"Two years after my stroke, I thought I was finished. Then I learned to sing again"

In 2005, Edwin Collins – former troublemaker and lead singer with 1980s Scottish band Orange Juice – suffered a stroke that left him unable to play guitar or perform. In an email interview (speaking is still an effort), he tells Tony Clayton-Lea how music has helped him recover

BACK IN the late 1970s, early 1980s, Scotland’s Orange Juice were the band that jubilantly, perversely mixed feyness with muscularity, and consciously jettisoned the then all-pervasive punk rock style codes in favour of their own peculiar rules.

They were influenced by 1960s guitar pop, Velvet Underground, Subway Sect and Chic. Edwyn Collins, in particular, subverted punk rock bravado with arcane expressions, camp lyrics and a fashion sense that courageously mixed and matched plastic sandals, checked shirts and Davy Crockett caps.

Collins and his band of fellow merrymakers were antagonistic romantics who generated mixed responses with their indiepop blueprint; they professed contempt for the times they were living in, looking on with bemusement at the likes of post-punk, New Romantic acts such as Spandau Ballet, with their strange attempts at style. Punk rock’s hectoring credo of “No future!” was replaced by Orange Juice’s style-baiting slogan of “1880s, not 1980s”.

What larks, Pip, what larks! Collins recalls that promoters at Glasgow’s main venues would take one look at Orange Juice – all floppy fringes, quiffs, undertaker coats – and tell them to get lost. Venues in nearby suburban towns such as Paisley would prove more accommodating, although rival bands would pay money in just to shout out the word “Poofs” over and over.

Ever the awkward critter, Collins says he liked it when people booed and threw insults at him. “I used to be anti – everything!”

The Orange Juice days were, he remembers, fractious. “We used to fight quite a bit. Looking back, I feel I let them down. Especially James (Kirk), the other songwriter and guitarist. After the Tartan Clef Awards, he talked about how it used to be in 1980; he remembered a show at Maryhill Town Hall. My arm was in a sling, because earlier I’d got beaten up in the park. Anyway, the crowd at the gig kept chanting for songs by Showaddywaddy. So we did a bit for them: ‘Standing in the corner in my old blue jeans...’”

It was in the late 1970s that ideas clashed with pragmatism; Collins and company hooked up with budding Glasgow record mogul Alan Horne. The first meeting wasn’t especially auspicious (at David Bowie’s 1978 gig in the city’s Apollo venue, Horne took one look at Collins and asked: “Who are you? John Boy Walton?”), but the pair formed a bond through their mutual passionate love of music, and within no time the famed Postcard record label was founded. Postcard went on to define what was summarily described as the “Sound of Young Scotland”, gaining immediate credibility and rave media coverage for records by Orange Juice, Josef K, Aztec Camera, and The Go-Betweens.

Inevitably, the sheer level of ambition quickly outgrew the practicalities; Collins had a canny knack of getting up people’s noses, while Horne’s entrepreneurial strategies amounted to a less than skilful Z-A filing system.

“We were a very small label and badly organised,” says Collins. “But we had such grandiose notions – we used to write letters to Paul McCartney and Elton John, telling them to sign to Postcard Records and sort themselves out. We had a million ideas every day. Too many, probably. But that was the best part – thinking up ideas and ways to annoy people.”

It ended all too soon. When Orange Juice folded (following the departure of original members Kirk and Daly, and a 1983 Top 10 UK hit single, Rip it Up), Collins and co had pretty much set up the likes of Lloyd Cole to successfully (and, let it be said, credibly and intelligently) capitalise on OJ's indiepop jingle/jangle. There then followed a solo career of sorts, hampered initially by Collins's reputation as an agitator supreme, yet studded with strategically places gems such as his 1994 album, Gorgeous George, which featured his biggest hit, A Girl Like You.

Collins began a spate of production work for Setanta, the now defunct label started by Irish man Keith Cullen, and which for a while in the 1990s kickstarted the career of many Irish bands.

Collins subsequently produced albums for, among others, A House and Frank Walters. (Collins later went on to produce one-time Irish hopefuls Hal, as well as former A House singer Dave Couse's 2003 album, Genes.)

And then came Sunday, February 20th, 2005, the day he suffered a massive brain haemorrhage, and the day his life changed forever. Two days previously, Collins had appeared on a radio show on BBC6 Music. Plans for socialising were cut short by feelings of nausea and dizzy spells, so he went home; months before, his wife Grace has said, he experienced a random series of migraine-type headaches.

Following a series of tests in a London hospital, and a second haemorrhage on Friday, February 25th, Collins slipped into a coma. One neurosurgeon pronounced Collins’s condition inoperable, but another one disagreed. Grace allowed the operation to go ahead.

He continues to improve (see panel for his wife’s emailed comments) thanks to the music therapy sessions organised and funded by the Tartan Clef/Nordoff-Robbins bodies; all going according to a loose schedule – dictated by his progress – Collins should be able-bodied enough to play selected gigs this year.

He has shown dogged perseverance in the face of tragedy. He wasn’t aware – until I brought it up – that last year Wikipedia reported him dead. “That’s horrible... I mean, I nearly died, I know that. It makes you amazed at life. I say all the time now how glad I am to be alive.”

Do the Orange Juice days seem such a long time ago?

“They do. So many years ago,” he replies. “But sometimes, they’re like yesterday. When I saw James, Steven and David at the [Tartan Clef Music Awards] awards, I thought everybody’s just the same. It was a bit showbiz, though, and we kept looking at each other ... My 18-year-old son, Will – and some of his friends – has recently got into early Orange Juice. I am a very cool father. But I think those records work for boys of a certain age.”

Did he ever think in his wildest dreams back when he was teenager that he’d still be making music?

“No, never. When you’re 20, you can’t imagine being 49. And 30 seemed ancient. Old people weren’t making fools of themselves back then like they do now. But today it doesn’t seem to matter. You can go on forever.”

Despite those early claims in the Orange Juice days that they were sweeping aside traditional style codes in favour of something more grand and hopeful, more varied and confident, it seems that the band have been forgotten by all but the most diligent of pop music historians and fans outside of Scotland.

Collins finds it difficult to place Orange Juice in the history of Scottish music. “Somewhere between Simple Minds and Middle of the Road. The Postcard days were so short. The original Orange Juice did just a few singles and one album. There was hardly any touring. How did we get our reputation? It’s ridiculous, but I like it. Do I listen to new Scottish bands? Well, I think the likes of Glasvegas and Franz Ferdinand are great. They’re much more successful than we were and good luck to them. There’s nothing better than being young and in a band.”

Priorities for this year include getting back to recording (in 2007, the album Home Againwas released, but it was recorded prior to his stroke) and gigging (which depends on ongoing mobility improvements).

What is it like to make music these days?

"At first I couldn't listen to music at all. It was too painful. Then I heard an old CD I compiled. The first tracks were Promised Landby Johnny Allen and Photographby Ringo Starr. I couldn't stop crying. But two years after my stroke I still had no new music in my head. So I thought I was finished. I was able after a year to help mix Home Again.

“Then I concentrated on learning to sing again. And then to perform on stage. But this had to be done slowly, working hard every day. More recently, though, I find I’m thinking of songs again. Words and music. And I’m remembering all my studio techniques. I need a bit more help, but I’m in charge. It’s truly wonderful.”

And what will 2009 ideally bring for you?

“More live work, and more exhibitions of my drawings. But I’m writing now, and producing again. My studio life is back with a vengeance. Watch me go.”

• Edwyn Collins plays the Celtic Connections Festivalin Glasgow tonight

Never met a guy like you before: Grace, Edwin's wife, writes ...

"Edwyn's recovery continues to astound. Physically, he battles on, improving his balance and strength with the help of his tough trainer and yoga teacher. The only stubborn area is his right arm and hand. He can no longer play the guitar, which is a sadness.

However, he finds alternatives. He makes the chord shapes and someone else can strum, so he still uses the guitar to help with writing music.

He draws beautifully, having taught himself to use the left hand. But his mental strength and particularly his speech are where I see impressive amounts of improvement.

Getting his singing back and being on stage has been the catalyst for so many changes. His real life is the best therapy and his appetite for work is huge. Which is just as well, because we have no alternative. Edwyn's brain needs constant challenging if he is to continue on the road to recovery."

Orange Juice: the reformation?

Late last year, the four original members of Orange Juice(Edwyn Collins, James Kirk, David McClymont and Steven Daly) walked up to the stage in Glasgow's Fruitmarket venue to receive the Tartan Clef Music Lifetime Achievement Award.

Raising monies in Scotland for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy – the largest charity providing music therapy in the UK – the Tartan Clef Music award held a singular significance in that Collins, who reaches the age of 50 this year, suffered a brain haemorrhagealmost four years ago.

Although he has not yet fully recovered, Collins continues to defy the predictions of doctorsand consultants; he looked as please as punch to be there, justifiably basking in the standing ovations from Scottish music figures present such as The Fratellis, Sharleen Spiteriand Eddi Reader.

Initially, it was thought that, having received the award, Orange Juice would perform a couple of their enduring early 1980s pop/rock songs, but shortly before the event they decided not to.

"It was emotional to be with my band again," Collins said afterwards. "We went up to receive the award with our arms around each other. I'm definitely not into nostalgia, but I'm mellowing. Do I like receiving awards? Oh, yes. I love the attention, especially since my stroke. I really do."