best known as the first vocalist of the progressive metal band "Majesty" that later became Dream Theater.^[1]

The Majesty Days

Together with his fellow future Dream Theater members John Petrucci, John Myung and Kevin Moore, Collins grew up in Long Island. Those three entered the college to study music but on the other hand, Collins decided to join The United States Marine Corps due to his interest and abilities in target shooting.He was not enlisted in the USMC but however, he received a phone call from Petrucci about their planned recording for an album and the offered audition for the band while he was supposed to go to boot camp. This was contrary to the popular belief that Collins was never in a Queensryche tribute band and the tape of him singing a Queensryche song that was recorded with the Majesty. This stuff attracted a lot of attention and there was a buzz going around that created enough notoriety for Collins to obtain the position in the band during the early days of Majesty. Collins performed without a PA system during the audition that Petrucci, Myung and Moore were impressed with his ability to hit high notes and sing louder than amplified instruments and drums. However, during that time, Collins was not a trained vocalist but soon realized his abilities and decided to give it a shot. During the time where the band was looking for a vocalist, Collins was invited to join the band, then called Majesty, and accepted writing and recording songs for them. The Majesty Demos were the first demo tape of the band wherein Collins recorded vocals for six tracks. His later contributions included writing lyrics for two songs, Afterlife and Cry for Freedom though neither were ever recorded with his lyrics and Afterlife was later given new lyrics by his replacement, Charlie Dominici.

Musical style

Collins was not a trained vocalist but decided to join the band. His usual musical styles differ from progressive rock, progressive metal, and blackened death metal.

Later career

In 1994,Collins set forth to create a metal band he would call Winterspell. It was derived from a poem that he had written in the early 90's that he had set to acoustic music of the album Supercalafragilistic Extreoverdosus. But most of that album was lost due to a house fire, but a raw version of "Winterspell" still exists and he also recreated two of the songs that he now calls the "Mourning Star" Project. Amidst the difficult situation of cover bands and unoriginality, the local scene finally persuaded him to join forces with some local tributes such as "Snowblind","Never Enough","Scorched Earth","Speak of the Devil",and "Live After Death". While continuing to write songs,he thought of being a cover band artist but always the his heart was not prepared to follow the trend of recreating other peoples music and so he approached Guitarist Tommy Conforti from Snowblind about some of his original metal. Chris was always confident about Tommy's sound and demanded ask for a disk of his material so that he could prepare some vocals for it and he did. Needing to establish a full band, he pieced together remnants of already dissolving band called "Guardians of the Flame" adding Tony Mattassa and Joey Lycon to the line up and so Winterspell was born. Following his passion for unusual and different sounding music Tommy was definitely the man for the job at the time, with his unusual beats. Collins latched on to that energy and made it his own with songs like "Well of souls", "The Eucharist", "Seriokill" and " Dust Becomes my Home". Some definite progress was made but soon after the band deteriorated due to personal differences. Collins and drummer Tony Mattassa forged on to many and several line up changes. Things went complicated, but due to their persistence they stuck it out together and plugged the life support back in with guitarist Pete Maglia of "Savior" and bass player Chris Kelly. Pete was a definite team player and true brother and initiated by learning some of Collins's music and they seemed to have a definite kick start and a new revival to the band. Pete literally was the savior at the time in the spring of 2005. But it wasn't until Dennis Sadlo joined that "Winterspell" truly became a fully dynamic and progressive band that transcended into something very significant.That line up gave us a little flavor of what we could become but towards the end of that season just after our first show and just as the band was truly kicking it off we ran into some problems that no one could foresee. so we had to wait another two years to recover, and it wasn't until the spring of "08" that we could continue where we left off .So in the spring of "08" with the same line up from "05" we continued with a new and stronger determination to make up for the lost time.Pumping out a new breed of "Winterspell" with power metal roots and a touch of Death. Thus the title "Touch of Death" the new "Winterspell" album being released in "2011".^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Dream Theater

References

1. ^ Harris, Craig. "Biography: Dream Theater". Allmusic. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/dream-theater-p17134/biography. Retrieved 3 August 2011. 

External links

• [2]
• [3]
• [4]

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Name	Collins, Chris
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